One would think it might be easier for a child to be good and pure so
far up among the quiet hills, and that there God would seem to come
close to the spirit, even of a little girl or boy.

On the sides of the mountains tall trees are growing,--pine and fir
trees, which are green in winter as well as in summer. If you go into
the woods in winter, you will find that almost all the trees have
dropped their pretty green leaves upon the ground, and are standing
cold and naked in the winter wind; but the pines and the firs keep on
their warm green clothes all the year round.

It was many years ago, before Jeannette was born, that her father
came to the mountains with his sharp axe and cut down some of the
fir-trees. Other men helped him, and they cut the great trees into
strong logs and boards, and built of them the house of which I have
told you. Now he will have a good home of his own for as long as he
likes to live there, and to it will come his wife and children as God
shall send them, to nestle among the hills.

Then he went down to the little town at the foot of the mountain, and
when he came back, he was leading a brown, long-eared donkey, and upon
that donkey sat a rosy-cheeked young woman, with smiling brown eyes,
and long braids of brown hair hanging below a little green hat set on
one side of her head, while beautiful rose-colored carnations peeped
from beneath it on the other side. Who was this? It wasn't Jeannette:
you know I told you this was before she was born. Can you guess, or
must I tell you that it was the little girl's mother? She had come up
the mountain for the first time to her new home,--the house built of
the fir and the pine,--where after awhile were born Jeannette's two
tall brothers, and at last Jeannette herself.