"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.
"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.