Miz Pinch unties me an jerks her head. I follow her, shufflin onto deck in my ankle an wrist chains. I stand there, blinkin in the bright daylight. I feel dazed. I ain’t bin outside the dark cramped hut since they snatched us. Must be five, six days ago now. I squint at the sun. High noon. Hopetown spreads out in front of us, half a league away. It squats at the foot of a dusty hill an straggles up its slopes. I ain’t never seen more’n one shanty at a time before. Heard tell of how Wreckers lived, all crammed close together in cities an towns, but never thought I’d see such a place. An it never crossed my mind that if I did see such a place, it wouldn’t be nuthin more’n a heap of ramshack shanties leanin one aginst th’other. It looks like the whole lot ’ud come tumblin down if you gave one a good kick. What a fine sight! says Pinch. Nothing like the hurly burly of city life to gladden the heart! There’s commotion all around us. Folks rattle past the Swan in clouds of dust, in carts pulled by fierce-lookin wolfdogs, on horseback, by mule an camel, on foot.
