I call him the master of the plains, but in faith he had no legal
claim to the title. If he owned a habitation or had established a home
on any spot in the universe, it was because no man envied him what he took;
for Tom was one of God's fools, a foot-loose pilgrim in this world
of ours, a poor addle-pated, simple-minded, harmless creature,--
in village parlance, a "softy."
Mother or father, sister or brother, he had none, nor ever had,
so far as any one knew; but how should people who had to work from sun-up
to candlelight to get the better of the climate have leisure to discover
whether or no Blueb'ry Tom had any kin?
At some period in an almost forgotten past there
had been a house on Tom's particular patch of the plains.
It had long since tumbled into ruins and served for fire-wood
and even the chimney bricks had disappeared one by one,
as the monotonous seasons came and went.
Tom had settled himself in an old tool-shop, corn-house, or rude
out-building of some sort that had belonged to the ruined cottage.
Here he had set up his house-hold gods; and since no one else
had ever wanted a home in this dreary tangle of berry bushes,
where the only shade came from stunted pines that flung shriveled
arms to the sky and dropped dead cones to the sterile earth,
here he remained unmolested.
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