,--as if light, not heat, were its object. A keen wind blew the
dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance that had no merriment in
it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling
himself into a ball, remarked despondently that feathers were no sort of
protection in this kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, glanced in
at the barrel, and observed that anybody who minded a little breeze like
that had better join the woodcocks, who were leaving for the South by
the night express.

The blueberry bushes were stripped bare of green. The stunted pines and
sombre hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape now; where all was
dreary they did not seem amiss.

"Je-whilikins!" exclaimed the sheriff as he drew up his coat collar.
"A madhouse is the place for the man who wants to live ou'doors in the
winter time; the poor-farm is too good for him."

But Tom was used to privation, and even to suffering. "Ou'doors" was the
only home he knew, and with all its rigors he loved it. He looked over
the barren plains, knowing, in a dull sort of way, that they would
shortly be covered with snow; but he had three coats, two of them with
sleeves, and the crunch-crunch of the snow under his tread was music
to his ears. Then, too, there were a few hospitable firesides where he
could always warm himself; and the winter would soon be over, the birds
would come again,--new birds, singing the old songs,--the sap would
mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the
young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground.
The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to
Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the
seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. To him
winter was never cruel. He looked underneath her white mantle, saw the
infant spring hidden in her warm bosom, and was content to wait. Content
to wait? Content to starve, content to freeze, if only he need not be
carried into captivity.

The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, if only Tom had been a
reasonable being. To be sure, when Hannah Sophia Palmer asked old Mrs.
Pinkham how she liked it, she answered, with a patient sigh, that
"her 'n' Mr. Pinkham hed lived there goin' on nine year, workin' their
fingers to the bone 'most, 'n' yet they hadn't been able to lay up a
cent!" If this peculiarity of administration was its worst feature, it
was certainly one