ce. He went back to town and told the other officials what had
happened. Their dignity was at stake. Alcott had been guilty of a like
defiance some time before, and now it was the belief that he was putting
the younger man up to insurrection.

The next time Thoreau came over to the village for his mail he was
arrested and lodged in the local bastile.

Emerson, hearing of the trouble, hastened to the jail, and reaching the
presence of the prisoner asked sternly, "Henry, why are you here?"

And the answer was, "Waldo, why are you not here?" Emerson had no use
for such finespun theories of duty, and the matter was too near home for
a joke, so he turned away and let the culprit spend the night in limbo.
The next morning Thoreau was released, the tax having been paid by some
unknown person--Emerson, undoubtedly. This was a tame enough ending to
what was rather an interesting affair--the hope of the best citizens
being that Thoreau would get a goodly sentence for vagrancy. The
townfolk looked upon Thoreau and Alcott with suspicious eyes. They both
came in for much well-deserved censure, and Emerson did not go
unsmirched, since he was guilty of harboring and encouraging these
ne'er-do-wells.

Thoreau's cabin-life continued for two Summers and Winters. He had
proved that two hours' manual work each day was sufficient to keep a
man--twenty cents a day would suffice.

The last year in the woods he had many callers: Agassiz had been to see
him, Emerson had often called, Ellery Channing was a frequent visitor,
and picnickers were constant. Lowell had made a few cutting remarks to
the effect that "as compared with shanty-life, the tub of Diogenes was
preferable, as it had a much sounder bottom," and Hawthorne had written
of "the beauties of conspicuous solitude."

Thoreau felt that he was attracting too much attention, and that perhaps
Hawthorne was right: a recluse who holds receptions is becoming the
thing he pretends to despise. Besides that, there was plenty of
precedent for quitting--Brook Farm had gone by the board, and was but a
memory.

Thoreau's shanty was turned over to a utilitarian Scotchman with red
hair. Later the immortal shanty was a useful granary. Thoreau went back
to the village to live in a garret and work at odd jobs of boat-building
and gardening.

Now only a pile of boulders marks the place where the cabin stood. For
some years, each visitor to the spot threw a stone upon the heap, but
recently the p