Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-18
THE HOUSE WE USED TO LIVE IN.

moving. subject Of The Houses We used
To Live In.
Pretty hard. isn't it. to regard with
entire Indifference. when you pass them
by after lapse of years, The Houses
You Used To Live In?
Somehow or another. at the first glance,
you can't help feeling that the folks
now living in The House You Used To
Live In are interlopers. They've no
right there. They're squatters. They
are holding unrightful possession. They've
slid in in an underhand sort OF way.
Look at that man coming out OF the
Of customer. and he walks down the
steps to the gate as If he really had
some kind of right to the premises.
And the pretty little. tidy little woman
who appears in the vestibule door to
wave him da-da-what is she doing there.
anyhow? It's ridiculous. It's absurd.
Those folks ought to be Informed that
they're trespassing. Can 1t be possible
that they think they're entitled to sit
before those little "parlor'' windows,
watching the whistling or can-kicking
boys go by and not feel as IL they're
mere company? Well, we'll!
It's wrong. OF course. but it really is
hard to get used to the idea that the
other folks now living there have any
sort of proprietary rights in The House
You Used To Live In.
Then. when you pass by at night the
House You Used to Live In, and see the
little old plant all lighted UP, even the
room on the second floor where you used
to loll back at eventide and smoke pipe
until you were more or less black in the
face, and figure 1t all out how You were
going to get all the money and fame and
things worth having-even that room.
dazzlingly Illuminated with all OF the
flamingness Of the two weak. purring lit
tie gas jets, why, don't you experience q
sort OF lonesome feeling, and begin to
null over the happenings. not many of
them very satisfying. that have filled
the intervening years since you lived
there; and when you trudge by the house,
still In that sort OF a brown study over
things, don't you find yourself inyolun-
tarily nudging toward the gate with the
aimless and, of course, imbecile subcon-
scious idea of walking up the steps of
The House You Used To Live In?
Not SO long ago. while in Chicago, I
made deliberate pilgrimage to a point
way over on the South Side to have
a little retrospective look at a House I
Used To Live In seventeen years ago.
1t was-or is-a little frame house not
far from the corner of Cottage Grove
avenue and 39th street. 1t was compare
lively new. all bedight with paint and
trigness, when lived there back yonder
But it was a black, dismal-enough-look-
ing little shack when ! stood In front of
1t and thought a lot OF things over one
hay. broodish day not SO long ago. 1t
was sort Of falling down. The little plat
Of grass in front that used to look so
greeny-weeny in the raw Chicago April
now was nothing but cracked. caked mud
not even the naked vines Of the wis.aria
and honeysuckle thae used to Chamber
over the porch were now visible a num-
Der of the panes of glass in the front win
dows were missing and were stuffed with
vari-hued patchings from homely gar
ments.
A family Of suspicious Germans lived in
the house. The Germans didn't like the
way stood in front of the House l Used
To Live In. They had prefigurations,
presumably, of burglaries and such. The
inordinately stoutish mother Of the Ger
man family, anyhow. came to the front
from window for a while, and, after be-
glares at me. staked me 10 an inquiry
which, SO far as I could make 1t out,
sounded like: We'll? Vat you gant?"
didn't want anything l weni away
from there. If l hadn't gone away from
there probably / should have been ar
rested as a suspicious character. But 1t
seemed odd at that. The seventeen inter-
vening years were but as a little cloud
passing over the sun, and l didn't even
have to close my eyes to remember all OF
the details of living as they had been