“That reminds me of a bull that tackled a man over in Vermont,” said he.  “The man had a club in his hand.  He dodged and grabbed the bull’s tail and beat him all over the lot.  As the bull roared, the man hollered:  ‘I’d like to know who began this fuss anyway.’”

The stranger laughed.

“Is that your house?” Samson asked.

The man stepped nearer and answered in a low, confidential tone: 

“Say, mister, this is a combination poorhouse and idiot asylum.  I am the idiot.  These are the poor.”

He pointed to the children.

“You don’t talk like an idiot,” said Samson.

The man looked around and leaned over the wheel as if about to impart a secret.

“Say, I’ll tell ye,” he said in a low tone.  “A real, first-class idiot never does.  You ought to see my actions.”

“This land is an indication that you’re right,” Samson laughed.

“It proves it,” the stranger whispered.

“Have you any water here?” Samson asked.

The stranger leaned nearer and said in his most confidential tone:  “Say, mister, it’s about the best in the United States.  Right over yonder in the edge o’ the woods—­a spring-cold as ice—­Simon-pure water.  ’Bout the only thing this land’ll raise is water.”

“This land looks to me about as valuable as so much sheet lightnin’ and I guess it can move just about as quick,” said Samson.

The stranger answered in a low tone:  “Say, I’ll tell ye, it’s a wild cow—­don’t stand still long ’nough to give ye time to git anything out of it.  I’ve toiled and prayed, but it’s hard to get much out of it.”

“Praying won’t do this land any good,” Samson answered.  “What it needs is manure and plenty of it.  You can’t raise anything here but fleas.  It isn’t decent to expect God to help run a flea farm.  He knows too much for that, and if you keep it up He’ll lose all respect for ye.  If you were to buy another farm and bring it here and put it down on top o’ this one, you could probably make a living.  I wouldn’t like to live where the wind could dig my potatoes.”

Again the stranger leaned toward Samson and said in a half-whisper:  “Say, mister, I wouldn’t want you to mention it, but talkin’ o’ fleas, I’m like a dog with so many of ’em that he don’t have time to eat.  Somebody has got to soap him or he’ll die.  You see, I traded my farm over in Vermont for five hundred acres o’ this sheet lightnin’, unsight an’ unseen.  We was all crazy to go West an’ here we are.  If it wasn’t for the deer an’ the fish I guess we’d ‘a’ starved to death long ago.”

“Where did ye come from?”

“Orwell, Vermont.”

“What’s yer name?”

“Henry Brimstead,” the stranger whispered.

“Son of Elijah Brimstead?”

“Yes, sir.”

Samson took his hand and shook it warmly.  “Well, I declare!” he exclaimed.  “Elijah Brimstead was a friend o’ my father.”