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
sight 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