"He was a robust young fellow with good, strong features and a somewhat
determined expression â€" despite his vacillations in the choice of a wife. He was
dressed rather carefully in navy-blue "store-clothes" that fitted well because
anything would have fitted Telèsphore. He had been freshly shaved and trimmed
and carried an umbrella. He wore â€" al little tilted over one eye â€" a straw hat
in preference to the conventional gray felt; for no other reason than that his
uncle Telèsphore would have worn a felt, and a battered one at that. His whole
conduct of life had been planned on lines in direct contradistinction to those
of his uncle Telèsphore, whom he was thought in youth to greatly remsemble. The
elder Telèsphore could not read or write, therefore the younger had made it the
object of his existence to acquire these accomplishments. The uncle pursued the
avocations of hunting, fishing, and moss-picking; employments which the nephew
held in detestation. And as for carrying an umbrella, "Nonc" Telèsphore would
have walked the length of the parish in a deluge before he would have so much
thought of one. In short, Telèsphore, by advisedly shaping his course in direct
opposition to that of his uncle, managed to lead a rather orderly, industrious,
and respectable existence."
- Excerpted from "A Night in Acadie"
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