“That’s what we need on these prairies,” said Samson.  “Something that’ll turn ’em over and cut the crop quicker.”

“Say, I’ll tell ye,” said Brimstead as if about to disclose another secret.  “I found after I looked the ground over here that I needed a brain.  I began to paw around an’ discovered a rusty old brain among my tools.  It hadn’t been used for years.  I cleaned an’ oiled the thing an’ got it workin’.  On a little Vermont farm you could git along without it but here the ground yells for a brain.  We don’t know how to use our horses.  They have power enough to do all the hard work, if we only knew how to put it into wheels and gears.  We must begin to work our brains as well as our muscles on a farm miles long an’ wide.”

“It ain’t fair to expect the land to furnish all the fertility,” said Samson.

Brimstead’s face glowed as he outlined his vision: 

“These great stretches of smooth, rich land just everlastingly ram the spurs into you and keep your brain galloping.  Mine is goin’ night and day.  The prairies are a new thing and you’ve got to tackle ’em in a new way.  I tell you the seeding and planting and mowing and reaping and threshing is all going to be done by machinery and horses.  The wheel will be the foundation of the new era.”

“You’re right,” said Samson.

“How are you gettin’ along?”

“Rather slow,” Samson answered.  “It’s hard to get our stuff to market down in the Sangamon country.  Our river isn’t navigable yet.  We hope that Abe Lincoln, who has just been elected to the Legislature, will be able to get it widened and straightened and cleaned up so it will be of some use to us down there.”

“I’ve heard of him.  They call him Honest Abe, don’t they?”

“Yes; and he is honest if a man ever was.”

“That’s the kind we need to make our laws,” said Mrs. Brimstead.  “There are not many men who get a reputation for honesty.  It ought to be easy, but it isn’t.”

“Men are pretty good in the main,” said Samson.  “But ye know there are not so many who can exactly toe the mark.  They don’t know how or they’re too busy or something.  I guess I’m a little careless, and I don’t believe I’m a bad fellow either.  Abe’s conscience don’t ever sit down to rest.  He traveled three miles one night to give back four cents that he had overcharged a customer.  I’d probably have waited to have her come back, and by that time it might have slipped my mind or maybe she would have moved away.  I suppose that in handling dollars we’re mostly as honest as Abe, but we’re apt to be a little careless with the cents.  Abe toed the penny mark, and that’s how he got his reputation.  The good God has given him a sense of justice that is like a chemist’s balance.  It can weigh down to a fraction of a grain.  Now he don’t care much about pennies.  He can be pretty reckless with ’em.  But when they’re a measure on the balance, he counts ’em careful, I can tell ye.”