1920. The book begins: When James Fay died, he had held the office of county treasurer, and the respect of all his fellow citizens, for so long that it seemed as if it had been always so. He was Sawter County's grand old man. It is many years now since his death, and he is still remembered in Sawter County. But the story which keeps his memory alive goes back to an earlier time, when he was not respected by his fellow citizens-to the time when he was old Jimmy Fay the crank. Old Jimmy had not changed; it was not in his nature to change. It was the whole United States, and Sawter County along with it, that had changed. It had taken a civil war to make old Jimmy Fay popular among his neighbors. Old Jimmy was an Abolitionist-at that date perhaps the only one in southwestern Illinois. He hated slavery-profoundly and passionately.