Thoreau writes in his journal:
[George] Minott’s is a small, square, one-storied and unpainted house, with a hipped roof and at least one dormer window, a third the way up the south side of a long hill which is some fifty feet high and extends east and west. A traveler of taste may go straight through the village without being detained a moment by any dwelling, either in the form or surroundings being objectionable, but very few go by this house without being agreeably impressed, and many are therefore led to inquire who lives in it. Not that its form is so incomparable, nor even its weather-stained color, but chiefly, I think, because of its snug and picturesque position on the hillside, fairly lodged there, where all children like to be, and its perfect harmony with its surrounding and position . . .
