In the household comedy, the calling birds accumulate to thirty-six and add continuous noise. Each new pear tree requires delivery vehicles, laborers or gardeners, and more garden space. The parent buys a small henhouse without knowing how many hens will follow, then has to consider a larger one or several small houses and a run. The golden rings are compact and valuable, but the daughter wants to keep them, so their value cannot offset the mounting bills. Six geese on day six imply forty-two by the end of the sequence; their usefulness as guards offers little comfort to someone who never wanted a smallholding. Both imagined parents take time away from their jobs to deal with the deliveries.
Chapter · 22:18-26:18
Repeated gifts outgrow the household's capacity
Days four through six show how noisy birds, expanding housing, hired labor, and forty-two geese overwhelm an ordinary household's capacity.