The characteristic color of the water in the streams is the color of tea—a phenomenon, often called “cedar water,” that is familiar in the Adirondacks, as in many other places where tannins and other organic waste from riparian cedar trees combine with iron from the ground water to give the rivers a deep color. […] Sea captains once took the cedar water of the Pine Barrens rivers with them on long voyages, because cedar water would remain sweet and potable longer than any other water they could find.

Those that cooked the books and presented them with bias minds; They sugar-coated the stories; and twisted and exaggerated events

Unlike the tails of most mammals, it isn't as much a flexible appendage as it is a fixed extension of the body, hardly more waggable than a nose or an ear.

The trains then still had smoking carriages, and I would sit in these because their passengers seemed the friendliest - and I would smoke in the smoking carriage, because it seemed the done thing.