The Lemenses’ neighbors agreed that creekfront living was not what it used to be.

She cast a speculative look upon her husband, silent and grum as if he had been thus gruffly carved out of wood.

[…] and further that a similar young local but dogless man should be sought out, against the day when the first local man should die, to take over and exploit, in the same way and on the same terms, the two surviving famished dogs thus left without a master, and without a home; […]

Inflammatory glossocele must be combated by antiphlogistics.