ouse. It had
been painted brown against the dust, but the keening wind, the
relentless sun, the savage rape of the thunderstorms, they had all
bleached the brown paint into a shining pure gold.

Sam stepped inside and leaned back against the front door, the door of
full-length glass with a border of glass emeralds and rubies. He leaned
back and breathed deep.

The house didn't smell old. It smelled new. It smelled like sawdust and
fresh-hewn lumber as bright and blond as a high school senior's
crewcut.

He walked across the flowered carpet. The carpet didn't mind footsteps
or bright sun. It never became worn or faded. It grew brighter with the
years, the roses turning redder, the sunflowers becoming yellower.

The parlor looked the same as it always did, clean and waiting to be
used. The cane-backed sofa and chairs eagerly waiting to be sat upon,
the bead-shaded kerosene lamps ready to burst into light.

Sam went into his workshop. This had once been the ground level master
bedroom, but he had had to make the change. The work table held its
share of radios, toasters, TV sets, an electric train, a spring-wind
Victrola. Sam threw the nails onto the table and crossed the room,
running his fingers along the silent keyboard of the player piano. He
looked out the window. The bulldozers had made the ground rectangular,
level and brown, turning it into a gigantic half-cent stamp. He
remembered the mail and raised the window and reached down into the
mailbox. It was on this side of the house, because only this side was
technically within city limits.

As he came up with the letters, Sam Collins saw a man sighting along a
plumbline towards his house. He shut the window.

Some of the letters didn't have any postage stamps, just a line of
small print about a $300 fine. Government letters. He went over and
forced them into the tightly packed coal stove. All the trash would be
burned out in the cold weather.

Collins sat down and looked through the rest of his mail. A new
catalogue of electronic parts. A bulky envelope with two paperback
novels by Richard S. Prather and Robert Bloch he had ordered. A couple
of letters from hams. He tossed the mail on the table and leaned back.

* * * * *

He thought about what had happened in the hardware store.

It wasn't surprising it had happened to him. Things like that were bound
to happen to him. He had just been lucky that Ed Michaels had