Then there were several broken lights of glass in the kitchen windows. As the men about the house neglected to have them mended, or to do it themselves by using the small bit of putty that would have kept the cracked ones from going to pieces, the women had been compelled to keep out the wind and rain by stuffing in the first thing that came to hand. There was a bit of red flannel in one, an old straw bonnet in another, while in a third, from which all the glass was gone, a tolerably good fur hat, certainly worth the cost of half a dozen lights, had been crammed in to fill up the vacancy. The whole appearance of the windows was deplorable. Some of them had lost the little wooden buttons which kept up the sash when hoisted, and which anybody could have replaced by whittling out new ones with his knife; but as no one did it, and as the women must sometimes have the sashes raised, they propped them up with pretty big sticks from the wood-pile. It was not a nice sight, that of a rough stick as thick as one's arm to hold up the sash, especially when, of a sultry day, three or four of them were always within view. Then the wooden step at the kitchen door, instead of being nailed fast to the house, was not only loose, but it rested on the ground so unevenly as to tilt over whenever any one stepped carelessly on its edge. As the house contained a large family, all of whom generally lived in the kitchen, there was a great deal of running in and out over this loose step. When it first broke away from the building, it gave quite a number of severe tumbles to the women and children. Everybody complained of it, but nobody mended it, though a single stout nail would have held it fast. One dark night a pig broke loose, and, snuffing and smelling around the premises in search of forage, came upon the loose step, and, imagining that he scented a supper in its neighborhood, used his snout so vigorously as to push it clear away from the door. One of the girls, hearing the noise, stepped out into the yard to see what was going on; but the step being gone, and she not observing it, down she went on her face, striking her nose on the edge of a bucket which some one had left exactly in the wrong place, and breaking the bone so badly that she will carry a very homely face as long as she lives. It was a very painful hurt to the poor girl, and the family all grieved over her misfortune; but not one of the men undertook to mend the step. Finally, the mother managed to drive down two sticks in front of it, which held it up to the house, though not half so firmly as would have been done by a couple of good stout nails.