The house next door went up in smoke and flames one night ten or fifteen years ago - defective wiring - and where it stood there is a two-story apartment house that covers half of what used to be our side yard. Here and there all over town big old houses are missing, or between two old houses that have survived somebody has inserted a new house, spoiling my recollection of things. When I come upon the new hospital I totally lose my bearings. Where exactly was the little grocery store my mother used to send me to when she discovered she was out of rice or butter or baking soda? And which wing of the hospital has obliterated the huge bed of violets in the back yard of the house where old Mrs. Harts lived with her son Dave, who never married? And was the bed of violets huge only because the child who once a year knocked on the back door and asked for permission to pick them was so small?