Stories : The typewriter -- The five-dollar bill -- Jack in the pot -- Mammy -- The richer, the poorer -- Funeral -- The penny -- The bird like no other -- The happiest year, the saddest year -- The envelope -- Fluff and Mr. Ripley -- Odyssey of an egg -- About a woman named Nancy -- The roomer -- The maple tree -- An unimportant man -- To market, to market -- Sketches and reminiscences : Rachel -- Fond memories of a black childhood -- The gift -- The purse -- The sun parlor -- Remembrance -- An adventure in Moscow -- The cart -- Elephant's dance -- A day lost is a day gone forever -- The legend of Oak Bluffs -- Love -- The flight

Seventeen stories of fiction and non-fiction. The story, Mammy, is on color discrimination among blacks, Jack in the Pot is about a woman on welfare whose lottery win only brings problems, and in The Penny, a boy rats on his parents to make money