United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The peculiar hiss which Italians make to attract attention came sharp and distinct from the low growth of the chestnut shoots. Gilbert turned his head quickly in the direction of the sound. A swarthy face appeared, framed in a close leathern cap on which small rings of rusty iron were sewn strongly, but not very regularly.
They tilled the farm, reared their swarthy and nimble broods of children, and sent the boys in blue and buff all they could spare from their slender store. During all this trying period they were fitting themselves for that new life in the western wilds which had been marked out for them by the hand of an overruling Providence.
"Did I understand you to say Uncle Tony was from Lawsonville?" "Egzactly! Do you know the place?" "Why, it's my native town," said Dudley. "Whut!" exclaimed Rogers. "Shake agin, suh," striding over to Dudley, who also had risen. "Then you're jes' lak my own kin frum this time on. Frum Lawsonville!" he repeated, a tear on each swarthy cheek as he grasped the young man's hand.
"Yes, monsieur," he replied, stopping and turning toward us the swarthy face of those who spend whole days exposed to the reflection of the sun upon the water. That face was an emblem of long resignation, of the patience of a fisherman and his quiet ways. The man had a voice without harshness, kind lips, evidently no ambition, and something frail and puny about him.
His swarthy face with its high cheekbones bequeathed from the shameful mixing of his blood in Indian veins wore a challenging smile of daredeviltry, and the buxom young woman stood regarding him out of her provocative eyes.
I've broken many a horse afore this ane, and, Belle, I'll break you," and I watched the swarthy flush rise on the girl's face, and looked at the man's eyes and saw the reason of it. "Wheest, lad, wheest," she cried; "let me go to the wean." "Wean ye never had a wean. . . ." And then she did a queer thing.
Further still, to leave nothing undone which she could herself manage, she took the horses' saddles off to refold the blankets when the time should come, and meanwhile brought them for him. But he put them away from him. He was sitting up against a rock, stronger evidently, and asking for cold water. His head was fire-hot, and the paleness beneath his swarthy skin had changed to a deepening flush.
At this time he was but a youth of eighteen a graceful, dauntless stripling, of surprising activity, and well educated. At his side sat Captain Jacobs, a swarthy, stalwart brave, famous for his immense strength, and Captain John Norton, an Englishman, and chief by adoption only, who, in consideration of Brant's youth, was acting as his deputy and spokesman.
His skin was fair as a girl's, and his eyes as big and blue as a young Viking's; but the Indian boy's locks were black as ink, his skin was swarthy, his eyes small and dark, and his features that strange mixture of the Indian, the Esquimo, and the Japanese which we often see in the best of our Alaskan cousins.
He brooded over the hurt he felt when Wolf had wanted to buy his sloop, and believing the Jew meant to rob him of her, he grew suspicious and watched Wolf. Not by word or sign did he show it, and the Jew saw it not. Wolf watched the Indian as closely, only the Indian knew it, and Wolf did not. It was now Wolf against fox and fox against Wolf, and the swarthy fox was getting the best of it.
Word Of The Day