"Well," said he, "have you come to see what's going on?"
"No," said Ellen, "I've been looking but Mr. Van Brunt, could you be so good as to let me have a hammer and half-a- dozen nails?"
"A hammer and half-a-dozen nails; come this way," said he.
They went out of the barn-yard and across the chip-yard to an out-house below the garden, and not far from the spout, called the poultry-house; though it was quite as much the property of the hogs, who had a regular sleeping apartment there, where corn was always fed out to the fatting ones. Opening a kind of granary store-room, where the corn for this purpose was stowed, Mr. Van Brunt took down from a shelf a large hammer and a box of nails, and asked Ellen what size she wanted.
"Pretty large."
"So?"
"No, a good deal bigger yet, I should like."
"A good deal bigger yet who wants 'em?"
"I do," said Ellen, smiling.
"You do! do you think your little arms can manage that big hammer?"