Mud Puddles and Mockingbird Feathers

Book excerpt: The antics of three little boys create a fun-filled story of imagination and innocence as they roam their way through the everyday life of the La Mancha on Okaloosa Island. Across the Sound from the island, the horrors of war and memories of all the sorrows and lost love she has endured create a tragedy for Miss Camelia Ledbetter. Miss Camelia Ledbetter has lived on her little street in Fort Walton Beach way back when it was Walton’s Landing, and she walked barefooted down to the landing to meet the mail boat that came down the Sound twice a week from Pensacola. Her memories take her even further back when her people eked out their living from the bay and pine forest trying to avoid the Spanish or other belligerent tribes. Her good eyesight and hearing, along with her sharp mind and curiosity, have shielded her from the disaster that broke her heart seventy-five years ago. Her heart and mind should be filled with rage, but a vigilant faith and determination protected her from the loneliness of an empty bed and a hatred of the war that tore her life apart. Three little boys fill her days with delight and tomfoolery, and memories shared by the spirit of her great-grandad fill her nights and alone times. She lives across the Sound from Okaloosa Island, where murder and illegal activities have filled the daily paper she reads. She is worried to let the boys visit the Prof who lives at the La Mancha on the island but accepts what she cannot control. The La Mancha may never be the same after the three four-year-old “soldiers” invade it. Their innocence will lead them to the ultimate danger for all three of them, for the psychotic killer is still on “campus,” as the Prof calls the place. Twists of fate, both in the war and on Okaloosa Island, create a maze that the boys and Miss Camelia struggle through.