Killing Cousins

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The town of Quivera, in spite of its intrusion upon a legend, is not an exceptional town, and Ouichita Road, which is a street in Quivera, is not an exceptional street. There was a time, however, when it tried to be, and the signs of the attempt are still apparent. It is eight winding blocks of black macadam, narrow and tree-lined, in an area that achieves an atmosphere of indigenous rusticity. This atmosphere, not really so much achieved as retained, is due to a lack of artificial landscaping and a vague agreement among Ouichita property owners to preserve as much as possible the natural growth of the area. Oaks and maples and sycamores and elms and dogwood and redbud are thick on the deep lawns that slope rather steeply to the street on both sides, and the houses appear to have been dropped down among them casually. The rusticity thus preserved somehow manages, ironically, to seem more artificial than any amount of designing and planting would have made it.

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