But I ain't puttin' it in de street. Ah'm tellin' you.' 'Ah jus lak uh chicken. Chicken drink water, but he don't pee-pee. - Zora Neale Hurston

I fail to see where it would have been more uplifting for them to have been inside a church listening to a man urging them to 'contemplate the sufferings of our Lord,' which is just another way of punishing one's self for nothing. It is very much better for them to climb the rocks in their bare clean feet and meet Him face to face in their search for the eternal in beauty.

De wife she de eyes to de man’s soul. How kin I see now, when I ain’ gottee de eyes no mo’?

I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.