“Oldtown Folks,” published in 1869, Mrs. Stowe considered more than a story; it was her “résumé of the whole spirit and body of New England.” In writing it, she tried, she said, to make her “mind as still and passive as a looking-glass, or a mountain lake,” and then to give “the images reflected there.” We are not, then, to take any of the opinions expressed in the book as conclusively Mrs. Stowe’s opinions, but to think of her as reporting impartially the point of view taken by the Calvinists, Arminians, High Church Episcopalians, skeptics and simple believers in the story. It has been said of Mrs. Stowe that she remained without change the Calvinist, the old New Englander, the Beecher, to the end of life. A close study of her work and spirit will reveal that she made the most amazing progress in thought, in spirit and in art. She herself knew this. One of her old friends who met her at one time rather late in her life was afraid of what would happen if she should be told that her friend did not hold exactly the same views as of old. “Why,” exclaimed Mrs. Stowe, “I should be ashamed to believe the same this year that I did last!” For “Oldtown Folks” Mrs. Stowe gathered her “images” in large part from scenes reported to her by her husband as he remembered them from his own boyhood. Together they went to the home of his youth, South Natick, Massachusetts, and there studied the places where the “visionary boy,” who was none other than Professor Stowe himself, passed through the lonely and dream-haunted experiences of his youth. From Professor Stowe’s account of the people and customs in the old village, and from her own memories, Mrs. Stowe organized a picture of the time a generation before her own.