Pink and Say

He was wounded in a fierce battle and left for dead in a pasture somewhere in Georgia when Pinkus found him. Pinkus’ skin was the color of polished mahogany, and he was flying Union colors like the wounded boy, and he picked him up out of the field and brought him to where the black soldier’s mother, Moe Moe Bay, lived. She had soft, gentle hands and cared for him and her Pink.

The story is about two boy soldiers who meet each other in the battlefield during the American Civil War.   Sheldon Russell Curtis, called “Say”, is a white soldier who was injured while trying to escape battle. He is saved by a former slave named Pinkus Aylee, “Pink”, who is now a soldier of the U.S. Colored Troops. Pink carries him back to his Georgia home where he and his family were slaves. While the frightened soldier is nursed back to health under the care of Pink’s mother, Moe Moe Bay, he begins to understand why his newfound friend is so adamant on returning to the war; to fight against the sickness that is slavery.