A coal chute at the back told him where the alley used to be; as for the ancient coal furnace, Don assumed that it was still in the cellar—who could move such a monster?—but that it hadn't been in use for fifty years at least. Good riddance. Nobody better get nostalgic for those old days of coal-fired furnaces. On one house Don had fixed up a few years back, he got curious, brought in a small load of coal, and stoked up the furnace. Besides the black filth all over him by the time he got the thing going, an astonishing amount of soot spewed from the chimney. Flecks of it fell like ash from Mount St. Helen's, or so it seemed to him. No wonder people stopped using coal the minute gas or heating oil became available. This stuff made car exhaust seem clean and healthy.

The more he saw of the house the better he liked it. The wood trim was beautifully made and, despite the fading of the paint, very little of it would need to be replaced. Where a board or two had weathered and sagged away from the windows, he could see that the original glass was still intact. Where were the neighborhood boys with rocks? Apparently the boarding up had been done before the vandals could get to work. The work this house required was enormous, but it was also worth doing. Whoever built this place had used only the best materials, and the workmen had clearly made it a labor of love. Restoring it to its former glory would be hard, intense labor, months and months of it. But when he was done, the house would be magnificent.

I want this place. Don hated to admit it to himself—he knew that this meant he would probably pay more than it was worth. But then, after so many years of neglect, it was possible the owner would be glad to get it off his hands. The price might be low enough for Don to pass the threshold: He might be able to pay cash for the place instead of borrowing from the bank. He had walked away from his last fixer-upper with almost a hundred thousand dollars. If the house came in for under fifty, he'd have enough left over for materials, the occasional subcontractor, and his own meager living expenses during the year it would take to renovate the place. No more borrowing, no more banks, no more money poured down the interest rathole.