Our Horatio Alger House

The deal began to seem feasible. I presume it was a final offer on my father's part that enabled Dr. Marsh to stop in the store on that fateful winter morning with his words of assurance. Whether it was before or after the deal was ·consummated that my parents requested to see the inside of the Smith House, I am not sure. Strange as it may seem, I think it not at all impossible that they would have bought it without an inspection. Indeed, suggesting that you wanted to check out the condition of the "Smith House," would have seemed as presumptuous as a customers saying to a Rolls Royce dealer, I would like my garage man to check out your car before I buy it! But we did needto see-the-house-before-moving-day-soasto knowwhatfumiture·was needed: · Dr. Marsh made an appointment to meet us there. On his arrivaJ, he was very much embarrassed. He had no key. "But surely," he said, "there is some way to enter the house." Although there were five entrances, the doors were fonnidable. In each case, you had to go through two separate doors to enter the house. The outside backdoor led only onto the porch and there one confronted two very solid doors -- one to the kitchen and one to the pantry. There were two doors on the south side of the house, both leading into the sun parlor. Huge plate-glass double doors opened from the sun porch into the dining room. The inner front door was a work of art, beveled glass, oblong panels held together by lead joints like o stained glass window. When the sun shone through the beveled glass, rainbow prisms decorated the hallway. That door opened into a tiled floor vestibule where guests could leave their boots and umbrellas. Heavy plate glass doors. on the other side of the vestibule, led to the front porch that went completely across the front of the house. The side door, on the north side of the house, was almost as elaborate as the front door. The inner door was a massive, plate glass door that also opened into a vestibule, this one with a cement floor under a separate little structure. The outer door opened into a porte-cochere that provided welcome protection for us and all guests who arrived at our house. Breaking down any of these doors was unthinkable! Beside the large, square kitchen in the rear of the house was a butler's pantry, entered from the kitchen through a swinging door, full of shelves for dishes and drawers for silverware. Beside that, through another swinging door, was the "cold pantry." where the ice box was placed. On the outer wall of that room was a cupboard with a grating to the outdoors. That cupboard would take the place of the refiigerator in the winter time. Dr. Marsh and my father realized that the grating could be removed and my six year old brother could climb in and unlock the back doors from the inside. My father called out directions to Neil as he opened the cupboard door, the door to the back porch, and then the porch door. We all entered the fortress house with my brother very proud ofhis doing something no one else in the family could have done! The Smith House stood empty for several months but every now and then a truck would pull up, workmen would get out, and later leave the house with boxes of something. It was only when the neighbor across the street excitedly -- and as it later turned out, inaccurately, -- reported to the