Chapter 20 Economics - 15

He was not at home when I went to see him.I was walking outside without being noticed by the inside at first, the windows were deep and high.The house was small, with a gabled roof, and nothing else to see, except for five feet of rubbish all around, like a compost heap.The roof was the most complete part, although it was crooked and brittle from the sun.There is no door frame, and there is a passage under the door panel where chickens fly around all the year round.Mrs. Ke came to the door and invited me to go indoors to look at the things.As soon as I approached, the hen drove me in too.The room was dimly lit, and most of the floors were dirty, damp, sticky, and wobbly, except for one here and one there, which were planks that could not be moved and would crack.She lit a lamp, and showed me the inside of the roof and the walls, and the floor that went all the way under the bed, but advised me not to step into the cellar, which was only a garbage pit two feet deep.In her own words, "good boards overhead, all around, and a good window,"—two squares originally, only the cats had been in and out of there lately. There was a stove, a A bed, a place to sit, a baby born there, a silk parasol with a gilded mirror side, and a brand new coffee mill nailed to a piece of young oak, that's all Yes. Our deal was done immediately, because James was back by then. I had to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents that night, and he had to move at five o'clock tomorrow morning, and he couldn't sell anything else. at six o'clock I can take possession of the shed. Better come early, he says, before anyone else has time to make some indeterminate, but wholly unjust demand for rent and fuel. He tells me it is The only extra expense. I met him and his family on the road at six o'clock. A big package with all the belongings,--bed, coffee-mill, mirror, hen,--except the cat; it Running into the woods, I became a wild cat, and later I learned that it hit a groundhog trap, and finally became a dead cat.

In the morning of the same day I dismantled the shed, pulled out the nails, and carried the boards in the cart to the shore, and laid them on the grass, where the sun would bleach them again and restore them to their former shape.An early-rising thrush sent a note or two as I drove through the woods path.The young man Patrick told me maliciously that an Irish neighbor named Sealey put usable, straight, tackable nails, saddle nails and big nails into his pocket during the loading interval. , when I went back and looked up again, looking at the pile of ruins with nonchalant, full of spring, he was standing there, as he said, there was not much work to do.He's there to represent the audience, making this trivial matter look more like an evacuation of the gods from Troy.

I dug my cellar on a hillside sloping south, where a groundhog had dug its burrow, and I dug out the roots of sumac and black poison, and the lowest traces of vegetation. , six feet square and seven feet deep, down to a good sandy spot where the potatoes would never freeze, no matter how cold the winter.Its sides were sloping and unstoned; but the sun never shone upon it, so no grains of sand flowed down.That's just two hours of work.I am particularly interested in breaking the ground, and at almost all latitudes one can obtain a uniform temperature by simply digging into the ground.In the most luxurious dwellings in the cities are still to be found cellars, in which they bury their root plants, as the ancients did, so that in the future, even if the superstructure is completely destroyed, posterity will find it left on the ground long afterward. dents.The so-called houses are just some facades at the entrance of the burrow.

Finally, at the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, I erected the roof trusses, which was not really necessary, I just took this opportunity to communicate with the neighbors.As for the erection of the roof trusses, all the glory belongs to me.I believe that one day, everyone will work together to build a higher structure.I started to live in my house on the Fourth of July, because the roof had just been put on and the boards had just been nailed up. Before the boards were nailed up, I had laid the foundation of a chimney at one end of the house, with about two loads of stones, which I carried up the hill from the lake in my arms.But I didn't finish the chimney until after the hoeing was over in the fall, just before a fire had to be built for warmth, and I always used to cook out on the ground early in the morning: a way I still think is better. The general way is more convenient and comfortable.If it blew and rained before the bread was baked, I put a few planks over the fire, and hid myself under them gazing at the bread, and passed some pleasant hours thus.In those days I had a lot of work to do and little reading, but the torn papers on the ground, even receipts, or tablecloths provided me with infinite joy, and indeed achieved the same purpose as reading.