The town itself was dreary; there wasn't much in it except a cotton mill, two-room houses where some workmen lived, a few peach trees, a church with two stained-glass windows, and a A street that is too long to look like.Every Saturday, tenant farmers from the surrounding countryside come to the city to spend the day chatting and doing business.Except at this time, the town is lonely and melancholy, like a very remote and isolated place.The nearest train station is Society City, and the long-distance buses of the "Spirit" and "White Car" companies take the Fork Falls Highway, which is three miles away.The winters here are short and cold, while the summers are dazzlingly bright and scorchingly hot.

If you wandered the streets on an August afternoon, you would be very bored.In the center of the town, on the largest building in the town, all the doors and windows were boarded up, and the house leaned so far to the right that it seemed to be collapsing every minute.The house is very old, and it has a weird, crazy air about it, so elusive, until it dawns on you that long ago, the right half of the front porch and part of the wall were painted— — but not finished, so that one part of the house is darker and dirtier than another.The house looked completely deserted.There was, however, one window on the second floor that was not boarded; and sometimes, in the most unbearable heat of the afternoon, a hand would be stretched out to slowly open the shutter, and a face would look down on the town. .It was a horrible, indistinct face one sees in nightmares--pale, indistinguishable male or female, with gray cross-eyed eyes so close together that they seemed to be growing. From time to time exchanging secret and sad glances.The face remained at the window for an hour or so, and the shutters were closed again, and no one was seen in the whole street again.There's really nothing to do when you're off duty on an August afternoon like that; you might as well walk down the Fork Falls Highway and hear the convicts sing.

However, there had been a café in this town.This old boarded-up house was once quite unusual for miles around.There have been tables here, with tablecloths and paper napkins on the tables, and colorful paper ribbons fluttering in front of the electric fans.On a Saturday night, it is even more lively.The proprietor of the café is Miss Amelia Evans.But it was a hunchback named Cousin Lymon who made the shop flourish.Also, there's someone else who plays a role in this café story - he's Miss Amelia's ex-husband, a horrible character who returns to town after a long stint in jail and makes a mess of things , and walked away.The café has long since closed, but it remains in people's memory.

The place hadn't always been a café.Miss Amelia had inherited the house from her father, when it was a store which dealt chiefly in fodder, birds, and native produce such as grain and snuff.Miss Amelia is rich.Besides the store, she had a brewery three miles away in the swamp, which made some of the best wine in the county.She was a tall, dark woman with the bones and muscles of a man.Her hair was cut short and brushed back flat, and there was a stern, rugged look on her suntanned face.Even so, she could still be considered a good-looking woman, if she didn't have a slightly squinted eye.There may not be fewer people chasing her, but Miss Amelia doesn't care about the love of the opposite sex at all, she is a withdrawn person by nature.Her marriage was an anecdote in the county--a strange and frightening marriage which lasted only ten days and which baffled and astonished the whole town.Aside from this marriage, Amelia had lived alone.Often she would spend the whole night in her shed in the swamp, in overalls and wellies, silently tending the simmer under the still.

Miss Amelia was well off by herself.She made big and small sausages and sold them in nearby towns.On a clear autumn day, she crushed milo to make syrup, and the syrup she made in her sugar bowl was dark golden and fragrant.It took her just two weeks to build a toilet behind the store out of bricks.She is also very good at carpentry.Only with people, Miss Amelia did not know how to get along.People, unless they're mentally ill or seriously ill, you can't take them and turn them into something of value and moneymaking overnight.In Miss Amelia's view, the only use of people is to wring money out of them.In this she is successful.She borrowed money against her crops and her own real estate to buy a sawmill, and the bank piled up—she became the richest woman for miles around.She would have been as rich as a member of parliament, but she had a fatal weakness, and that was a special love for lawsuits and lawsuits.She'd be embroiled in long, bitter lawsuits over little things.It was said that if Miss Amelia stumbled over a stone in the road, she would instinctively look about her, as if looking for someone to go to court.Except for the lawsuit, her life is very peaceful, and every day is similar to the previous day.Only the ten-day marriage was an exception.Apart from this incident, her life was unchanged until the spring when Miss Amelia was thirty.

It was near midnight on a warm, quiet night in April.The sky was the blue of a swamp iris, and the moonlight was clear and bright.The crops were doing well that spring.Cotton mills have been working night shifts for the past few weeks.The square brick factory on the lower reaches of the small river was lit with yellow lights, and there was the soft and endless humming of looms.On such a night you hear the slow singing of a negro on his way to court, far away across the dark fields, and you find it amusing.Even sitting quietly, strumming a guitar, or taking a break by yourself without thinking about anything can be quite rewarding.

