My mother and I had gone to the country to look at a house which was for sale. We looked at several houses and finally came to a rather small one.

We walked to the front door. A woman answered the door and invited us into the small living room. The people living there reminded me of a poor family which used to live across the street from the West Side House (a house in West Portsmouth, Ohio where I lived in 1971).

The house looked quite poor and dismal inside. The paint on the wall was cracked. I asked if I could walk through the rest of the house. They said I could, but I shouldn't look at the dishes piled up in the sink.

A boy (about 10 years old) began showing me through the rest of the house. We walked through a door which had been shut and entered a large room which I thought would have made a better living room than the small front room which was used as a living room.

I was then led into the kitchen. I saw no dirty dishes in the sink, but I did notice a few pots and pans on the table. A small pantry was in the kitchen. My mother hadn't gone into the kitchen and I began thinking she should have come to see what it was like. It was rather large and I was beginning to think it wasn't such a bad house after all.

I stomped my foot on the floor a few times to see how sturdy it was.

I noticed I had picked up some fleas. I wasn't wearing a shirt and saw a number of fleas on me. I began picking them off my chest and arms. I pinched them and threw them onto the floor. It was disgusting how many of them were on me. I saw about a dozen on me at once.

I returned to the living room. The woman who owned the house was talking about having a party in the house. I thought maybe the place would look better if they cleaned it up for a party.

She began talking about the price of the house. Apparently she had been offered $16,400 for it. She said she wanted more than that. My mother acted as if she weren't interested.

They discussed the figure $17,000. My mother didn't want to offer that much, but finally she said she would offer them $17,000. She said she wasn't going to waste time about it. They could either take it or leave it. I was unsure how much the house was worth, but I thought if it were cleaned up, it would be worth $17,000. I thought it would also have to be fumigated to exterminate the fleas. But I feared the fleas couldn't be exterminated.

I could tell by looking at the woman she was probably going to accept the offer. Suddenly I said, "Boy this place sure does have the fleas, doesn't it."

I picked off a couple more fleas and threw them down. I thought about the poor little 10 year old child who must have to constantly have to contend with the fleas. I felt sorry for him.