Colonel Stratton is a real military colonel. He wears burnsides and
they are very becoming. He has the most beautifully located residence
in Green Valley and like Doc Philipps has some of the most beautiful
trees in town. The great silver-leaf poplar guarding the wide front
lawns and the magnificent hardwood maples are the pride of the
colonel's heart.

The colonel has a cultivated garden that keeps his gardener pretty
busy. But the wild-flower garden along the rambling old north fence
the colonel tends himself. In June it is a hedge of lovely wild roses
followed a little later by masses of purple phlox. Then come the
meadow lilies and the painted cup and so on, until in late October you
can not see the old fence for the goldenrod, asters and gentians.

Today the colonel hoped to work on his fern bed but the weather being
what it is he takes instead from his well-filled book shelves "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and settles down to a day of
solid joy.

In the big, softly stained house that stands in the 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.