https://fredoneverything.org/communing-with-rastus/
What happened was, I came to the Yankee Capital from where I growed up in East Needle, Tennessee, that’s so far back in the mountains that the sun don’t hardly shine and we don’t get too much news about what they do in the flatlands. Mostly people in East Needle just stays where they are. But I weren’t too normal, or anyways that’s what Miss Maisie Stovelid, the teacher lady in the county school said. She said I was smarter than the other kids and she hoped I’d go far, though I reckon she would have settled for the next county over. Most folk just thought there was something wrong with my head.