When john walden was yet a small boy, he had learned all that could be taught by the mulatto teacher in the long, shiny black frock coat, whom local public opinion permitted to teach a handful of free colored children. when the boy had learned to read, he discovered the library, and in it a door to a new world, peopled with strange and marvelous beings. when he had read all the books he had tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge one day judge straight was sitting in his law office near the corner of mackenzie street. archibald straight had transacted legal bus