Clemmie Read Free

narrow driveway between his house and the house next door and put the car carefully in the garage that was too narrow for it, and not quite long enough. He walked slowly across the small fenced back yard, climbed the six steps to the back porch and stood there on the porch for a little time, listening to the night sounds of the city, reluctant to go in because he knew how empty the house would feel. The kitchen floor creaked as he walked across it. It was a narrow, ugly, two-and-a-half-story house in a decaying neighborhood, and it had been built in the early years of the century. The materials had been honest so the house was reasonably sound, but each room was small and square and unimaginative. They had improved it slightly by knocking out the wall between the living room and the dining room, but it was not a house you could be proud of.
    He remembered 1946 when U. S. Automotive had reemployed him and sent him to the Quality Metal Products Division here in Stoddard. That was in January, and it had been a most bitter winter. Penny was born the following June, so Maura was four months’ pregnant when they had lived in that furnished room while house-hunting.
    Maura had been convinced that this was the land of plenty, but her education was abrupt. They spent a great deal of time looking at new houses. New little crackerbox houses, triumphs of monotony, concrete cracking before occupancy, sleazy plywood warping, tiny yards a wilderness of frozen mud—and they were priced to give a minimal profit of one-hundred per cent to the developer. They were selling because there was nothing else to be had in that price range. Future slums were being created with energy, venality and optimism.
    He remembered Maura’s shocked look after she did some mental computation. “Good Lord, Craig. Five thousand two hundred pounds for this—this absolute horror!”
    The salesman had looked injured. “Lady, this is the best you’ll find around here for this money.”
    Maura had drawn herself to full height. “I would farprefer to live under a hedge like a rabbit. Let’s go, Craig.”
    Even if a suitable apartment could be found, rents were exorbitant. The rent-control program in Stoddard had been administered with maximum advantage to the landlord. The fruitless searching finally reduced Maura to one of her rare periods of weeping. It made Craig feel apologetic about the whole country.
    Finally they had found this house. It was a block and a half from a school, and not far from an area of stores. But the neighborhood was well advanced along the path of inevitable decay. Room to rent. Qualified Electropath Treatments. Music Lessons. There was an ancient and marginal textile mill four blocks away. There was a cellar barber shop on the corner. In warm weather old men sat in their underwear tops on the steps of shallow front porches, and tough teen-agers roamed in harsh packs. The school was aged, the playground paved with bricks and wire-fenced.
    The price had been ninety-four-hundred dollars. The only pleasant thing about it had been a fairly deep front yard with one big elm tree. Craig had paid two thousand down and, after difficulties with the appraisal, had managed to get a G.I. loan on the balance. In 1949 the city had decided that Federal Street, all twenty-two blocks of it, should be widened to provide a cross-town highway to relieve traffic congestion in the cramped city. So the deep yard became shallow, and the tree was taken away, and Craig had received nine-hundred dollars which he applied to the mortgage principal. Maura had mourned the loss of the tree. Co-ordinated traffic lights had been installed. The widened road was smooth asphalt with vivid yellow traffic lanes. Day and night the traffic moved endlessly by, silent, orderly, with a sound like breathing.
    Craig walked through the house to the front windows. Enough light came in so he could avoid dark shadows of the furniture. Down in the next street, an entire block of houses