The Friendship Read online

  With that he raised himself to one elbow and began to drag himself down the road. The boys and I, candy canes in hand, stood motionless. We watched Mr. John Wallace to see if he would raise the shotgun again. Jeremy, the candy cane in his pocket, watched too. We all waited for the second click of the shotgun. But only the cries of Mr. Tom Bee as he inched his way along the road ripped the silence. “John! John! John!” he cried over and over again. “Ya hear me, John? Till the judgment day! John! John! JOHN!”

  There was no other sound.

  Author’s Note

  I was born in the South but I didn’t grow up there. In fact, I was only three months old when my parents took my sister and me to live in the North. Over the years of my childhood I came to know the South through the yearly trips my family took to Mississippi and through the stories told whenever the family gathered, both in the North and in the South. Through the stories I learned a history about my family going back to the days of slavery. Through the stories I learned a history not then taught in history books, a history about the often tragic lives of Black people living in a segregated land. My father told many of the stories. Some of the stories he had been told when he was a boy. Some of the stories he actually lived himself. The Friendship is based on one of those stories.

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  BOOKS BY MILDRED D. TAYLOR

  The Friendship

  The Gold Cadillac

  Let the Circle Be Unbroken

  Mississippi Bridge

  The Road to Memphis

  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

  Song of the Trees

  The Well