As they were on the point of starting, the captive began to wail and struggle more than ever, the burden of his plaint being a wild and tremulous plea for his pail of molasses.
"Dry up, old softy, or I'll put the buggy robe over your head!" muttered Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started on the trip, and had lost it all by this time.
"By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!" said Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, comforting the shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive silence that lasted until the unwelcome journey was over.
Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours.
It did not enter the minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate as to be admitted into that happy haven would decline to stay there.
The unwilling guest disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, after some search, they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed into his beloved retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, had mended the willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace.
They dragged him out again, and this time more impatiently; for it was exasperating to see a man (even if he were a fool) fight against a bed and three meals a day.
The second attempt was little more successful than the first.
As a place of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable or attractive on near acquaintance than it did at long range.
Tom remained a week, because he was kept in close confinement; but when they judged that he was weaned from his old home, they loosed his bonds, and--back to the plains he sped, like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a bit of iron leaping to the magnet.
What should be done with him?
Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that the village had done its duty, and if the "dog-goned lunk-head" wanted to starve and freeze, it was his funeral, not theirs.
Others thought that the community had no resource but to bear the responsibility of its irresponsible children, however troublesome they might be. There was entire unanimity of view so far as the main issues were concerned.
It was agreed that nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand guard over Tom night and day, and that the sheriff could not be expected to spend his time forcing him out of his hut on the blueberry plains.
There was but one more expedient to be tried, a very simple and ingenious but radical and comprehensive one, which, in Rube Hobson's opinion, would strike at the root of the matter.
Tom had fled from captivity for the third time.
He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, the molasses pail was hanging on a nail by the shed door.
The remains of a battered old bushel basket lay on the wood-pile: bottom it had none, nor handles; rotundity of side had long since disappeared, and none but its maker would have known it for a basket. Tom caught it up in his flight, and, seizing the first crooked stick that offered, he slung the dear familiar burden over his shoulder and started off on a jog-trot.
Heaven, how happy he was! It was the rosy dawn of an Indian summer day,-- a warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak world of yesterday without a hint of beneficent intention; one of those enchanting weather surprises with which Dame Nature reconciles us to her stern New England rule.
The joy that comes of freedom, and the freedom that comes of joy, unbent the old man's stiffened joints.
He renewed his youth at every mile. He ran like a lapwing.
When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the plains, he broke into old song of the "bloom-in' gy-ar-ding" and the "jolly swain," and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible last note. His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture when he caught the well-known gleam of the white birches.
He turned into the familiar path, boy's blood thumping in old man's veins. The past week had been a dreadful dream.
A few steps more and he would be within sight, within touch of home,--home at last! No--what was wrong?
He must have gone beyond it, in his reckless haste!
Strange that he could have forgotten the beloved spot!
Can lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window?
Can child lose the path to mother's knee?
He turned,--ran hither and thither, like one distraught.
A nameless dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his warm blood, paralyzing the activity of the moment before.
At last, with a sob like that of a frightened child who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness, he darted back to the white birches and started anew.
This time he trusted to blind instinct; his feet knew the path, and, left to themselves, they took him through the tangle of dry bushes straight to his--It had vanished!
Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,--nothing but ashes!
And these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, and the leafless branches on which they fell would shake them off lightly, never dreaming that they hid the soul of a home.
Nothing but ashes!
Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains!
