[5][6] Flack's signature achievement, "The Strangers That Came to Town" was an early literary examination of bigotry and prejudice in small-town America that pre-dated the similarly-themed To Kill a Mockingbird.
Though sicknesses typical of the period (typhoid, whooping cough, measles) and dire poverty afflict the family, they remain kind, optimistic, and surprisingly generous.
They harangue the Duvitch siblings, taunting them for everything from "the leaf, lard and black bread sandwiches they ate for lunch" to the "rag pickers’ clothes" they wear to school.
After the narrator Andy and his brother Tom poison some fish the Duvitches have caught, making them inedible, their father forces the boys to confess and administers punishment, part of which is facing their victims and owning up to their crime.
[12] He was an avid gardener who developed a long relationship with Katharine Sergeant Angell White, a founding editor of The New Yorker.