"Come down here? to be sure you may! You may always come straight where I am, without asking any questions."
Ellen went down. But before she reached the lowest step she stopped with almost a start, and stood fixed with such a horrified face, that neither Mr. Van Brunt nor Sam Larkens, who was there, could help laughing.
"What's the matter?" said the former "they're all dead enough, Miss Ellen; you needn't be scared."
Three enormous hogs, which had been killed the day before, greeted Ellen's eyes. They lay in different parts of the room, with each a cob in his mouth. A fourth lay stretched upon his back on the kitchen table, which was drawn out into the middle of the floor. Ellen stood fast on the stair.
"Have they been killed!" was her first astonished exclamation, to which Sam responded with another burst.
"Be quiet, Sam Larkens!" said Mr. Van Brunt. "Yes, Miss Ellen, they've been killed, sure enough."
"Are these the same pigs I used to see you feeding with corn,
Mr. Van Brunt?"
"The identical same ones," replied that gentleman, as, laying hold of the head of the one on the table, and applying his long sharp knife with the other hand, he, while he was speaking, severed it neatly and quickly from the trunk. "And very fine porkers they are; I ain't ashamed of 'em."
"And what's going to be done with them now?" said Ellen.
"I am just going to cut them up and lay them down. You never see nothing of the kind before, did you?"