He had red hair and a face spotted with freckles; and growing on his chin and upper lip was a fiery red beard.
He was so tall that Henderson L.tried to tell him not to come to the Fourth of July celebration, or folks might think he was the fireworks; but Magnus only smiled.

I don't believe he understood: for at that time his English was not very extensive; but after all, he is as silent now as he was then.

We looked down on all kinds of "old countrymen" then, and thought them much below us; but Magnus and I got to be friends as we drove the cows across the prairie, and we have been friends ever since.
It was not until years after that I saw what a really remarkable man Magnus was, physically, and mentally--he was so mild, so silent, so gentle.

He carried a carpet-bag full of belongings in one hand, which he put in the wagon, and a fiddle in its case in the other.

It was a long time, too, before I began to feel how much better his fiddling was than any I had ever heard.