A Man for the Ages | Page 9

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."
"Who are you?" Brimstead asked.
"I'm one o' the Traylors o' Vergennes."
"My father used to buy cattle of Henry Traylor."
"Henry was my father. Haven't you let 'em know about your bad luck?"
The man resumed his tone of confidence. "Say, I'll tell ye," he
answered. "A man that's as big a fool as I am ought not to advertise it.
A brain that has treated its owner as shameful as mine has treated me
should be compelled to do its own thinkin' er die. I've invented some
things that may sell. I've been hopin' my luck would turn."
"It'll turn when you turn it," Samson assured him.
Brimstead thoughtfully scuffed the sand with his bare foot. In half a
moment he stepped to the wheel and imparted this secret: "Say, mister,
if you've any more doubt o' my mental condition, I'm goin' to tell ye
that they've discovered valuable ore in my land two miles back o' this
road, an' I'm hopin' to make a fortune. Don't that prove my case?"
"Any man that puts his faith in the bowels of the earth can have my
vote," said Samson.
Brimstead leaned close to Samson's ear and said in a tone scarcely

audible:
"My brother Robert has his own idiot asylum. It's a real handsome one
an' he has made it pay, but I wouldn't swap with him."
Samson smiled, remembering that Robert had a liquor store. "Look
here, Henry Brimstead, we're hungry," he said. "If ye furnish the water,
we'll skirmish around for bread and give ye as good a dinner as ye ever
had in yer life."
Henry took the horses to his barn and watered and fed them. Then he
brought two pails of water from the spring. Meanwhile Samson started
a fire in a grove of small poplars by the roadside and began broiling
venison, and Sarah got out the bread board and the flour and the
rolling-pin and the teapot. As she waited for the water she called the
three strange children to her side. The oldest was a girl