The street was deserted that night, but the lights in Miss Amelia's shop were on, and there were five people outside on the front porch.One of them was Stout MacPhail, a foreman with a purple face and thin, purple hands.Sitting on the top step were two boys in overalls, the Renee twins--both tall, thin, slow-moving, with graying hair and green eyes that were always half-awkward. Awake.The other was Henry Macy, a shy, timid man of gentle, slightly nervous manner, who sat on the edge of the lowest step.Miss Amelia stood herself, leaning against the frame of the open door, her feet in heavy wellies crossed, patiently unknotting a rope she had picked up.They didn't speak for a long time.

One of the twins, who had been looking at the empty road, spoke first. "I saw something coming," he said. "It's a stray calf," said his brother. The figure walking over was still too far away to see clearly.The moon cast a hazy, distorted shadow on the row of blossoming peach trees by the road.In the air the scent of flowers, the sweet smell of spring grass, and the warm, sour smell of the nearby lagoon mingled. "No, that's someone's kid," Stumpy MacPhail said. Amelia watched the road silently.She dropped the rope and ran her bony brown hands at the straps of her overalls.She frowned, a lock of black hair falling over her forehead.While they waited, someone's dog on the road barked like a maniac until someone from the house stopped it with a few shouts.The five people didn't see what it was until the figure approached and walked into the yellow light circle near the porch.

It was a stranger, and it was not unusual for strangers to walk into town at such an hour.Besides, the man was a hunchback, not more than four feet high, and wore an old, shabby coat that came up to his knees. Even his thin, bandy legs seemed to be struggling to support his large dick breasts and the large hump behind his shoulders.He also had a very large head, with deep-set blue eyes and a small, thin mouth.His face was floppy and rough--at this moment, his pale face was yellow with dust, and there were lavender shadows under his eyes.He was carrying an old crooked suitcase tied up with rope.

"Good evening," said the hunchback, out of breath. Miss Amelia and the men on the front porch neither greeted nor spoke.They just looked at him. "I'm looking for a Miss Amelia Evans." Miss Amelia brushed her hair back from her forehead and raised her chin. "what happened?" "Because she is my relation," answered the hunchback. The twins and Stumpy MacPhail looked up at Miss Amelia. "I am," she said. "When you say 'relative', what do you mean?" "That's because..." the hunchback began.He looked coy and uneasy, as if he was on the verge of tears.He set the suitcase down on the lowest step without letting go of the handle. "My mother's name is Finney Suppo, and she's from Chehoe. She left Chehoe about thirty years ago when she first got married. I remember her saying that she had a half-father named Martha. Half-sister. This one's in Chehoe, and I'm told that's your mother."

