Walden

was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and
taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or
its apartment in one.

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best,
and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I
speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have
their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams,
in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a
shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially
prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small
fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside
garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy
a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as
they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring
compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his
shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his
commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long
run, any better afford to hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this