Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/195

 2ET.30.J TO R. W. EMERSON. 171

Fruitlands, wishes to hire said Lane s farm for one or more years, and will pay $125 rent, tak ing out of the same a half, if necessary, for repairs, as for a new bank-wall to the barn cellar, which he says is indispensable. Palmer is gone, Mrs. Palmer is going. This is all that is known or that is worth knowing. Yes or no ? What to do ?

Hugh s plot begins to thicken. He starts thus : eighty dollars on one side ; Walden, field and house, on the other. How to bring these together so as to make a garden and a palace ?

Field

1st, let $10 go over to unite the two lots. $70

$6 for Wetherbee s rocks to found your palace on.

$64

$64 so far, indeed, we have already got. $4 to bring the rocks to the field.

$60 Save $20 by all means, to measure the field, and you have

left $40 to complete the palace, build cellar, and dig well.

Build the cellar yourself, and let well alone,

and now how does it stand ? $40 to complete the palace somewhat like

this.