Chapter XII
The Joel homestead was very small but it was snug and warm in winter because it had a huge open-fireplace that took up almost an entire side of the living-room. There were only four rooms in the house. A kitchen and living-room downstairs, while the upper floor was composed of two bedrooms with sloping ceilings. At one end of each room a giant could have stood upright. There was ample room to plant a bean-stalk. But the ceiling at the other end of the room was so low a dwarf would have bumped his nose against it. When Enoch had asked his father why the ceilings sloped so oddly, his father had replied whimsically, "That is to give a boy a chance to grow. If the ceiling
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