large or small

I nearly wrote a story about this picture a few weeks ago. The children of winter are my older brother and sisters.
That story remains untold because today, all I can see are the houses behind the children.
Buried behind the snowbank is the home of our childhood, but it is the darker house in the background that startles me.
Although the photo predates stucco siding, I recognize the home of our neighbors.
For some reason, I always saw our homes as a sort of duo, a set. There was The Little House, ours, and The Big House, theirs.
What is startling me now, is the size of The Big House.
How could the very large home of our neighbors actually turn out to be a really rather small house?
I know this is so common that it is almost a cliche, this childhood miss-perception of size,
but being common doesn't make it any less powerful or amazing.

With the eye of memory I can peer through the darkened windows, into the rooms beyond and large or small, that house has a very big place in my memories of childhood.