Short and compact with the callused hands of a lifetime of planting and a gait that fits comfortably in furrows. He moves like someone who steps around roots without looking and whose shoulders remember the weight of a scythe. His face is round and sun-creased, cheekbones softened by a perpetual farmer's smile. He keeps a battered straw hat slung at his hip when indoors as a private ritual. Unexpectedly refined hands peek out from the soil-stained sleeves; when he plays music those same hands are delicate and precise, suggestive of a youth spent with a minstrel, not just a plow. He wears a woven necklace of corn kernels braided with a single silver trade coin, an odd mix of thrift and sentiment.