"Oona," said he, "can you do nothing for me? Where's all your invention? Am I to be skivered like a rabbit before your eyes, and to have my name disgraced for ever in the sight of all my tribe, and me the best man among them? How am I to fight this man-mountain-- this huge cross between an earthquake and a thunderbolt?--with a pancake in his pocket that was once--"
"Be easy, Fin," replied Oona; "troth, I'm ashamed of you. Keep your toe in your pump, will you? Talking of pancakes, maybe, we'll give him as good as any he brings with him--thunderbolt or otherwise. If I don't treat him to as smart feeding as he's got this many a day, never trust Oona again. Leave him to me, and do just as I bid you."
This relieved Fin very much; for, after all, he had GREat confidence in his wife, knowing, as he did, that she had got him out of many a quandary before. Oona then drew the nine woollen threads of different colors, which she always did to find out the best way of succeeding in anything of importance she went about. She then platted them into three plats with three colors in each, putting one on her right arm, one round her heart, and the third round her right ankle, for then she knew that nothing could fail with her that she undertook.
