You are given an English sentence with a blank, and you need to predict the missing word. After completing, the whole sentence should be gramatically correct and non-ambiguous.

Let me give you an example: The kid on the street is ____ soccer
The answer to this example can be: playing
Here is why: This is the original sentence 'The kid on the street is playing soccer' So, we have correctly predicted the missing word to be 'soccer'

OK. solve this:
had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead green gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and ____ it was to this day
Answer:
there