Starting home, he took Rose-Ellen's small damp hand in his big
damp one. The sun blinded them as they walked westward, and the
heat struck at them fiercely from pavement and wall, as if it
were fighting them. Rose-Ellen was strong and didn't mind. She
held her head straight to make her thick brown curls hit against
her backbone. She knew she was pretty, with her round face and
dark-lashed hazel eyes; and that nobody would think her starchy
short pink dress was old, because Grandma had mended it so
nicely. Grandma had darned the short socks that turned down to
her stout slippers, too; and Grandpa had mended the slippers till
the tops would hardly hold another pair of soles.
"Hi, Rosie!" called Julie Albi, who lived next door. "C'm'out and
play after supper?"
"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.
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