Finished reading: God’s Children by Archibald Rutledge, Henry Middleton Rutledge, Seldon B. Hill 📚Bought at a bookstore on Front Street in Georgetown, SC. A reprint of a 1947 book of reminiscences by Archibald Rutledge, a poet, writer, and essayist on natural history topics in his day, particularly his beloved Low Country landscape of coastal South Carolina. Rutledge in his day had been in the running for the Pulitzer for poetry and the Nobel for his body of work, but the arch, patrician voice of the essays seems almost quaintly mannered. Also dated is his paternalistic attitude to the black workers (the “Children” of the book’s title) who live and work on the remains of his generations-old family plantation. He writes of the black workers he grew up with with great respect and praise for their skills and knowledge, and there is much talk of the affection that exists between he and them. But when Rutledge gives them an order to do something, it’s expected that they will do it. A little volume that is disquieting for what it does not say about life on an old plantation in the Old South.