fine houses."

The huts were scattered all about, some on the side of the lake, some at
the shore of the harbor, some on the hillside. Gudrid had said:

"I want to live by the lake where I can look into the green woods and
hear sweet bird-noises."

So Thorfinn built his hut there.

As they sat about the campfire one night, Biarni said:

"It is strange that so good a land should be empty. I suppose that
these are the first houses that were ever built in Wineland. It is
wonderful to think that we are alone here in this great land."

All that winter no snow fell. The cattle pastured on the grass.

"To think of the cold, frozen winters in Greenland!" Gudrid said. "Oh!
this is the sun's own land."

In the beginning of that winter a little son was born to Gudrid and
Thorfinn.

"A health to the first Winelander!" the men shouted and drank down their
wine; for they had made some from Wineland grapes.

"Will he be the father of a great country, as Ingolf was?" Biarni mused.

Gudrid looked at her baby and smiled.

"You will be as sunny as this good land, I hope," she said.

They named him Snorri. He grew fast and soon crept along the yellow
sand, and toddled among the grapevines, and climbed into the boats and
learned to talk. The men called him the "Wineland king."

"I never knew a baby before," one of the men said.

"No," said another. "Swords are jealous. But when they are in their
scabbards, we can do other things, even play with babies."

"I wonder whether I have forgotten how to swing my sword in this quiet
land," another man said.

One spring morning when the men got up and went out from their huts to
the fires to cook they saw a great many canoes in the harbor. Men were
in them paddling toward shore.

"What is this?" cried the Norsemen to one another. "Where did they come
from? Are they foes? Who ever saw such boats before? The men's faces are
brown."

"Let every man have his sword ready," cried Thorfinn. "But do not draw
until I command. Let us go to meet them."

So they went and stood on the shore. Soon the men from the canoes landed
and stood looking at the Norsemen. The strangers' skin was brown. Their
faces were broad. Their hair was black. Their bodies were short. They
wore leather clothes. One man among them seemed to be chief. He spread
out his open hands to the Norsemen.

"He is showing us that he has no weapons," Biarni said. "He comes in
peace."

Then Thorfinn showed his empty hands