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 that would have had no terrors for Tom o'
the blueb'ry plains. Terrors of some sort, nevertheless,
the poor-farm had for him; and when the sheriff's party
turned in by the clump of white birches and approached
the cabin, they found that fear had made the simple wise.
Tom had provished the little upper chamber, and, in place
of the piece of sacking that usually served him for a door
in winter, he had woven a defense of willow. In fine,
he had taken all his basket stuff, and, treating the opening