The boardwalk was only lighted at intervals and there were long stretches which she had to cross in the dark. However, Miss Goering, usually so timorous, was not frightened in the least. She even felt a kind of elation, which is common in certain unbalanced but sanguine persons when they begin to approach the thing they fear. She became more agile in avoiding the loose boards, and even made little leaps around them. She could now see the landing dock at the end of the boardwalk. It was very brightly lighted and the municipality had erected a good-sized flagpole in the center of the platform. The flag was now wrapped around the pole in great folds, but Miss Goering could distinguish easily the red and white stripes and the stars. She was delighted to see the flag in this far-off place, for she hadn’t imagined that there would be any organization at all on the tip of the island.
“Why, people have been living here for years,” she said to herself. “It is strange that I hadn’t thought of this before. They’re here naturally, with their family ties, their neighborhood stores, their sense of decency and morality, and they have certainly their organizations for fighting the criminals of the community.” She felt almost happy now that she had remembered all this.
She was the only person waiting for the ferry. Once she had got on, she went straight to the prow of the boat and stood watching the mainland until they reached the opposite shore. The ferry dock was at the foot of a road which joined the main street at the summit of a short steep hill. Trucks were still obliged to stop short at the top of the hill and unload their freight into wheelbarrows, which were then rolled cautiously down to the dock. Looking up from the dock, it was possible to see the side walls of the two stores at the end of the main street but not very much more. The road was so brightly lighted on either side that it was possible for Miss Goering to distinguish most of the details on the clothing of the persons who were coming down the hill to board the ferry.
She saw coming towards her three young women holding onto one another’s arms and giggling. They were very fancily dressed and were trying to hold onto their hats as well as one another. This made their progress very slow, but half-way down the hill they called to someone on the dock who was standing near the post to which the ferry had been moored.
“Don’t you leave without us, George,” they yelled to him, and he waved his hand back in a friendly manner.
There were many young men coming down the hill and they too seemed to be dressed for something special. Their shoes were well shined, and many of them wore flowers in their buttonholes. Even those who had started long after the three young women quickly trotted past them. Each time this happened the girls would go into gales of laughter, which Miss Goering could hear only faintly from where she stood. More and more people kept appearing over the top of the hill and most of them, it seemed to Miss Goering, did not exceed the age of thirty. She stepped to the side and soon they were talking and laughing together all over the foredeck and the bridge of the ferry. She was very curious to know where they were going, but her spirits had been considerably dampened by witnessing the exodus, which she took as a bad omen. She finally decided that she would question a young man who was still on the dock and standing not very far away from her.
“Young man,” she said to him, “would you mind telling me if you are all actually going on some lark together in a group or if it’s a coincidence?”
“We’re all going to the same place,” said the boy, “as far as I know.”
“Well, could you tell me where that is?” asked Miss Goering.
“Pig Snout’s Hook,” he answered. Just then the ferry whistle blew. He hastily took leave of Miss Goering and ran to join his friends on the foredeck.
Miss Goering struggled up the hill entirely alone. She kept her eye on the wall of the last store on the main street. An advertising artist had painted in vivid pinks a baby’s face of giant dimensions on half the surface of the wall, and in the remaining space a tremendous rubber nipple. Miss Goering wondered what Pig Snout’s Hook was. She was rather disappointed when she arrived at the top of the hill to find that the main street was rather empty and dimly lighted. She had perhaps been misled by the brilliant colors of the advertisement of the baby’s nipple and had half hoped that the entire town would be similarly garish.
Before proceeding down the main street she decided to examine the painted sign more closely. In order to do this she had to step across an empty lot. Very near to the advertisement she noticed that an old man was bending over some crates and trying to wrench the nails loose from the boards. She decided that she would ask him whether or not he knew where Pig Snout’s Hook was.
She approached him and stood watching for a little while before asking her question. He was wearing a green plaid jacket and a little cap of the same material. He was terribly busy trying to pry a nail from the crate with only a thin stick as a tool.
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Goering to him finally, “but I would like to know where Pig Snout’s Hook is and also why anyone would go there, if you know.”
The man continued to bother with the nail, but Miss Goering could tell that he was really interested in her question.
“Pig Snout’s Hook?” said the man. “That’s easy. It’s a new place, a cabaret.”
“Does everyone go there?” Miss Goering asked him.
“If they are the kind who are fools, they go.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why do I say that?” said the man, getting up finally and putting his stick in his pocket. “Why do I say that? Because they go there for the pleasure of being cheated out of their last penny. The meat is just horsemeat, you know. This size and it ain’t red. It’s a kind of gray, without a sign of a potato near it, and it costs plenty too. They’re all as poor as church mice besides, without a single ounce of knowledge about life in the whole crowd of them. Like a lot of dogs straining at the leash.”
“And then they all go together to Pig Snout’s Hook every single night?”
“I don’t know when they go to Pig Snout’s Hook,” said the man, “any more than I know what cockroaches are doing every night.”
“Well, what’s so wrong about Pig Snout’s Hook?” Miss Goering asked him.
“There’s one thing wrong,” said the man growing more and more interested, “and that’s that they’ve got a nigger there that jumps up and down in front of a mirror in his room all day long until he sweats and then he does the same thing in front of these lads and lassies and they think he’s playing them music. He’s got an expensive instrument all right, because I know where he bought it and I’m not saying whether or not he paid for it, but I know he sticks it in his mouth and then starts moving around with his long arms like the arms of a spider and they just won’t listen to nothin’ else but him.”
“Well,” said Miss Goering, “certain people do like that type of music.”
“Yes,” said the man, “certain people do like that type of music and there are people who live together and eat at table together stark naked all the year long and there are others who we both know about”—he looked very mysterious—“but,” he continued, “in my day money was worth a pound of sugar or butter or lard any time. When we went out we got what we paid for plus a dog jumpin’ through burning hoops, and steaks you could rest your chin on.”
“What do you mean?” asked Miss Goering—“a dog jumping through burning hoops?”
“Well,” said the man, “you can train them to do anything with years of real patience and perseverance and lots of headaches too. You get a hoop and you light it all around and these poodles, if they’re the real thing, will leap through them like birds flying in the air. Of course it’s a rare thing to see them doing this, but they’ve been right here in this town flying right through the centers of burning hoops. Of course people were older then and they cared for their money better and they didn’t want to see a black jumping up and down. They would rather prefer to put a new roof on their house.” He laughed.