He felt dimly that, in a way, they were like the heaven his mother had taught him--altogether perfect and altogether unattainable and not to be thought of with any degree of familiarity.
So his memory of the woman was indistinct, as of something which did not properly belong to the picture.

He clung instead to the memory of the warm stove, and the strip of carpet, and the table with the red cloth, and to the puffy, white pillows on the bed.
The wind mourned again insistently at the corner.

Billy lifted his head and looked once more around the cabin.

The reality was depressing--doubly depressing in contrast to the memory of that other room.

A stove stood in the southwest corner, but it was not black and shining; it was rust-red and ash-littered, and the ashes had overflowed the hearth and spilled to the unswept floor.