"Next door" was the right way to say it. This Philadelphia street
was like two block-long houses, facing each other across a strip
of pavement, each with many pairs of twin front doors, each pair
with two scrubbed stone steps down to the sidewalk, and two bay
windows bulging out upstairs, so that they seemed nearly to touch
the ones across the narrow street. Rose-Ellen and Julie shared
twin doors and steps; and inside only a thin wall separated them.

At the door Dick overtook Grandpa and Rose-Ellen. Dick was
twelve. Sometimes Rose-Ellen considered him nothing but a
nuisance, and sometimes she was proud of his tallness, his curly
fair hair and bright blue eyes. He dashed in ahead when Grandpa
turned the key, but Grandpa lingered.

Rose-Ellen said, "Hurry, Grampa, everything's getting cold." But
she understood. He was thinking that their dear old house was no
longer theirs. Something strange had happened to it, called "sold
for taxes," and they were allowed to live in it only this summer.

Grandma blamed the shop. It had brought in the money to buy the
house in the first place and had kept it up until a few years
ago. It had put Daddy through a year in college. Now it was
failing. Once, it seemed, people bought good shoes and had them
mended many times. Then came days when many people were poor.
They had to buy shoes too cheap to be mended; so when the soles
wore out, the people threw the shoes away and bought more cheap
ones. No longer were Grandpa's shoe racks crowded. No longer was
there money even for taxes. All Grandpa took in was barely enough
for food and shop rent. But what else besides mending shoes and
farming did he know how to do? And who would hire an old man when