I was reading the part of Walden where Thoreau s building his house. He said that he called this guy who had a little house he would let Thoreau buy for the boards.
My question is: Since Thoreau did this in the 1840s and Telegraphs weren’t even built comercially until the 1850s (much less Telephones which weren’t invented until late in the 1870s), what could he have been talking about when he said, “called”?
visited.
Note his usage of the word in Ch. 5:
“When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or accidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and dropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some slight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or by the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe.”