The Penn's Grove record., 1896-08-14

Uncle emu Joke.
Joel Chandler Harris, or Uncle Re
mus, as the youngsters call him, makes
1t a point ever to neglect fun for bust
ness, but he generally finds time for
both.
Some time ago Uncle Remus picked
up a dolls eye. The fragment fitted
nicely over one of his eyes, and a slight
contraction of the muscles of his face
kept the thing in place. 1t had the
appearance of a human eye, but 1t was
without either eyelids or eyelashes, and
had a fixed stare; 1t had a hideous and
chastity look,
After experimenting before his mir
ror Uncle Remus put his treasure in
his vest pocket and felt that he was
fully equipped for a mystifying joke Of
4 brand-new variety.
At first he contented himself with a
few trials Of his precious eye when his
friends visited him on the Constitu-
tion's editorial floor. Success made
ers on the street were amazed by the
spectacle of an otherwise good-looking
man with the most horrible eye that
had ever been seen. In the twilight,
or under the electric lamps on quite
back streets, negroes and children fed
from what they supposed was an I'M
canny monster. and their stories of
their strange encounters with this sin
gular being were exaggerated just
enough to make them of startling In.
terest.
Why not try 1t on the street cars?
Uncle Remus debated this question
some time in his mind before he was
willing to risk 1t. He was surrounded
by friends on the car. and 1t would be
difficult to fool them when they were
within touching distance. Still, some
thing might be done when he sat in a
corner with strangers opposite.
One day he took a corner seat In his
car, and found an old lady sitting in
front of him. Here raj his opper-
tunity. He pretended to read his news
paper until he was able to tx his false
eye without being observed. A mo-
msnt later the old lady was astonished
to see a man glaring at her with an
eye of such diabolical appearance that
she was tempted to scream, and she
would doubtless have done SO If she
had not been somewhat reassured by
the presence of other passengers. The
agitated woman looked down at the
floor and then out OF the window She
wondered that her companions dfd not
share her surprise, but they were seat
ed where they could not see the object
which had disturbed her 80 much.
A stealthy glance showed that :erri-
bic orb still turned In her direction and
the now desperate victim made a sud
den dive for her glasses.
Uncle Remus was not caught nap
ping. He raised his newspaper, got
rid of his eye, and when the old lady
looked at him again she saw n bland
and smiling lace fronting her with n
pair of the most innocent blue eyes In
the world.
She was now more ~astonished than
ever, but after rubbing her glasses and
taking another look she became con-
vinced that she had been suffering
from a very remarkable optical delu-
sion and gave an audible sigh of re-
lief.
OF course the joker was delighted
with this adventure. His next street
car experiment was tried when several
giggling schoolgirls sat rear him. The
young misses were having a jolly time,
when one of them suddenly caught a
glimpse OF that fearful eye. She
stopped In the middle Of a sentence.
gave a suppressed little cry of alarm
and nudged the girl next to her.
Then for two or three minutes half
a dozen pale and sorely perplexed
faces were turned away from the
strange mystery in tina r
The car stopped. Uncle Remus
dueked his head behind his aswspapeR
and IN another instant the young ladies
saw his sunny face. no hngsr disfg.
ursa By it's disgulsa.
The girls get on In sflsnee, but their
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