It had done him good to be hurled against a barn door and to fall trembling and confused at the feet of his master.  He had never met his master until he had reached Hopedale that morning.  The event had been too long delayed.  Encouraged by idleness and conceit and alcohol, evil passions had grown rank in the soil of his spirit.  Restraint had been a thing unknown to him.  He had ruled the little world in which he had lived by a sense of divine right.  He was a prince of Egoland—­that province of America which had only half yielded itself to the principles of Democracy.

Sobriety and the barn door had been a help to his soul.  More of these heroic remedies might have saved him.  He was like one exiled, for a term, from his native heath.  After the ancient fashion of princes, he had at first meditated the assassination of the man who had blocked his way.  Deprived of the heat of alcohol, his purpose sickened and died.

It must be said that he served his term as a sober human being quite gracefully, being a well born youth of some education.  A few days he spent mostly in bed, while his friend, who had come on from Hopedale, took care of him.  Soon he began to walk about and his friend returned to St. Louis.

His fine manners and handsome form and face captured the little village, most of whose inhabitants had come from Kentucky.  They knew a gentleman when they saw him.  They felt a touch of awe in his presence.  Mr. Biggs claimed to have got his hurt by a fall from his horse, pride leading him to clothe the facts in prevarication.  If the truth had been known Samson would have suffered a heavy loss of popularity in New Salem.

A week after his arrival Ann Rutledge walked over to Jack Kelso’s with him.  Bim fled up the stick ladder as soon as they entered the door.  Mr. Kelso was away on a fox hunt.  Ann went to the ladder and called: 

“Bim, I saw you fly up that ladder.  Come back down.  Here’s a right nice young man come to see you.”

“Is he good-looking?” Bim called.

“Oh, purty as a picture, black eyes and hair and teeth like pearls, and tall and straight, and he’s got a be-e-autiful little mustache.”

“That’s enough!” Bim exclaimed.  “I just wish there was a knot hole in this floor.”

“Come on down here,” Ann urged.

“I’m scared,” was the answer.

“His cheeks are as red as roses and he’s got a lovely ring and big watch chain—­pure gold and yaller as a dandelion.  You come down here.”

“Stop,” Bim answered.  “I’ll be down as soon as I can get on my best bib and tucker.”

She was singing Sweet Nightingale as she began “to fix up,” while Ann and Mr. Biggs were talking with Mrs. Kelso.

“Ann,” Bim called in a moment, “had I better put on my red dress or my blue?”

“Yer blue, and be quick about it.”

“Don’t you let him get away after all this trouble.”

“I won’t.”