THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS BY JULIA COLLIER HARRIS WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MEFPLIN COMPANY (Cfee CltViEtjiOe press Cambtiftge 1918 PS COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JULIA COLLIER HARRIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September iqt& TO THE MEMORY OP MARY HARRIS AND TO ESTHER LAROSE HARRIS THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED CONTENTS I. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE ...... 1 II. BOYHOOD IN EATONTON . ..... 10 III. TTJRNWOLD ......... 23 IV. THE OLD SCRAPBOOK ...... 36 V. OUT IN THE WORLD ...... 54 VI. Two FRIENDSHIPS ....... 69 VII. SAVANNAH DAYS ....... 93 VIII. ESTHER LAB.OSE . . . . . . .109 I.. EARLY DAYS IN ATLANTA ..... 125 X. "UNCLE REMUS: His SONGS AND His SAY INGS" ......... 142 XI. AFTERMATH OF "UNCLE REMUS: His SONGS AND His SAYINGS" ...... 161 XII. "NIGHTS WITH UNCLE REMUS" . . .181 XIII. "MiNGO," "BLUE DAVE," AND OTHERS . . 199 XIV. 1885-1890: "FREE JOE" AND "DADDY JAKE" 213 XV. WEST END DAYS ....... 235 XVI. FATHER AND SON ....... 255 XVII. FRUITFUL YEARS . . ... . . .292 XVIII. THE "LITTLE MR. THIMBLEFINGER" SERIES . 318 XIX. THE FIRST NOVEL . . . . . . .338 [ vii ] CONTENTS XX. AMUSING ANNALS OP SNAP-BEAN FARM . 361 XXI. "TALES OF THE HOME FOLKS" AND "AUNT MINEEVYANN" ...... 397 XXII. "UNCLE JEEMS" AT THE WRENS NEST, AND "MR. BILLY SANDERS" ..... 421 XXIII. THE SECOND NOVEL ...... 441 XXIV. AFFAIRS AT THE WRENS NEST 1902-1903 468 XXV. AFFAIRS AT THE WRENS NEST 1904-1905 491 XXVI. "UNCLE REMUS" AND THE PRESIDENT . . 508 XXVII. "UNCLE REMUSS MAGAZINE" . . . .518 XXVIII. THE DOROTHY LETTERS ..... 543 XXIX. "ANNE MACFARLAND" ...... 564 XXX. THE "COUNTRY NEXT DOOR TO THE WORLD" 577 AFTERWORD ........ 590 APPENDIX ......... 597 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........ 603 INDEX .......... 611 ILLUSTRATIONS JOEL CHANDLER HARMS .... Colored Frontispiece From a miniature by Lucy May Stanton after a photograph by Frances B. Johnstoa OLD " UNCLE " AND " AUNTY " AT EATONTON, GEORGIA . 14 THE J. A. TURNER HOUSE AT TURNWOLD .... 26 A DAUGHTER (80 YEARS OLD) OF UNCLE GEORGE TER- RELL ............ 34 WHERE J. C. H. LIVED WHEN HE WORKED ON THE "MoN- ROE ADVERTISER "......... 64 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AT 20 ...... 70 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AT 21 ...... 76 LITTLE NORA BELLE . . . . . . . . .80 MRS. G. H. STARKE ......... 80 Miss NORA HARRISON ........ 80 ESTHER LAROSE HARRIS ......... 122 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, ATLANTA, 1877 . . . .136 CHLOE: FOR MANY YEARS THE MILKER AT WEST END 178 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AT 34 ...... 192 SKETCH SENT TO J. C. H. BY MR. JOHN H. GARNSEY ON THE OCCASION or A VISIT TO NEW YORK IN 1900 . . 214 THE HOUSE AT WEST END ....... 236 SNAP-BEAN FARM IN 1900 ....... 240 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AT ABOUT 43 ..... 296 [ix] ILLUSTRATIONS A HINDU ARTISTS ILLUSTRATION FOR ONE or UNCLE REMUSS STORIES ......... 300 From a series of " Uncle Remus" stories translated by Rev. C. E. Prior and Mr. Prasanta B. Gupta, of Calcutta, and illus trated by Mr. Sanatan Pingua, published in Balak, a magazine for Bengali boys SKETCH SENT TO J. C. H. BY MR. JOHN H. GARNSEY ON READING A NEWS ITEM TO THE EFFECT THAT THE "UNCLE REMUS" STORIES WERE TO BE DRAMATIZED 344 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ABOUT 1897 . . . . . 374 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AND JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY . 422 EDITORIAL ROOMS OF THE "CONSTITUTION," SHOWTOG MR. HARRIS WITH CLARK HOWELL, WALLACE P. REED, J. K. OHL, AND FRANK L. STANTON . . . 438 MRS. HARRIS AND A GROUP OF GRANDCHILDREN . . 468 POEM TO JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY INSCRIBED IN "THE TAR BABY, AND OTHER RHYMES "..... 498 UNCLE REMUS AT THE WHITE HOUSE . . . . .512 Cartoon in the Constitution, November 19, 1907 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AT WORK . . . . .518 Photograph by Underwood and Underwood DOROTHY LOYE .......... 544 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS . . . . . . . . 560 The photograph with the "twinkle," by Frances B. Johnston MR. HARRISS "FAVORITES" PRINTED IN The Critic . . 568 THE GRAVE OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS .... 