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. 



