Clifford D. Simak spent most of his professional career working in Minnesota for the "Minneapolis Star and Tribune, " but nowadays he's remembered mostly for his science fiction writing -- novels like "Mastodonia" (1978), "The Visitors" (1980), "Project Pope" (1981), "Where the Evil Dwells" (1982), "Special Deliverance" (1982), "Highway of Eternity" (1986). But Simak had a long, long career -- as witness this story, which first saw print in 1932, when Simak was 28. You can see that Simak grew a great deal as a writer over his lifetime -- or perhaps the original editor had at it a bit too roughly with his blue pencil. But even so -- it's Simak, and it's got a quality that rises over that . . .