cherished ideal of it so high (or so low, rather), that he never managed
to reach it.

Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better supper than
ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need of sleeping under roof nor
of lighting candles to grope his way to pallet of straw, when he might
have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for
lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of
pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their
polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year,
another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his
tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet
fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,--there, haunted
by no past and harassed by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a
child.

Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well!

But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer, and the gaunt
pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor Tom's mattress, there
came a change in the aspect of things. He still made his way to the
village, seeking chairs to mend; but he was even more unkempt than of
old, his tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled as he wove the
willow strands in and out, and over and under.

There was little work to do, moreover, for the village had altogether
retired from business, and was no longer in competition with its
neighbors: the dam was torn away, the sawmills were pulled down;
husbands and fathers were laid in the churchyard, sons and brothers and
lovers had gone West, and mothers and widows and spinsters stayed on,
each in her quiet house alone. "'T ain't no hardship when you get used
to it," said the Widow Buzzell. "Land sakes! a lantern 's 's good 's a
man any time, if you only think so, 'n' 't ain't half so much trouble to
keep it filled up!"

But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, and the children always
gathered about him for the sake of hearing him repeat his well-worn
formula,--"Tom allers puts two handles on baskets: one to take 'em up by,
one to set 'em down by." This was said with a beaming smile and a wise
shake of the head, as if he were announcing a great discovery to an
expectant world. And then he would lay down his burden of basket stuff,
and, sitting under an apple-tree in somebody's side yard, begin his task
of willow-bottoming an old chair. It was a pretty si