106 AN AFTEENOON BY THE RIVER. 



like incivility that I have ever received at 

 the South, where I have certainly not been 

 slow to ask questions of all sorts of people. 



A little jaunt along a foot-path brought 

 me unexpectedly to a second cabin, unin- 

 habited. It was built of boards, not logs, 

 with the usual outside chimney at one end, 

 a broad veranda, a door, and no window ; a 

 house to fill a social economist with admira- 

 tion at the low terms to which civilized life 

 can be reduced. Thoreau himself was out- 

 done, though the veranda, it must be con- 

 fessed, seemed a dispensable bit of fashion- 

 able conformity, with forest trees on all 

 sides crowding the roof. Half the floor had 

 fallen away ; yet the house could not have 

 been long unoccupied, for at one end the 

 wall was hung with newspapers, among 

 which was a Boston " weekly " less than two 

 years old. From it looked the portrait of a 

 New England college president, and at the 

 head of the page stood a list of " eminent 

 contributors." I ran the names over, but 

 somehow, in these wild and natural sur- 

 roundings, they did not seem so very impres- 

 sive. I think it has been said before, per- 

 haps by Thoreau, that most of what we call 



