solemn shade of
immense pines, just diagonally across from the colonel's house, lives
and labors Joshua Stillman, a man with the most wonderful memory, the
readiest tongue when there is real need of it, a little man brimful of
the most varied information and the sharpest humor.

For forty years and more he has been Green Valley's self-appointed
librarian. He draws no salary except the joy of doing what he loves to
do and he squanders, as his friends truly suspect, much secret money of
his own on it. The library is housed in the old church in a room so
small and dark that it hides the big work of this little man.

Joshua Stillman must be old but nobody ever thinks of what his age
might be, he is so very much alive. He goes to the city every day and
comes back early every afternoon. As he so seldom talks about himself
nobody knows exactly what he does except that it has to do with books
and small print.

Like Madam Howe, Joshua Stillman comes from the Revolutionary War
district and has great family traditions to uphold. He upholds them
with great humor. Not only is he full of old war and family lore, but
he has been mixed up with things literary. He has known men such as
Lowell and tells yarns about Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

He too came West in a prairie schooner and remembers all its wildness,
its uncouthness, its railroadless state. And he tells marvellous
stories about snakes, Indians and the little Chicago town built out on
the mudflats. He remembers very well indeed the steady stream of
ox-teams toiling over the few crude state roads. And he has in his
house rare volumes, valuable editions of famous works. He lets you
examine these if he thinks you are trustworthy and have a gentle way
with books.

There is another rare soul, the Reverend Alexander Campbell, who must
be introduced this rainy spring day. He is a retired Green Valley
minister and is full of humor and wisdom. He is an easily traced
descendant of the Scottish Stuarts. On a rainy day you will always
find him busy writing up the history of his family. Not that he
himself cares a fig for his genealogy. He is writing the book because
it gives him something to do and earns him a little peace from the
women folks.

He is a man whom the Lord has seen fit to try with a host of female
relatives, all family proud. He can fight the Devil and has done so
quite gallantly in four or five volumes of really good old-fashioned
sermons,