Book Excerpt

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes …

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As I crossed the Maitland-Eatonville township line I could see a group on the store porch. I was delighted. The town had not changed. Same love of talk and song. So I drove on down there before I …

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Chapter One
John Redding Goes to Sea
The Villagers said that John Redding was a queer child. His mother thought he was too. She would shake her head sadly, and observe to John’s father: “Alf, it’s too …

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My Birthplace Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.
So you will have to know something about …

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Why God Made Adam Last God wuz through makin' de Ian' an' de sea an' de birds an' de animals an' de fishes an' de trees befo' He made man. He wuz intendin' tuh make ‘im all along, but He put it off …

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And fall out, unfortunately, they did, thereby creating the most notorious literary quarrel in African-American cultural history, and one of the most thoroughly documented collaborations in black …

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Sawley, the town, is in west Florida, on the famous Suwanee River. It is flanked on the south by the curving course of the river which Stephen Foster made famous without ever having looked upon its …

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Have mercy! Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!" Women gave birth and whispered cries like this in caves and out-of-the-way places that humans didn’t usually use for birthplaces. Moses hadn’t come …

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The Rooster’s Nest Jamaica, British West Indies, has something else besides its mountains of majesty and its quick, green valleys. Jamaica has its moments when the land, as in St. Mary’s, thrusts out …

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God was grumbling his thunder and playing the zig-zag lightning thru his fingers.
Amy Crittenden came to the door of her cabin to spit out a wad of snuff. She looked up at the clouds.
“Ole Massa …

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