He spoke to Smithy, his single clerk at the Three Star Grocery. He had to speak to Smithy, or to the circumambient air, for nobody but the gangling clerk was within hearing. They lounged on the store porch in the middle of the afternoon, and the only other thing alive on the main street of Canyon Pass was a wandering burro browsing on the tufts of grass edging the shallow gutters. “I don’t see as Canyon Pass has got to be bumped by a gospel sharp to wake it up,” complained Smithy, stretching his arms as though they were elastic. “Yahhoo! Well, he’ll have a sweet time here, Mr. Judson.” “I dunno,” said the storekeeper reflectively. “For my part I feel like I favored it.” “’Cause it’s something new?” “’Cause it’s something needed. I ain’t one of those fellers that run after every new thing just because it is new. But I’m for progress. I want to see the Pass get ahead. Crescent City and Lamberton have both got churches and parsons.” “And they’ve got railroads,” put in Smithy, making a good point. “Canyon Pass needs the railroad more’n it does a parson.” “Son,” proclaimed Judson, “before Canyon Pass can get a railroad connection, mountains have got to be moved and the meanest stretch of desert that ever spawned lizards, sidewinders and cacti, and produce in their places about five hundred square mile of irrigated farmland to pay for spiking the rails to the sleepers. See?” “Well, the farms might come,” declared Smithy defensively. “Sure. So might Christmas come at Fourth o’ July. But we ain’t never celebrated the two holidays together yet. No, sir. To irrigate the edge of that desert even, a dam would have to be built across the southern outlet of the canyon, and that would back the water up yere in freshet season till the roof of my shack would be so deep under the surface that about all I could properly keep in stock would be perch and rainbow trout. “They ain’t building branch railroads no more to mining camps like Canyon Pass. That’s why we all chipped in for the stamp mill and the cyanide plant. Nope. We’ll freight in our supplies with mules and communicate with the more effete centers of civilization by stagecoach for some time to come I reckon. “That being the case we got to uplift ourselves without the help of the iron horse, as the feller said. And having a church and a parson is uplifting.” “Nobody ain’t talked very brash about a church.” “Parson comes first. Naturally. Of course this friend of Joe Hurley is only coming on a visit at first.” “He’ll have a sweet visit here,” repeated Smithy. “That’s according,” said Judson. “We got to be hospitable. If a judge, or a senator, or a school teacher, or even a drummer sellin’ fishin’ tackle, came yere we’d feel like we wanted to show him the town’s best side. Why not this parson?” “Huh! A drummer don’t try to convert us and innovate psalm-singing and such,” grumbled Smithy.