“Yes,” Finch answered, “thousands of ’em.  But not all.  Some of these Mexicans are older Americans than we are.  We took ’em over when we got Texas and New Mexico and California from Old Mexico.  They were here then, speaking the Spanish their ancestors had learned three hundred years ago and more.  But they’re all the same Mexicans, no matter on which side of the Rio Grande they were born.  Of course those born on this side have had some advantages that the peons never knew.”

“But do you mean,” J.W. wanted to know, “that they are not really American citizens?”

Fred Finch said no, he didn’t mean exactly that.  Certainly, those born on this side were American citizens in the eyes of the law, and those who came across the Rio Grande could get naturalized.  But that made little real difference.  A Mexican was a Mexican, and you had to deal with him as one.

J.W. was not quite satisfied with that explanation, but he preferred to wait until he had seen enough so that he could ask his questions more intelligently.  So he kept relatively still, but his eyes did not cease from observing.

As the trip progressed, and the jumps between towns became longer, the young salesman had time to see a good deal.  In the far Southwest he became aware that the increasingly numerous Mexican population was no longer a matter of box-car dwellers, more or less migratory.  It was a settled people.  Its little adobe villages, queer and quaint as they seemed to Middle-Western eyes, were centers of established life.  And he discovered that in these villages always one building overshadowed all the rest.

One day as they were headed towards El Paso he ventured to mention this to his traveling companion.  “Seems to me,” he said, “that none of these little mud villages is too poor to have a church, and mostly a pretty good church too.  How do they manage it?”

Now Finch was no student of church life, but he did know a little about the country.  “That’s the way it is all over this Southwest, my boy, and across the line in Old Mexico it’s a good deal more so.  My guess is that the churches and the priests began by teaching the people that whatever else happened they had to put up for the church, and from what I’ve noticed I reckon that now nothing else matters much to the church.  It has become a kind of poor relation that’s got to be fed and helped, whether it amounts to anything or not.  But it’s a long way from being as humble and thankful as you would naturally expect a poor relation to be.”

During the El Paso layover the two of them took a day across the International Bridge.  J.W. had watched the Mexicans coming over, and he wanted to see the country they came from.

“You’ll not see much over there,” a friendly spoken customs official told him.  “It’s a pretty poor section of desert ’round about these parts.  You ought to get away down into the heart of the country.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” J.W. responded, “but there isn’t time on this trip.  Are such people as these coming over to the United States right along?”