The Martin family dictionary

[From the Lassie episode “Lassie’s Good Deed,” April 29, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

Timmy (Jon Provost) and Lassie have met an older man living in a cabin in the woods, a Mr. Jensen, who walks into town once a month to collect a pension check. He’s a Great War veteran, and he’s played by James Burke, who played the hotel detective Luke in The Maltese Falcon. A quick dissolve and we see Timmy back in his living room:

“I found it, Mom, in the dictionary, just like you said. ‘Recluse : retired from the world or from public notice; a hermit.’”

It seems certain that the Martin family dictionary is a Merriam-Webster’s Second:

[Click for a larger view.]

I can imagine Paul Martin resisting a purchase of M-W’s Third, which appeared in 1961: “Timmy, a farm family has to watch every penny. We have a perfectly good dictionary, and we can’t just buy a new dictionary every time one appears.” And Ruth: “Your father’s right, dear.”

The Merriam-Webster’s Third entry for the adjective recluse begins: “removed from society : shut up.” That graceful phrasing “retired from the world” has disappeared, as has the citation from William Cowper, from the poem “Retirement.”

The woods outside Calverton seem to welcome recluses and hermits. See also “The Hermit” (May 22, 1960). You can watch both episodes — “Lassie’s Good Deed,” “The Hermit” — at the usual place.

As a regular reader of these pages may recall, I like to watch Lassie when I fold laundry. Come at me.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts : Lassie posts (Pinboard)

[Yes, the episode’s writers merged the entries for recluse as an adjective and as a noun. Or Timmy quickly moved from the one to the other.]