Riding back to the stockade after the long and leaden day on the road, Dooley sat stripped to the waist on a plank that crossed the body of the truck, looking at the pines, sand and palmettos.

 

Dear Nelson: Well, I left the Academy after a simple but moving graduation ceremony, with a big sawbuck courtesy the State of Florida, and literally hit the road. Impossible to describe the mixed emotions I had walking away from the penitentiary.

 

These letters written during the period September 20, 1950—May 20, 1952, while James Blake, a night club pianist by profession, was a convict in a southern county jail. The Mr. X to whom a number of the