Over a bar of dredged in earth, Ballet sped. In the growing sunlight figures slowly made for the converging seacoast.
Work-folk yelled to Ballet tidings of the dawn....
"Why yo' don' tek de chiggahs out o' yo' heel an' walk lik' yo' got life in yo' body—"
"Yo' gwine be late, too."
"Yo' go 'long, bo, Oi ent hurrin' fo' de Lawd Gawd Heself dis mawnin'—"
Ahead a vision of buxom green cocoa palms spread like a crescent—from the old rickety wooden houses walled behind the preserves of the quarantine station all the way past the cabins of the fishing folk and dinky bathhouses for the blacks to the unseemly array of garbage at the dump. Out to the seacoast and the writhing palms swarmed men from Coolie Town, Bottle Alley, Bolivar Street, Boca Grande, Silver City.
As he approached the edge of the sea, Ballet waded through grass which rose higher and thicker, whose dew lay in glimmering crystal moistures. Beyond the palm trees opened a vista of the river, the color of brackish water. Empty cocoanut husks cluttered the ground. Sitting on upturned canoes men smoked pipes and sharpened tools, murmuring softly. All across the bay labor boats formed a lane, a lane to Toro Point, shining on the blue horizon.
Drawing nearer the crux of things, Mouth ran up to Ballet and put an unsteady, excited grip on his shoulder.
"Ballet, bettah don' go t' wuk teeday—"