Read Online The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy - Free Book Online Page A

snake milk a cow, Mr. C’roy?” Big C asked.
    â€œOh, crap.”
    â€œYeah, he milk cow dry.”
    â€œThat is simply not true. These are all snake myths,” I pleaded to an unconvinced audience. By the expressions on their faces, I could tell they thought I was nuts.
    â€œI seen plenty of snakes milk cows,” Big C said.
    â€œDo they put the milk in bottles?” I now resorted to my last weapon, ridicule.
    â€œNo, they suck it up.”
    Mr. Conroy, ever see how snake eat egg?” Lincoln asked.
    â€œNo, Lincoln, but I’m afraid to ask.”
    â€œHe swallow the egg whole. Then he climb up tree, jump off branch, land on ground, and pop egg in belly.”
    â€œThat’s how I eat eggs, too, Lincoln.”
    I returned to the serpent mythology on numerous occasions during the year, exhorting the students to look truth in the eye and to understand that the things we learn in our youth are not always literally correct. With brilliant logic they argued that what I had learned in the city about snakes was not any better than what they learned while living on the island. They had lived with snakes all their lives; I had merely read about them.
    In one remote corner of the room, the dustiest and most spider-controlled corner, sat several boxes full of books. A church had donated the books in order to rid the island of illiteracy. Give them books and they shall read. Earnest ladies and pious men had scurried around attics and unused libraries in search of books for the unread natives of Yamacraw Island. Their minister sometimes came to Yamacraw on Sundays to preach to the blacks on the island, to exhort them to quit their evil likker-drinking ways. He was enormously proud of the fact that he could summon up enough Christianity to preach to the niggers, since he made it no secret on the mainland that he did not think much of niggers. If a black had entered his church, the church would have closed down automatically. That was the plan of the hallowed vestrymen should a black foot cross the threshold. Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name.
    Anyway, the church gathered books in cardboard boxes and shipped them to the island for use in the school. Looking at the books, I saw little possibility of handing my students The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Nor did I think they could relish Gone with the Wind. Several books on Christian doctrine seemed equally inappropriate. A nice gesture and a good idea, but none of the books were on a level the kids could handle.
    By far the greatest travesty was the public library established on the island by a concerned group of citizens who thought it deplorable that the island did not have a library of its own. It was deplorable and unthinkable that an island had no place to which a man could retire to mull over his thoughts, to write great novels, to generate lofty ideas, or to lose himself in scholarly pursuits. To solve this problem, the county decided to establish a library to serve the intellectual needs of the islanders, most of whom could neither read nor write. So the county transported 2000 books out to the island, put them in the community center, and hired a part-time librarian as custodian of the books. The books, of course, reflected the great trends of literature; the selection was vast and represented all the eminent authors. Here an old oyster-shucker could find Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Or, if he preferred the nineteenth century, this same ox-cart driver could select Moby Dick by Herman Melville or The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. All of these books were available. When no one checked out a book in three years, officials were noticeably chagrined. “Stupid niggers. You bust your ass to help them, and they don’t even check out a book.” Good intentions