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THE two hillmen found Irontown filled with the material and spiritual resonances of the coming railroad. The village merchants were doing a brisk business in work shirts, overalls, and brogan shoes. The price of board had advanced. "Men Wanted" signs decorated the telephone posts. In a little open space between Irontown Bank and Fuller's Drug Store, one of those adventurers who flock in the wake of any industrial development had hung a sign across the pavement:

From the other side of the street, the town constable scanned Mr. Stegall and the soft drink feature of his sign with an appraising eye.

Beyond the drug store arose the Grand Drygoods Store. And even the Grand was stimulated by the arrival of the railroad. Four new hats appeared in its show windows; two toques, a leghorn, and a sailor with a red feather in its band.

Beyond the Grand was a tiny jeweller's shop with the sign, "A.M. Belshue, Watch and Clock Repairing." Just inside the single dusty window Mr. Belshue always could be dimly discerned bending over his work with one eye exaggerated by a jeweller's glass. When Abner Teeftallow settled in his boarding place, the Scovell House, farther up the street, he had to pass the jewellery shop twice a day. When he