588 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS CHAPTER I BIRTH AND PARENTAGE AT least three localities in Eatonton, Georgia, are pointed out to the inquisitive visitor as the birth place of Joel Chandler Harris. Father himself always referred to "Putnam County" as the place of his birth. One of his earliest and most trusted friends, Mr. C. D. Leonard, of Eatonton, says: "A very old and thoroughly reliable citizen of Eatonton told me way back in the seventies that Joe was born about six miles northwest of Eaton ton, in the neighborhood of Lumsdens Mill, now owned by Steve Martin. This mill is on Little River and is a popular picnic resort for Putnamites." On the other hand, one of the oldest and most highly respected matrons of Eatonton remembers being told by an acquaintance in December, 1848, of the arrival of young Joel at a house which stood near the present site of the Baptist Church, and [1 1 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS which was then known as "Billy Barness Tav ern." This house has long since been torn down. In reality, the exact spot of a mans birth is of minor importance to posterity, and I am sure father would be gently amused and somewhat astonished could he know that in his case enough importance had .been attached to the exact local ity to have caused it to be a matter of dispute. The man who, with perfect simplicity, made him self at home with little children, with the slaves in the cabin and the humble beasts of the field, never troubled himself.about family trees and ancestral halls. He loved the rolling Bermuda meadows, the red-clay gullies, the far-stretching cottonfields, the slow-moving, muddy streams, and the oak and hickory forests of old Putnam with an intensity that time never dulled; its people were to him the "salt of the earth"; and the belief that he was loved and cherished by these "middle Georgians" made him feel that he was a citizen of the county at large, and that all Putnamites were his near kin and neighbors. He belonged to Putnam County, and that was enough! We know, then, that Joel Chandler Harris was born on December 9,1848, somewhere in the vicin ity of the village of Eatonton, a sleepy little town in middle Georgia, which had a court-house and [2] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE town square, a tavern, several wide streets, many fine trees, and a number of old colonial homes. Many of these stately structures still rise solemnly from behind their boxwood borders, giving pleas ure to the stranger as^ he peers at them through the screen of odorous cedars and brightly bloom ing crepe-myrtles and oleanders which shelter their columned piazzas from a too-penetrating gaze. Joels grandparents were Georgians; the maiden name of his maternal grandmother was Turman, a modification of the original name Tubman, and she was of Scotch origin. She had two daughters, and she often referred to "Joels mother as "Lady Sensible" and to the sister as "Lady Beautiful." The latter was fond of dress and "good times," and Joels mother, Mary Harris, in later life told of ironing countless white petticoats for her pleas ure-loving sister; for in those days a young lady was not considered well dressed unless she tripped lightly under the weight of two or three starched petticoats, with elaborate flounces. The Harris family was a prominent one in mid dle Georgia and had well-known connections in that part of the State; so it can readily be imagined that consternation overtook the relatives of "Lady Sensible" when she conceived a fancy for a man [3] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS inferior in station and education. The common mistake of vociferous opposition was made in this instance; the spark of preference was fanned into the flame of love, and Mary Harris separated her self from her family, left her home in Newton County, and accompanied the man of her choice to Putnam. The details of the days that followed are meager and confused, and Mary Harriss story, from this point until after the birth of her child and her desertion by its father, partakes of the nature of legend. We know that she and her mother were reconciled, and that the latter joined Mary and her baby in Eatonton, where they lived for a time at the end of Marion Street, and later in the old Eatonton Hotel, where the grandmother died. The latter was said by Eatontonians to have been a quiet, reserved little woman, who kept much to herself and who rarely left the house, even for church-going. Mary Harris, on the contrary, was lively, sociable, and had a keen sense of humor. Very few of Mary Harriss contemporaries are now alive. Mrs. Frank Leverette, of Eatonton, is one of them, and her daughter, Miss Frances Lee Leverette, has been good enough to give me the following account of the friendship that existed between her family and Joels mother in the old days: [4] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE "We first knew Miss Mary through my Aunt Telitha Slack, the sister of my maternal grand mother Wyatt and the wife of Dr. Slack, a promi nent physician of Newton County. The Slacks were neighbors of Grandma Harris and her two daughters back in the days before Miss Mary and her mother moved to Putnam County. "We all loved Miss Mary just as we loved our own grandmother, and my father, especially, was devoted to her. He liked to get into an argument with her; and she was always a match for him, so my mother tells me, when it came to discussing politics and local affairs, for she kept herself posted on all the questions of the day. My mother was an invalid for many years, about that time, and she says she has enjoyed many a night listening to my father and Miss Mary carrying on a dis cussion