... on every occasion, without fail, we'd seen to it that he got gifts.  Tonight, we couldn't let anyone say anything like 'This is ...' out loud .  It was very hard to look upon, but we determined we'd offer the (expected) expression of our appreciation.  Being the way it was, there were sunken spots, looking like a pond, and places with standing water.   On the periphery there used to be pine trees, too.  In the space of five or six years' time--might it have been a 1,000 years that had passed?--the half of them had just up and disappeared.    

便

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