“Say, everything knew how to jump there.  I had a garden that could hop over the fence and back ag’in.  Sometimes it was there and sometimes it was off on a vacation.  I jumped as soon as I got the chance.”

“We call it No Santa Claus Land,” said Samson.  “Do ye remember how the little girl clung to the wagon?”

“That was me,” said a small miss of ten who ran out of the door into the arms of the big man and kissed him.

“Would you mind if I kissed you?” Annabel asked.

“I would be sorry if you didn’t,” said Samson.  “Here’s my boy, Harry Needles.  You wouldn’t dare kiss him I guess?’

“I would be sorry, too, if you didn’t,” Harry laughed as he took her hand.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay sorry,” said Annabel turning red with embarrassment.  “I never saw you before.”

“Better late than never,” Samson assured her.  “You don’t often see a better fellow.”

The girl laughed, with a subtle look of agreement in her eyes.  Then came up from the barn the ragged little lad of No Santa Claus Land—­now a sturdy, bright eyed, handsome boy of eight.

The horses were put out and all went in to supper.

“I have always felt sorry for any kind of a slave?” said Samson as they sat down.  “When I saw you on the sand plains you were in bondage.”

“Say, I’ll tell ye,” said Brimstead, as he leaned toward Samson, seeming to be determined at last to make a clean breast of it.  “Say, I didn’t own that farm.  It owned me.  I got a sandy intellect.  Couldn’t get anything out of it but disappointment.  My farm was mortgaged to the bank and I was mortgaged to the children.  I couldn’t even die.”

Samson wrote in his diary that night: 

* * * * *

“When Brimstead brings his sense of humor into play he acts as if he was telling a secret.  When he says anything that makes me laugh, he’s terribly confidential.  Seems so he was kind of ashamed of it.  He never laughs himself unless he does it inside.  His voice always drops, too, when he talks business.”

* * * * *

“The man that’s a fool and don’t know it is a good deal worse off,” said Samson.

“Say, I’ll tell ye he’s worse off but he’s happier.  If it hurts there’s hope for ye.”

“They tell me you’ve prospered,” said Samson.

Brimstead spoke in a most confidential tone as he answered:  “Say, I’ll tell ye—­no wise man is ever an idiot but once.  I wouldn’t care to spread it around much but we’re gettin’ along.  I’ve built this house and got my land paid for.  You see we are only four miles from the Illinois River on a good road.  I can ship my grain to Alton or St. Louis or New Orleans without much trouble.  I’ve invented a machine to cut it and a double plow and I expect to have them both working next year.  They ought to treble my output at least.”

After supper Brimstead showed models of a mowing machine with a cut bar six feet long, and a plow which would turn two furrows.