Village books

Moored to the shore, lay the wharf-boat in weathered greens
and yellows. As a background for the whole scene rose the dark-green
height of what was called the "Big Hill," an eminence that separated the
negro village on the east from the white village on the west. The hill
itself held no houses, but appeared a solid green-black with cedars.
The ensemble was merely another lonely spot on the south bank of the
great somnolent river. It looked dead, deserted, a typical river town,
unprodded even by the hoot of a jerk-water railroad.
As the launch chortled toward the wharf, Peter Siner stood trying to
orient himself to this unexpected and amazing minifying of Hooker's
Bend. He had left a metropolis; he was coming back to a tumble-down
village. Yet nothing was changed. Even the two scraggly locust-trees
that clung perilously to the brink of the river bank still held their
toe-hold among the strata of limestone.
The negro deck-hand came out and pumped the hand-power whistle in three
long discordant blasts. Then a queer thing happened.


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