can view the very heart of Green Valley's business life. Without
turning your head scarcely you can keep an eye on Martin's drug store,
keep tab on the comings and goings of the town's two doctors, and the
hotel's arriving and departing guests. If a commotion of any kind
occurs in front of Robert Hill's general store you see all the details
without losing count of the various parties who go in and out of Green
Valley's new bank.

Twice a day the active part of Green Valley dribbles into the
post-office where friends instantly pair off and mere acquaintances
stand idly by and discuss the weather. Besides its mail, Green Valley
usually buys two cents' worth of yeast and a dozen of baker's buns and
then goes down the street and orders its regular groceries at Jessup's.

Jessup's has been the one Green Valley grocery store ever since the
flood or thereabout, so venerable an establishment is it. Green Valley
would as soon think of changing its name as permitting a new grocer to
open up a rival store. And nobody dreams of disloyalty when buying
trifles at the post-office. In fact housewives are openly glad that
Dick, the postmaster, has taken to keeping strictly fresh yeast for
their leisure days and nice bakery things for times of stress and
unexpected company.

Dick Richards is a small, smiling, curly-headed man who looks older
than he should. This is because he wears a big man's mustache and is a
self-made boy. His parents died when he was barely old enough to
realize his loss and since then he has fought the world without a
single weapon unless cheerfulness and a giant patience can be called
weapons. Small, ungifted, he early learned to be content with little.
But side by side with this cheerful content is always the giant hope of