Miss Amelia listened with her head slightly on one side.She always ate Sunday supper alone, and never had a large group of relatives come and go in and out of her house.She did have a great-aunt who owned a carriage dealer in Chehoe, but the old lady was dead.Besides this, there was only one cousin who lived in a town twenty miles away, but this person was not on good terms with Miss Amelia, and when they met face to face, they both spat on the side of the road.More than once, attempts were made to establish some devious relationship with Miss Amelia, but in vain. The hunchback memorized a stinky and long family tree, and mentioned some names of people and places that seemed to be a thousand miles away from the topic, all of which were unknown to the audience in the front porch. "So Finny and Martha Jesup are half-sisters. And I'm the son of Finny's third husband. So you and I are..." He bent down to explain. The rope on the suitcase.Those two hands were like bird claws, trembling unceasingly.It was full of all sorts of rags—worn clothes and quaint waste, a bit like parts for a sewing machine, or something equally useless.The hunchback dug around for a long time and found an old photo. "Here's a photo of my mom with her half-sister." Miss Amelia said nothing.She moved her jaw from side to side.You can tell from her face what she's thinking.Stumpy MacPhail took the photograph and leaned over to look at it under the light.The photographs showed two pale, shriveled children of two or three years old.The two faces are just two indistinct white balls, and you can say which family's photobook they were torn from. Stumpy MacPhail handed back the photo without comment. "Where are you from?" he asked. The hunchback's voice was hesitant. "I'm wandering around." Miss Amelia remained silent.She just leaned against the door and looked down at the hunchback.Henry Macy blinked nervously and rubbed his hands together.Then without a word he left the lowest step and went away.He was a soft-hearted man, and the hunchback's situation was so sympathetic to him that he didn't want to wait here to see Miss Amelia drive the newcomers off her property and out of town.The hunchback stood with his suitcase open on the lowest step; he sniffed and his mouth moved.Perhaps he was beginning to feel that his situation was not good.Maybe he understood how bad it was for a stranger to come to town with a suitcase of junk and befriend Miss Amelia.Anyway, he sat down on the steps and suddenly burst into tears. It's not unusual for a hunchback to come into the store in the middle of the night and then sit down and cry.Miss Amelia pushed back the lock of hair from her forehead, and the men looked at each other uneasily.The whole town was silent. Finally, one of the twins said, "It would be a wonder if he wasn't the real Maurice Feinstein." Everyone nodded in agreement because it was a special statement.But the hunchback cried louder, for he did not know what they were talking about.Maurice Feinstein was a guy who lived in the town many years ago.He was really just a quick, bouncing little Jew who ate loose bread and tinned salmon every day and cried when you said he killed Christ.Then a bad luck happened to him and he moved to Society City.But since then, whenever a man is unmanly and cries, people say he is Maurice Feinstein. "Well, he's troubled," said Humpty MacPhail. "There's always a reason for that." Miss Amelia took two slow, awkward steps of hers, across the front porch, down the steps, and stood looking thoughtfully at the stranger.Cautiously, she poked a long, tan index finger at the hump on his back.The hunchback was still crying, but it was quieter.The night was very still, and the light of the moon was still soft and clear—the weather was getting cooler.At this moment Miss Amelia did a strange thing; she took a bottle from her hip pocket, unscrewed the cap with the palm of her hand, and offered the hunchback to drink.Miss Amelia did not give wine on credit lightly, and it was almost unprecedented for her to ask for a free drop. "Drink," she said, "it will whet your appetite." The hunchback stopped sobbing, licked the tears from around his mouth, and did as he was told.When he had finished, Miss Amelia took a sip slowly, warmed her mouth with the wine, rinsed it, and spat it out.Then she drank too.The twins and the foreman had wine they had bought with their own money. "It's a real wine," said Stout MacPhail. "Miss Amelia, you've never had a bad brew." It was important that they drank (two large bottles of whiskey) that night.Otherwise, it is difficult to imagine what will happen later.Perhaps without this wine there would be no café at all.Miss Amelia's wine is indeed distinctive.It is very clear, tastes very strong on the tongue, and has a strong aftertaste.But there's more to it than that.Everyone knows that writing on white paper with lemon juice is invisible.But if the paper is baked on the fire, the brown characters will appear, and the meaning will be clear.Imagine that the whiskey is the fire, and the words are the thoughts that people hide in their souls—then you will understand what Miss Amelia's wine means.Things that had been neglected in the past, thoughts that were dormant in a dark corner of the mind, were suddenly recognized and understood.A weaver who never thinks of a spinning machine, a lunchbox, a bed, and then a spinning machine—such a man might have had a few glasses of wine one Sunday and see a lily in the swamp.Maybe he would hold the flower in his hand and observe the slender golden wine cup-shaped flower carefully, maybe a sweet feeling as prickly as pain would suddenly arise in his heart.A weaver may suddenly look up and see for the first time in his life that cold, magical light in the January midnight sky, and a deep dread of his own insignificance will suddenly make his heart momentary. stop beating.That's what happens when one drinks Miss Amelia's wine.He may be pained, he may be paralyzed with joy—but such an experience reveals the truth; he warms his soul and sees the message hidden there. They drank until well after midnight, when the moon hid behind the clouds and the night