while sitting before the big wood fire. Miss Mary was our neighbor for many years; in fact, until she went to live with Uncle Remus in Atlanta. I remember well the little gate which my father had cut through the garden so we could be even more neighborly. "Not only during the day, but very often on long winter evenings, Miss Mary would come up to knit and talk by the family fireside. Quite often the family group would be augmented by Miss [5] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS Jane Conner and Miss Isabella Prudden, other close neighbors. "I am going back this far just to prove the old saying that little pitchers have big ears, for as a child in the chimney corner, I heard rumors of the sad chapter in Miss Marys life, and in later years I was therefore able to understand the re joicing of my mother and father, Miss Jane/ Miss Isabella, and other Eatontonians when Miss Mary made her preparations to bid farewell to her friends on the eve of going to live with her boy who had made good in the then wonderful city of Atlanta! "As the little pitcher heard the story, and as my mother and others have since told me, it seems that Miss Mary was just one of those hundreds of good women who loved a man unworthy of her. In this instance, Miss Marys mother and sister, who were connected with the best families in their section, crossed her in her inclinations, and this only served to make her love the man of her choice the more. "So there was a family breach, and Miss Mary stood by her lover in spite of family objections. It was some years before she and her sister were reconciled, but her mother and grandmother joined her in Eatonton, and lived with her there. [6] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE " Uncle Remuss father was an Irishman, and from him the boy inherited his bright blue eyes and his sense of humor. The young Irishman worked near Miss Marys home as a day-laborer, and it seems certain that his humble calling and his lack of ambition were the causes of the familys objections. The boys father knew, of course, of the bitter opposition of Miss Marys family, and that he would never be received or recognized by them; and old friends say he was not strong enough to stand up under such conditions. At any rate, he left Putnam within a short time of his childs birth and was never again seen there. " Miss Mary was a woman of rare mental qualities. My father used to say she was the smart est woman he ever knew. Her strength of charac ter equaled her strength of intellect, and when she awakened to her mistake in casting in her lot with a man so lacking in courage and loyalty, she put aside all romantic notions, took up her burden, and staked all on her boy. She discarded his fathers name and gave her family name to Joel, and no one ever heard her mention his father again. " Miss Mary was held in high esteem in Eatonton and she numbered amongst her friends the best people of the town. As an instance of these friendships: Mr. Andrew Reid, who built and owned [7] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS for years one of the finest homes in Eatonton, sym pathized so heartily with her in her struggles to get on after cutting herself loose from her family and putting aside all claim on the boys father, that he gave her a little house back of his own for a resi dence. He did this so that he and his family might have her for a neighbor and help her along. Later our family occupied the Andrew Reid house and in this way Miss Mary became our neighbor. Priv ate schools were expensive in those days, and Mr. Reid, who was wealthy, paid the tuition of Joel in the village school. 1 Miss Mary, so her old friends say, had several good offers of marriage, but she was indifferent to them and centered her whole life on her boy. She never had cause to regret her devotion, for Joels attentive care and affection for his mother were prominent traits from his child hood." In one of his short stories, father thus writes of his heros native town: "His lot was cast amongst the most democratic people the world has ever seen, 1 Mary Harris also received friendly assistance, during the early days of her residence in Putnam County, from Dr. Henry Branham, a well-to-do practitioner of Eatonton, who had married her aunt, Verlinda Harris. It is said that Dr. Henry Branhams brother, Dr. Joel Branham, a physician noted throughout the country-side for his skill, learning, and humanity, was present as attending physician at Joels birth. [8] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE and in a section where, to this day, the ideals of character and conduct are held in higher esteem than wealth or ancient lineage." Did he not have the town of his own birth in mind when this was written? As a poor boy, de serted by his father and living in poverty with his hard-working mother, he had every opportunity to shiver under the chill of snobbism, if such an at mosphere had prevailed in his native village. That this was never the case is a splendid trib ute to the fine humanity of old-time