For a second time this day I found
tradition at fault. Pete's face was lively and eloquent under his shock
of dead-black hair--dead black but for half a dozen gray or grayish
strands, for Pete's eighty years have told upon him, even if he is not
yet sufficiently gray at the temples to be a hero in a magazine costing
over fifteen cents. His face is a richly burnished mahogany and tells
little of his years until he smiles; then from brow to pointed chin it
cracks into a million tiny wrinkles, an intricate network of them
framing his little black eyes, which are lashless, and radiating from
the small mouth to the high cheek bones of his race.
His look as he eyed me became utter consternation; then humour slowly
lightened the little eyes. He lifted the eyes straight into the glare of
the undimmed sun; nor did they blink as they noted the hour. "My good
gosh!" he muttered; then stalked slowly round the pile of stove wood
that had been spreading since morning. He seemed aggrieved--yet
humorously aggrieved--as he noted its noble dimensions. He cast away the
axe and retrieved some outflung sticks, which he cunningly adjusted to
the main pile to make it appear still larger to the casual eye.
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