Explore "Driven Back to Eden" by Edward Payson Roe on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The next day, according to appointment, I went to Maizeville. John Jones met me at the station, and drove me in his box sleigh to see the farm he had written of in his laconic note. I looked at him curiously as we jogged along over the melting snow. The day was unclouded for a wonder, and the sun proved its increasing power by turning the sleigh tracks in the road into gleaming rills. The visage of my new acquaintance formed a decided contrast to the rubicund face of the beef-eating marketman. He was sandy even to his eyebrows and complexion. His scraggy beard suggested poverty of soil on his lantern jaws. His frame was as gaunt as that of a scarecrow, and his hands and feet were enormous. He had one redeeming feature, however -- a pair of blue eyes that looked straight at you and made you feel that there was no "crookedness" behind them. His brief letter had led me to expect a man of few words, but I soon found that John Jones was a talker and a good-natured gossip. He knew everyone we met, and was usually greeted with a rising inflection, like this, "How are you, John?"
We drove inland for two or three miles.