How does Hannah Green use imagery in The Dead of the House?

Example of Imagery:

"I was nine when we arrived in Ludlow. Our residence there gave a turn to all my life after, for it was there I acquired my love for the water. The riverbank in Ludlow was a boy's paradise. The river was our playground. All day long Ben and I were in the water or on the wide sandbar that stretched westward in those days from Ludlow to Bromley. We played with the shanty-boat children and helped the shanty-boat men pull in their nets offish. Often there were a hundred to the catch — catfish, dogfish, buffalo, river perch, and gar pike.