"I see it," said Ellen "I see it now; do you live away up there?"
"That's just what I do; and that's just what I wish I didn't. But granny likes it; she will live there. I don't know what for, if it ain't to plague me. Do you think you'd like to live up on the top of a mountain like that?"
"No, I don't think I should," said Ellen. "Isn't it very cold up there?"
"Cold! you don't know anything about it. The wind comes there, I tell you! enough to cut you in two; I have to take and hold on to the trees sometimes, to keep from being blowed away. And then granny sends me out every morning before it's light, no matter how deep the snow is, to look for the cow; and it's so bitter cold, I expect nothing else but I'll be froze to death some time."
"Oh!" said Ellen, with a look of horror, "how can she do so!"
"Oh, she don't care," said the other; "she sees my nose freeze off every winter, and it don't make no difference."
"Freeze your nose off!" said Ellen.
"To be sure," said the other, nodding gravely "every winter; it grows out again when the warm weather comes."
"And is that the reason why it is so little?" said Ellen, innocently, and with great curiosity.
"Little!" said the other, crimsoning in a fury "what do you mean by that? it's as big as yours any day, I can tell you."