when she spoke of her livestock or when he saw her trudging grimly past his window , breaking her breath with the impervious prow of her face , he had imagined a ramshackle outbuilding like an illustration from a child 's book of ghost stories - rooftree bowed and sagging from years of snowweight , windows blank and dusty , some broken and blocked with pieces of cardboard , long double doors perhaps off their tracks and swaying outward .