Ricketson's shanty

April 10. 

Friday. Rain. 

D. R.’s shanty is about half a dozen rods southwest of his house (which may be forty rods from the road), nearly between his house and barn; is twelve by fourteen feet, with seven-feet posts, with common pent roof. In building it, he directed the carpenter to use Western boards and timber, though some Eastern studs (spruce?) were inserted. He had already occupied a smaller shanty at “ Woodlee ” about a mile south. The roof is shingled and the sides made of matched boards and painted a light clay-color with chocolate (?) colored blinds. 

Within, it is not plastered and is open to the roof, showing the timbers and rafters and rough boards and cross-timbers overhead as if ready for plastering. 

The door is at the east end with a small window on each side of it; a similar window on each side the building, and one at the west end, the latter looking down the garden walk. In front of the last window is a small box stove with a funnel rising to a level with the plate, and there inserted in a small brick chimney which rests on planks. 

On the south side the room, against the stove, is a rude settle with a coarse cushion and pillow; on the opposite side, a large low desk, with some book-shelves above it; on the same side, by the window, a small table covered with books; and in the northeast corner, behind the door, an old-fashioned secretary, its pigeonholes stuffed with papers. 

On the opposite side as you enter, is place for fuel, which the boy leaves each morning, a place to hang greatcoats. There were two small pieces of carpet on the floor, and Ricketson or one of his guests swept out the shanty each morning. There was a small kitchen clock hanging in the southwest Corner and a map of Bristol County behind the settle. 

The west and northwest side is well-nigh covered with slips of paper, on which are written some sentence or paragraph from R.’s favorite books. I noticed, among the most characteristic, Dibdin’s “ Tom Tackle,” a translation of Anaereon’s “Cicada,” lines celebrating tobacco, Milton’s “How charming is divine philosophy,” etc., “Inveni requiem: Spes et Fortuna valete. Nil mihi vobiscum est: ludite nunc alios” (is it Petrarch?) (this is also over the door), “ Mors aequo pulsat,” etc., some lines of his own in memory of A. J. Downing, “Not to be in a hurry,” over the desk, and many other quotations celebrating retirement, country life, simplicity, humanity, sincerity, etc., etc., from Cowper and other English poets, and similar extracts from newspapers. 

There were also two or three advertisements, — one of a cattle-show exhibition, another warning not to kill birds contrary to law (he being one of the subscribers ready to enforce the act), advertisement of a steamboat on Lake Winnepiseogee, etc., cards of his business friends. The size of different brains from Hall’s Journal of Health, and “Take the world easy.” A sheet of blotted blotting—paper tacked up, and of Chinese character from a tea-chest. 

Also a few small pictures and pencil sketches, the latter commonly caricatures of his visitors or friends, as “ The Trojan ” (Charming) and “ Van Best.” I take the more notice of these particulars because his peculiarities are so commonly unaffected. He has long been accustomed to put these scraps on his walls and has a basketful somewhere, saved from the old shanty. Though there were some quotations which had no right there, I found all his peculiarities faithfully expressed, —his humanity, his fear of death, love of retirement, simplicity, etc. 

The more characteristic books were Bordley’s “ Husbandry,” Drake’s “Indians,” Barber’s “Historical Collections,” Zimmermann on Solitude, Bigelow’s “Plants of Boston, etc.,” Farmer’s “Register of the First Settlers of New England,” Marshall’s “Garden ing,” Nicol’s “ Gardener,” John Woolman. “The Mod ern Horse Doctor,” Downing‘s “Fruits, etc.,” “The Farmer’s Library,” “Walden,” Dymond’s Essays, Job Scott’s Journal, Morton’s Memorial, Bailey’s Diction ary, Downing’s “Landscape Gardening, etc.,” “The Task,” Nuttall’s Ornithology, Morse’s Gazetteer, “The Domestic Practice of Hydropathy,” “ John Buncle,” Dwight’s Travels, Virgil, Young’s “Night Thoughts,” “ History of Plymouth,” and other “ Shanty Books.” 

There was an old gun, hardly safe to fire, said to be loaded with an inextractable charge, and also an old sword over the door, also a tin sign “D. Ricketson’s a small crumpled horn there. I counted more than twenty rustic canes scattered about, a dozen (or fifteen pipes of various patterns, mostly the common,, two spy glasses, an open paper of tobacco, an Indian’s jaw dug up, a stuffed blue jay and pine grosbeak, and a. rude Indian stone hatchet, etc., etc.

There was a box with fifteen or twenty knives, mostly very large and old: fashioned jack-knives, kept for curiosity, occasionally given away to a boy or friend. A large book full of pencil sketches to be inspected by whomsoever, containing countless sketches of his friends and acquaintances and himself and of wayfaring men whom he had met, Quakers, etc., etc., and now and then a vessel under full sail or an old-fashioned house, sketched on a peculiar pea-green paper. 

A pail of water stands behind the door, with a peculiar tin cup for drinking made in France.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 10, 1857