ght enough, if one
could keep back the tears,--the kindly, simple fellow with the circle of
children about his knees. Never a village fool without a troop of babies
at his heels. They love him, too, till we teach them to mock.

When he was younger, he would sing,

"Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop,"

and dance the while, swinging his unfinished basket to and fro for a
cradle. He was too stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but
he still sang the "bloomin' gy-ar-ding" when ever they asked him,
particularly if some apple-cheeked little maid would say, "Please, Tom!"
He always laughed then, and, patting the child's hand, said, "Pooty
gal,--got eyes!" The youngsters dance with glee at this meaningless
phrase, just as their mothers had danced years before when it was said
to them.

Summer waned. In the moist places the gentian uncurled its blue fringes;
purple asters and gay Joe Pye waved their colors by the roadside; tall
primroses put their yellow bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to see
themselves; and the dusty pods of the milkweed were bursting with their
silky fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. Autumn began to paint the
maples red and the elms yellow, for the early days of September brought
a frost. Some one remarked at the village store that old Blueb'ry Tom
must not be suffered to stay on the plains another winter, now that he
was getting so feeble,--not if the "_se_leckmen" had to root him out
and take him to the poor-farm. He would surely starve or freeze, and his
death would be laid at their door.

Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, sharp words, all failed to move
him one jot or tittle. He stood in his castle door, with the ladder
behind him, smiling, always smiling (none but the fool smiles always,
nor always weeps), and saying to all visitors, "Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's
gone to Bonny Eagle; Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm."

November came in surly.

The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest were over, the corn was
shocked, the apples and pumpkins were gathered into barns. The problem
of Tom's future was finally laid before the selectmen; and since the
poor fellow's mild obstinancy had defeated all attempts to conquer it,
the sheriff took the matter in hand.

The blueberry plains looked bleak and bare enough now. It had rained
incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. The
sun came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,--like a duty
smile