The old man smoked always. In fact, only his chimney rivaled by producing a larger and more constant cloud of pungent grey. The dark stench had sunk straight into the cabin, petrifying the wood into a steely brown unlike any other house in the town.
All trees and plants appeared to lean away from the ever-burning place, but to those of us not grown from living wood, the cabin was a solid little sanctuary, dry and musky. Old man would welcome visitors brusquely in a tone that others might use to ward off stray dogs, but it was just his way. He never failed to produce a chair or stool of some kind for us to sit on the front porch with him, coughing on his smoke rings.
To hear him speak was like listening to a growling bear. His words were blunted by the pipe he rolled from side to side in his yellow teeth. He did not care to know about the world outside of his natural retreat, asking only of weather, harvests, and hunting. His stories followed the seasons, and we heard them many times as our years frolicked by.