The first white men who came here found the whole face of the earth covered with a thick forest growth of cypress and gum and ash, matted, tangled with powerful vines, and held by the tides that rose and fell as they do now, twice every day. Those men bought slaves, Breeze’s and Sherry’s and his own great-grandfathers and mothers, African people fresh from the Guinea Coast. The slaves diked and banked up the land so the forest growth could be removed, then they canaled and ditched and banked it into smaller well-drained tracts which were planted with rice. And rice made the plantation owners rich.
For years the lands were held by children and grandchildren of those first settlers, but nearly every old plantation home has been burned or sold or abandoned. The rich rice-fields are deserted. The old dikes and flood-gates that stood as guardians are broken and rotted. The tide rolls over all as it did before the land was ever cleared. It has taken back its own.
A whistle not far away gave a shrill ugly shriek. “Lawd, de boat is lated to-day! Wha’ time it is, Uncle Bill?”
Uncle cast a quick glance up at the sun. “A li’l’ after four, son.”
Sherry considered. “De boat ain’ but two hours lated. Pretty good, for dat old slow coach, enty?”
“Kin you tell de time, Breeze?”
“I kin tell if it ain’ cloudy, neither rainin’, in de daytime.”
Sherry said there were many other ways to tell; the tide runs true, rain or shine, morning-glories and lots of other flowers open and close by the time. Big Sue’s yard was full of four-o’clocks. They’d be wide open now. Birds change their songs with the turn of the afternoon. “Listen! You can hear a red-bird whistlin’ right now. Dis morning he went so——” Sherry pursed his lips and mimicked a bar of bird song.
“Now e says to dis——” And he whistled a few notes that the bird himself echoed. “Dat bird knows it’s past four. A red-bird knows de time every bit as good as Uncle. Grass blades moves wid de day too. Dey leans dis way an’ dat to get de light. A lot o’ t’ings is got mo’ sense dan people, enty, Uncle?”
“Sho’!” Uncle Bill declared. “If you watch t’ings close, you’ll git wise. Wise! Take Uncle Isaac; e can’ read readin’ or either writin’ but he knows more’n any school-teacher or either preacher dat ever came to Blue Brook.”