154 A WEEK ON WALDEN'S BIDGE. 



stranger's privilege. It sat squarely on the 

 road, and boasted a sort of portico or piazza, 

 — it puzzled me what to call it, — but there 

 was no vestige of a chimney. One day a 

 ragged, bright-faced boy met me at the right 

 moment, and I asked, " Did some one use 

 to live in that house ? " " That ? " said he, 

 in a tone I shall never forget. " That 's a 

 barn. That over there is the dwelling." 

 My ignorance was fittingly rebuked, and I 

 had no spirit to inquire about the piazza. 

 Probably it was nothing but a lean-to. 

 Even in my humiliation, however, it pleased 

 me to hear what I should have called that 

 good literary word " dwelling " on such lips. 

 A Yankee boy might have said " dwelling- 

 house," but no Yankee of any age, or none 

 that I have ever known, would have said 

 " dwelling," though he might have read the 

 word in books a thousand times. I thought 

 of a spruce colored waiter in Florida, who, 

 when I asked him at breakfast how the day 

 was likely to turn out, answered promptly, 

 " I think it will be inclement." It may 

 reasonably be counted among the minor 

 advantages of travel that it enriches one's 

 every-day vocabulary. 