became cold and dark.The hunchback was still sitting on the lowest step, leaning forward pitifully, with his forehead resting on his knees.Miss Amelia was standing with her hands in her trouser pockets and one foot on the second step.She has not spoken for a long time.Her expression was often seen on the faces of people with slightly squinting eyes, and when they were thinking, their faces were always very clever and very crazy.Finally, she spoke: "I don't know your name." "My name is Lemon Willis," said the hunchback. "Well, you go into the house," she said. "There's some leftovers on the stove, you can eat them." In Amelia's life, apart from those times when she was trying to play tricks on others and try to blackmail them, the number of times she invited people to dinner was really rare.So something didn't feel quite right to those on the front porch.They murmured to each other afterward that she must have been drinking on the other side of the swamp that afternoon.Anyway, she left the front porch, and Stumpy MacPhail and the twins started home.She bolted the front door and glanced around to see if her goods were all in order.Then she went into the kitchen, which was at the far end of the shop.The hunchback followed her, tugging at his suitcase, sniffing and wiping his nose with the cuff of his dirty coat. "Sit down," said Miss Amelia, "and I'll heat up the food." The meal they ate together that evening was quite substantial.Miss Amelia is rich, and never treats herself badly when it comes to eating and drinking.Among the meals are fried chicken (the breast meat was picked up by the hunchback to his own bowl), mashed yam, meat rolls mixed with green vegetables, and pale golden hot sweet potatoes.Miss Amelia ate slowly, with a farmer's appetite.She ate with her elbows on the table, her head bent over the basin, her knees wide apart, and her feet resting on the rung of the chair.As for the hunchback, he devoured it as if he hadn't smelled food in months.While eating, a tear slowly slid down his dirty cheek--it was just a small remnant tear from just now, and it had no special meaning.The lamp on the table was well wiped, and with a ring of blue light around the edge of the wick, it cast a cheerful glow in the kitchen.When Miss Amelia had finished her supper, she wiped the basin clean with a piece of soft bread, and poured clear, fragrant syrup of her own upon it.The hunchback did the same, but he was more particular about it, and even had to replace it with a clean basin.When Miss Amelia had finished eating, she tilted back her chair, clenched her right fist, and with her left hand touched the hard muscle of her right arm under the clean blue blouse—this had become a habit of hers after every meal. Consciously used to action.Then she took the lamp from the table, and nodding her head toward the stairs, motioned the hunchback to follow her upstairs. Upstairs from the shop were three rooms where Miss Amelia had lived from her birth--two bedrooms, with a large drawing room in between.Few people have visited these rooms, but they are known to be well furnished and kept very clean.But now Miss Amelia brought upstairs a dirty little hunchback that came out of nowhere.Miss Amelia walked two steps at a time, walking slowly, with the lamp held high.The hunchback was so close behind her that the shadows cast by the flickering lights on the stair wall merged into one big twisted mass.Soon, the windows on the second floor of the shop were pitch black, as was the whole town. The next morning, the weather was clear, and the warm purple morning glow was mixed with a few touches of rose-colored light.In the fields on the outskirts of the town, the soil plots were newly plowed.Early in the morning, the sharecroppers were planting dark green tobacco seedlings.The crows of the countryside flew close to the ground, casting blue shadows flying across the fields.In the town, people carried their lunch boxes to work early, and the windows of the textile factory shone brightly in the sun.The air is fresh, and the peach trees are blooming, as light as the clouds in March. Miss Amelia came down at dawn, as usual.She ran the punch at the pump and was soon at work.At noon, she saddled the mule and rode it to see her field, which was growing cotton, near the Fork Falls Highway.By noon, of course, everyone had heard about the fact that the hunchback had come to the store in the middle of the night.But no one has seen him yet.Soon the weather became very sweltering, and the sky was a rich, noontime azure.Still no one saw the strange guest appear.A few remembered that Miss Amelia's mother had a half-sister--but whether she had died or eloped with a tobacco worker was somewhat divided, as for the hunchback who claimed to be Miss Amelia's relatives, everyone thought that was nonsense.Everyone in the town knew what Miss Amelia was, and thought she must have thrown the hunchback out of the house after she fed him.But toward dusk, when the sky was turning white again and the factory closed, a woman claimed to have seen a strange-looking face poking out of the window of a room above the shop.Miss Amelia herself said not a word.She took care of the shop for a while, haggled for an hour with a farmer for a plowshare, repaired a few chicken coops, locked the door and went upstairs to her room as the sun was about to set.This made people in the whole town puzzled and talked a lot. The next day, Miss Amelia did not open the shop, but locked the door and stayed in the house, seeing no one.That was the day the rumors began to spread--horrible rumors that frightened the whole town and country.The rumor first spread from a weaver named Merry Ryan.He was a man of few words--sallow, shambling, with not a single tooth left in his mouth.He has three-day malaria, which means he has a fever every three days.So, for two days he was dull and grumpy, but by the third day he was alive.Sometimes he would come up with some strange ideas, most of them were inexplicable.It was one of those days when Merry Ryan was in a fever when he turned suddenly and said: "I know what happened to Miss Amelia. She murdered the man for the contents of the box."