But at the noise of the wheels Tom drew in his ladder;
and when the visitor alighted and came within sight,
it was to find the inhospitable host standing in the opening
of the second-story window, a quaint figure framed
in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face
a kind of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said,
"Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle."

There was something impressive about his way of repelling callers;
it was as effectual as a door slammed in the face, and yet there
was a sort of mendacious courtesy about it. No one ever cared
to go further; and indeed there was no mystery to tempt the curious,
and no spoil to attract the mischievous or the malicious.
Any one could see, without entering, the straw bed in the far corner,
the beams piled deep with red and white oak acorns, the strings
of dried apples and bunches of everlastings hanging from the rafters,
and the half-finished baskets filled with blown bird's-eggs,
pine cones, and pebbles.

No home in the village was better loved than Tom's
retreat in the blueberry plains. Whenever he approached it,
after a long day's tramp, when he caught the first sight
of the white birches that marked the gateway to his estate
and showed him where to turn off the public road into his own
private grounds, he smiled a broader smile than usual,
and broke into his well-known song:


"I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding,
An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly