located in Hill's grocery, Mr.
Benoni Hill being the postmaster.

Since his return from the war Mr. Obadiah Strout had been Mrs. Hawkins's
star boarder. He sat at the head of the table and acted as moderator
during the wordy discussions which accompanied every meal. Abner Stiles
believed implicitly in the manifest superiority of Obadiah Strout over
the other residents of Mason's Corner. He was his firm ally and
henchman, serving him as a dog does his master, not for pay, but because
he loves the service.

Mr. Strout was often called the "Professor" because he was the
singing-master of the village and gave lessons in instrumental and vocal
music. The love of music was another bond of union between Strout and
Stiles, for the latter was a skilful, if not educated, performer on the
violin.

The Professor was about forty years of age, stout in person, with smooth
shaven face and florid complexion. In Eastborough town matters he was a
general factotum. He had been an undertaker's assistant and had worked
for the superintendent of the Poorhouse. In due season and in turn he
had been appointed to and had filled the positions of fence viewer, road
inspector, hog reeve, pound keeper, and the year previous he had been
chosen tax collector. Abner Stiles said that there "wasn't a better man
in town for selectman and he knew he'd get there one of these days."

To those residents of Mason's Corner whose names have been given, whose
homes have been described and some whose personal peculiarities have
been portrayed, must be added a late arrival. The new-comer whose advent
in town during Christmas week had caused so much discussion at the
rehearsal in the old red schoolhouse, and whose liberality in providing
a hot supper with all the fixings for the sleighing party from Mason's
Corner, when it arrived at the Eagle Hotel at Eastborough Centre, had
won, at a bound, the hearts of the majority of the younger residents of
Mason's Corner. The village gossips wondered who he was, what he was,
what he came for, and how long he intended to stay. If these questions
had been asked of him personally, he might have returned answers to the
first three questions, but it would have been beyond his power to have
answered the fourth inquiry at that time. But the sayings and doings of
certain individuals, and a chain of circumstances not of his own
creation and beyond his personal control, conspired to keep him there
for a period of nearly four mont