And in all these things Old Toombs has never had a part.

He is not even missed.
As a matter of fact, I reflected, and this is a strange, deep thing, no man is in reality more dependent upon the community which he despises and holds at arm's length than this same Old Nathan Toombs.

Everything he has, everything he does, gives evidence of it.

And I don't mean this in any mere material sense, though of course his wealth and his farm would mean no more than the stones in his hills to him if he did not have us here around him.

Without our work, our buying, our selling, our governing, his dollars would be dust.