Putnamites. Undoubtedly they were endowed with that price less "intelligence of the heart," which, when com bined with common sense and neighborliness, con stitutes a people amongst whom it is a joy to live. And so, as if conscious of the flavor of his sur roundings, the little half-orphan drew the genial air of the hospitable town into his lungs and grew and thrived with the traditional persistence of a red-haired boy. CHAPTER II BOYHOOD IN EATONTON IN those far-away days, life was not too hard on the child and his mother. Kind neighbors, whose homes were as generously stocked as their hearts, were full of hospitality towards the occupants of the little house, and Mary Harris tended her home and garden and took in sewing for a living. In an old scrapbook, battered and dog-eared, I have found a few odds and ends of papers that throw some light on those years. One of them is a memorandum of work done by Mary Harris for the family of J. A. Turner, of the Turnwold plantation, where Joel later served his apprenticeship as a printer. It states that J. A. Turner is indebted to Mrs. Mary Harris for the making of 1 coat............................... 1 pr. pants............................. 1.50 1 vest................................. 1.00 4 shirts. ............................... 4.00 $9.00 When the mother was not busy with her needle, her spinning-wheel, or her pots and pans, she could usually be found working amongst her flowers. She loved flowers dearly, and therefore she was suc- [10] BOYHOOD IN EATONTON cessful with them. She exchanged slips and-seeds with her friends, and often proffered advice as to how their garden-beds should be arranged. There was in the neighborhood one garden which gave her considerable worry. It had in it nothing but flow ers that "grew flat on the ground," as she said. It seems that the man of the family had purchased the flower-seeds, so "Miss Mary" straightway offered her services in making a selection of plants from the seedsmans catalogue tall enough to vary the monotony of this ground-gripping flower-plot. Young Joel must have employed the spade and hoe often in his mothers garden and then and there acquired the love of all growing things that was one of the passions of his later life. A great reader herself, Joels mother spent many an hour before the wood fire in winter evenings reading to him. Long after the restless winds had scattered the ashes of those hickory logs to the far corners of old Putnam, and when the dark hair of the young mother was dark no more and her ener getic carriage had lost its youthful vigor, the creator of "Uncle Remus" wrote in a literary biography for "Lippincotts Magazine": My desire to write to give expression to my thoughts grew out of hearing my mother read "The Vicar of Wakefield." I was too young to appreciate the [11 ] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS story, but there was something in the style or something in the humor of that remarkable little book that struck my fancy, and I straightway fell to composing little tales, in which the principal character, whether hero or heroine, silenced the other characters by crying "Fudge!" at every possible opportunity. None of these little tales have been preserved, but I am convinced that since their keynote was "Fudge!" they must have been very close to human nature. At this time Joel was a small, wiry lad, under sized and frail-looking behind his veil of freckles, but he was as sound and supple as a peach-tree switch and bursting with vitality and mischief. He loved animals and learned to manage horses when he was only a midget by the side of the small est of them. One day his mother was horrified to see him rattling down the main street behind a team of lively coach-Jiorses, handling the reins with all the confidence of a six-foot hostler. Many were the pranks he played upon his asso ciates in these days. Like "Brer Rabbit" he made up for his lack of size by his agility and shrewdness, and there was a spice of the devil in him as well. On market-day it was the custom for the farmers to bring their produce to town and gather around the court-house, when the horses would be taken out of the shafts and hitched to the rack on one side of the town square. [12] BOYHOOD IN EATONTON Young Joel passed by the rack one day when every available hook held fast knotted the tie-rein of a horse. There had been a heavy shower, and pigs were wallowing in the puddle near the rack. With a vigorous and well-directed gesture the young rascal shot a rock in the midst of the pork ers; they fled in a panic toward the horses, the latter took fright, broke loose, and galloped helterskelter down the main road. The memory of this mischievous prank must have been with father when he describes, in "On the Plantation," the joke played by Joe Maxwell on the sleeping re cruits. In this case the boy turns loose the tethered mules and frightens them with a sheet, the result being that they stampede and rush pell-mell through the tents, carrying everything before them and frightening the half-awakened soldier boys