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To a just-married girl and boy, a home is something more than walls and a roof
I'VE always said that no matter how bad I needed the money, I wouldn't take in roomers. There's something
about having a stranger living in your house, somebody that's no kin, that spoils the house for me — or anyway, that's what I always thought until the day Nick and Wanda Farrell stopped while I was weeding the front canna-bed and asked for a drink of water.
The water was for Wanda, and after one look at her I took her by the arm and led her up to the front porch. It was a blistering hot. day, and she was just about beat out. She was only a little thing, with great big black eyes swimming in a white face and soft baby-fine hair clustering in damp curls over her forehead. She'd have been pretty if she hadn't been so thin and tired. And of course I saw right away that she was going to have a baby before very much longer.
"Drink it slow, now," I told her when I'd brought the water, and then I poured another glass and handed it to her husband. He was a good-looking boy — neither of them could have been more than twenty-three or so — dressed in a brown gabardine suit that had cost a fair amount of money. The girl's clothes were good, too, so I figured they weren't poor. But something was wrong,
because you never did see two more discouragedlooking young people.
"New in Littleton?" I asked the boy.
He nodded, his eyes anxiously on the girl, who was lying back in the porch swing with her eyes closed. "We don't really live here," he said. "Anyway, not yet." His lips twisted into a wry smile. "Looks like not ever. I've got a job in Metropole, and we're looking for a house or an apartment or — or anything at all. Right now we've got a room in the Metropole Hotel, but we'll have to give it up day after tomorrow. After that — " He broke off, and shrugged hopelessly.
"There's a house for sale over on Carlton Road," I said, and he nodded.
"And what they want for it! I just don't make that kind of money," he said wearily.
I knew what he was up against. I'd seen them in Littleton for the past year and a half — young folks looking desperately for a spot they could call home. There were some barracks over on the edge of town, but they were full. If you didn't have the money for a downpayment on a house that cost twice what it had in normal times, you were bound (Continued on page 71)
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