It was as though I had struck the rock of refreshment in a weary land.
I remember distinctly how puzzled was by the stories I heard.

The neighbourhood portrait--and ours is really a friendly neighbourhood--was by no means flattering.

Old Toombs was apparently of that type of hard-shelled, grasping, self-reliant, old-fashioned farmer not unfamiliar to many country neighbourhoods.

He had come of tough old American stock and he was a worker, a saver, and thus he had grown rich, the richest farmer in the whole neighbourhood.

He was a regular individualistic American.
"A dour man," said the Scotch Preacher, "but just--you must admit that he is just." There was no man living about whom the Scotch Preacher could not find something good to say.
"Yes, just," replied Horace, "but hard--hard, and as mean as pusley." This portrait was true enough in itself, for I knew just the sort of an aggressive, undoubtedly irritable old fellow it pictured, but somehow, try as I would, I could not see any such old fellow wasting his moneyed hours clipping bells, umbrellas, and camel's heads on his ornamental greenery.