worse than a battery of guns. In this connection we read of Joe Maxwell, who from all accounts might have been Joel Harris: It would not be fair to say that Joe was a studious lad. On the contrary he was of an adventurous turn of mind, and he was not at all fond of the books that were in his desk at Hillsborough Academy. He was full of all sorts of pranks and capers, and there were plenty of people in the little town ready to declare that he would come to some bad end if he was not more frequently dosed with what the old folks used to call hickory oil. [13] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS I am indebted to Mr. C. D. Leonard, of Eatonton, one of the boyhood friends of young Joel, for the following account of play-days and truant-days in the little country town during the years 1855-62: "I first met Joe when we were six and seven years old," writes Mr. Leonard. "His mother told me that Joe was one year older than I. My family had just moved to Eatonton and Joe be gan to come to see me and my brother Jim very soon after our arrival there. After getting ac quainted in regular boy fashion, we began to go around together, gradually extending our tramp ing grounds from the streets adjacent to my home, to the White Mud Gullies and the livery stable owned by Mr. McDade, who was a great favorite with the boys of the community; and our acquaint ance ripened more rapidly after we found the way to Aunt Betsy Cuthberts, an old negress who fre quently gave us treats of ginger-cakes, potato bis cuit, and flat chicken pies. Aunt Betsy was fa mous for her ginger-cakes. Like the average boys of that time we asked nothing better than to play with her grandchildren, and she would often call us up and treat us to ginger-cakes and biscuits. One call from her door and out of the White Mud Gullies we youngsters would come trooping in re sponse to Aunt Betsys voice. [ 14] OLD "UNCLE" AND "AUNTY" AT EATONTON, GEORGIA BOYHOOD IN EATONTON " Close by Aunt Betsys house there was a large barley-patch belonging to Mr. Harvey Dennis, who is frequently mentioned in On the Plantation, and here we boys would play hide and seek in the tall barley. "Joe and I would hang around Mr. McDades livery stable all day, for a chance to see the fine horses the drovers of that day would bring to Eatonton, and to get a chance to ride one of these horses, even if it was only across the street to the black smith shop, or to water at a near-by branch. Fre quently the horse-drovers would let us exercise them with a longer ride, and Wheelers cavalry never contained two prouder cavalry men. An other great treat for Joe and me was the privilege of going to the country with old Uncle Ben Sadler, when he went after corn and fodder for the horses. Old Uncle Ben was a very interesting character, and a typical negro of that time. He worked at the stable and took a great interest in Joe and me, and was always glad for us to be allowed to go with him. Uncle Ben in after years became a mail-rider be tween Eatonton and Monticello and died in the service of the Government, highly esteemed by both whites and blacks. "About a year after we got acquainted, Joe and I started to school to Miss Kate Davidson, [15] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS who taught a mixed school for boys and girls. Among those I specially remember in the school were Miss Lou Prudden, Miss Sallie Prudden, and Miss Lula Grimes, Joe and I were often guilty of playing truant. We would sometimes stay out of school for a week. During this time we would hang around the livery stable, because our parents never came that way, and we felt safe on this account. In a few months Joe left Miss Davidsons school to go to the Academy, where all were male teachers. After a year or more I was sent there too. In this school Joe and I had as an almost constant com panion, Hut Adams, who was about four years our senior, but who seemed to prefer to go with us rather than with the larger boys of the school. It was a strange thing to all of us that Joe, although he did not seem to study much, was always well prepared when it came to reciting his lessons, and got along as well as any of the rest of us. 1 "Joe and Hut and I would go and come from school together. We three stayed together and played spinning tops, shooting marbles, and jump- 1 Captain John S. Reid, of Eatonton, who was assistant in the village Academy somewhere around 1860, and whose friendship for Joel Chandler Harris extended through a lifetime, remembers him as a slender, rather delicate-looking lad of ten years, who did not take a very prominent part in outdoor sports, but who was full of life and mischief. "Never much of a student," said his old teacher, "but quick to learn." [16] BOYHOOD IN EATONTON ing poles. We had two ways of going to school and found great pleasure in varying our coming and going. One way was through the main street, and the other was through what was then known as the "Town Commons.," which led the back way through town and by Mr. Edmond Reids water melon patch and peach orchard, where we were very often guilty of appropriating a few water melons and peaches. "Hut would go into the patch after the melons, then to the orchard for peaches, and Joe and I would receive them over the fence. A few times Hut was run out of the patch, and then such a race as Hut, Joe, and I had across the Commons! Mr. Reid was a very wealthy planter, and did not care so much for the melons and peaches as he did for the fun of seeing us run; because he always had plenty of fruit. "Mr. Harvey Dennis, one of Putnams oldest citizens and a famous fox-hunter, and, as I have already said, often mentioned in On the Planta tion, written by Joe, lived just above Joes home at this time. Mr. Dennis loved the hunt and al ways kept eight or ten hounds for fox-hunting. On Saturdays Joe and I would go down on the branch, clap our hands, and yell to attract Mr. Denniss dogs, in order to take them off rabbit- [ 17] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS hunting. Mr. Dennis did not like for his dogs to hunt rabbits, and it was great fun for us boys to steal his dogs away in this fashion for an all-day hunt. We loved the music of their voices as they would come trooping down the hill to the branch, and we hurried away over the hills by Aunt Betsy Coles, a noted fortune-teller of those days, thence out to Colonel Nicholsons farm. "Joe had a dog named Brutus, which we called Brute for short, and he was always along with the hounds. When Mr. Dennis would come home and find his dogs gone again with those boys, he would frequently saddle his horse and hunt us up, sometimes finding us two miles or more away. When he would find us he was never rough in either his manner or speech, simply saying, Boys, youve got my dogs again. " We would, however, always pay him back dur ing the season with rabbits when we would have good luck on one of these chases. And another way that we secured his goodwill, after stealing away his dogs, would be to carry the game on one of his hunts. Frequently he would take us into his fathers peach orchard and give us all the peaches we could carry home; and in fact was good to us in every way. His kindness naturally led us to appreciate him very highly as a man. [18] BOYHOOD IN EATONTON "Joe was always remarkably polite and respect ful to older men and women, and both men and boys loved him. For instance, Mr. Dennis consid ered him a very remarkable boy even when a little chap, and understood the spirit that prompted Joe to toll away his dogs, and instead of being angry was always amused. Joe, of course, was at this time too young to hunt the fox, so Mr. Dennis, in order to keep his dogs in trim and training, would let Joe and me drag the fox-skin over a trail, some times two miles long. He would give us a thirty minutes start and it was great sport to us to hear the hounds take up the trail, and come baying and barking in rich voices of different tones, just as if they had jumped a fox and were engaged in a real chase. "Joes dog Brute had a great habit of howling on moonlight nights, and he would very frequently get under the window of Mrs. Harriss bedroom and howl for hours. Finally Joes mother became exas perated, and conceived the idea of filling a basin full of bricks and small rocks, which she suddenly emptied on old Brute one night. Needless to state Joes mother was never troubled again with Brutes howling. "Hut Adams was always resourceful as a play mate, and it was he who had the idea of the Gully [ 19] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS Minstrels/ often mentioned by Joe in later years, when he would visit Eatonton. Hut was Boss of the minstrels, Joe was the funny man, and I was the treasurer. The minstrels were given in the big White Mud Gully close to Aunt Betsy Cuthberts. Our charge for admission was ten pins, and the minstrels were well patronized. I soon had a box full of pins and no use for them. Since we were stuck on pins, the famous minstrels disbanded. "Joe loved a joke and was good at playing them. He played many on Hut and me, but Hut was his favorite victim, though he would always have to fairly fly when he played one on Hut, since the lat ter was so much our elder he could whip either of us easily. Joe and I would go to the river to fish and swim together, and go in bathing. We loved to hunt plums, bird nests, and wild strawberries. Joe would come to my home early Saturday mornings and sit on the fence and joke, while brother Jim and I had to work in the garden and sweep the yards be fore we could go. He made a first-class playmate, but he would hedge on Saturday work. "The first time I ever went to Sunday School, it was with Joe. We went to the Baptist Sunday School, which was held in a room of the Female Academy. Our Sunday afternoons were spent on the small branch below Joes house. Very often [20] BOYHOOD IN EATONTON Hut Adams would join us, though Huts .father was a very prominent church man and insisted on a strict observance of the Sabbath by his whole family and all of his servants. Hut was the only one of our famous trio that ever possessed a hand kerchief in those days. So when he did go with us he would let us use his handkerchief for seining for minnows in the little washouts along the branch. I remember quite well that we would return home rather conscience-stricken and afraid to tell where we had been or what we had been doing. "Many a time in after life (for we remained warm friends to the day of his death) Joe and I spent happy hours talking over these boyhood days." Like other fun-loving, joke-playing little boys, rough-and-tumble on the surface, Joel had a ten der, susceptible heart. He never forgot a kindness and in after years he was wont to refer to those who, in days long past, showed favors to the redhaired lad. In an editorial written toward the end of his life, the reader is allowed just one little glimpse into the sensitive,, reticent depth of the boys heart: "The Farmer raised the lid and peered at the nest and eggs again, so frail, so delicate, and so beautiful. How wonderful it all seemed to be! As [21] JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS he stood there, more than forty yes, well-nigh fifty years suddenly came out of the dark and backward abysm into which they had disappeared, and the Farmer, a small boy, was showing a wrens nest to three girls near the old school house in the little town where he was born. Their names came sighing into his memory from far away, vague whispers from the shores of Mystery. He remem bered how beautiful they were, and how gentle and tender and kind they had been to a lonely little lad whose name the Farmer never will tell you. Beau tiful, tender, and kind, and dead these forty-odd years dead and glorified before they could even dream what life has in store for even the most for tunate of those who drink deeply from its chalice." CHAPTER III TURN WOLD FBOM the vantage-ground of middle years, father wrote: It was a great blessing for a young fellow in the clutches of poverty to be raised up among such people as those who lived in Eatonton when I was a boy, and whose descendants still live there. I have not the slightest difficulty in the world in referring all that I have done or hope to do to the kindly interest which the people of Eatonton took in my welfare when I was too young to know anything of the difficulties of life or the troubles that inhabit the world by right of discovery and possession. But Eatonton was not a newspaper office, and I had to leave there in order to stick my head in an ink fountain. There came a time when I had to be up and doing, as the poet says, and it so happened that I was in the post office at Eatonton reading the Milledgeville papers when the first number of the " Coun tryman" was deposited on the counter where all the newspapers were kept. I read it through, and came upon an advertisement which announced that the editor wanted a boy to learn the printers trade. This was my opportunity, and I seized it with both hands. I wrote to the editor, whom I knew well, and the next time he came to town he sought me out, asked if I had written the letter with my own hand, and in three words the bargain was concluded. 1 1 On the Plantation, p. 14. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS The editor mentioned was Mr. Joseph Addison Turner, of " Turnwold," a plantation nine miles from Eatonton, and the boy who felt that he "must be up and doing" was less than fourteen years old. But "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," and doubtless Joels thoughts were of his mother and her needs. So he "put away his tops and marbles, packed his little belongings in an old-fashioned trunk, kissed his mother good-bye, and set forth on what turned out to be the most important journey of his life." Mr. Turner himself came to town to get the boy, and while the two travel down the country road behind the editors large gray horse, Ben Bolt, let us find out what we can about Joels new home. I Turnwold comprised a large tract of land in Putnam County, which had passed from the Spivey family into the hands of Mr. William Turner, the father of J. A. and William Turner. The paternal homestead is still standing on an elevation at some distance to the left of the house later occupied by J. A. Turner, editor of the "Countryman." A beautiful avenue of oaks leads up to it, and though it is now dilapidated and weather-beaten, it is not lacking in dignity and a charm of desolation. Its old hand-hewn timbers are riddled with worm-holes, and have faded to a soft, silvery, rain-washed gray. [24 ] TURNWOLD The wide hall, extending through the house, and now standing open to the mercy of the elements, is flanked on either side by high-ceiled rooms, and in one of these Mr. William Turner kept his books, the nucleus of a library which later became famous throughout several counties. 1 Outside, the air is scented with the odor of huge boxwood bushes which encircle the entrance of the house, and to the right is the old family burying-ground, enclosed by an iron fence. Here the graves are covered by a matted carpet of periwinkles whose starlike bios- -