Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1908-07-17
GL|MPSES OF
JUNGLE REMUS." !"
Fun Joel Chandler Harris Had
With False Eye.
INSTANCES OF HIS KINDNESS.
How He Bought Out Soap Vender
and Helped Printer-Amusine
Stories Of His Bashfulness-Souree
of His Famous Negro Tales.

Joel Chandler Harris, the author.
who recently died at his home in West
End. a suburb of Atl.-ta, was known
throughout the English reading world
for his creation Of the character of
Uncle Remus." Mr. Harris was the
subject OF many interesting stories and
incidents. Some of them are herewith
related by his friend and neighbor,
Forrest Adair:
zone day Mr.. Harris little daughter
broke her doll, and her father picked
up one Of the pieces. The fragment
CHANGED 10 be the dolls eye. and Mr..
Harris found that a slight compress
sion of the muscles of the face would
enable him TO easily hold the eye over
his own optic. The mirror showed
him that the thing had an uncanny
and ghastly look 1t had the staring
CLASSY appearance of a dead persons
eye. Carefully placing his treasure in
his vest pocket, he went to town and
tried its effect upon the Office boy with
so much success that he was encour-
aged to repeat the experiment else
where. On the car going out TO West
End three schoolgirls occupied seats
not far from him. They were stran-
gers, and incidentally their glances
were turned to his direction. AT a fa-
vorable moment, when his newspaper
concealed his face. he fixed the dolls
eye in position and then lowered the
sheet, which he pretended TO read with
the other eye. Suddenly there was a
pause in the lively conservation of the
girls. and Harris could see that they
were gazing in horror at the wonderful
eye They had never seen anything
like it. Just what il was they could
not tell, but it was more than they
could stand. They put their heads to-
gether and whispered and then stared
at the horrible object. 1t was too
much to be endured. The girls
watched that immOvable, expression
less orb for few moments, and, with
very pale faces and in evident nery-
BUSINESS, signaled the conductor to stop
the car. They were AT some distance
from their destination, but that did
not matter. Anything to escape from
the glare of that corpselike eye.
IAN old lady on the car started to
ask Harris a question. Before she had
uttered three words she noticed that
hideous eye. Her voice faltered and
lost. Taking her spectacles from her
/ bag, she wiped them vigorously and
/ put them on. In the meantime the re-
( pulsive eye had been slyly removed,
! and Mr.. Harris was smiling blandly
( upon her, with his honest blue eyes
/ frankly meeting hers. This seemed to
/ puzzle the old lady more than ever.
| She rubbed her eyes, examined her
spectacles, and went off into a brown
study. No doubt she thought of con-
sulting an oculist about the strange
| trick her vision had played her.
1.-The dolls eye caused his possessor
I endless fun while he had it, Ere
quently children and simple Africans
u.et on the back streets of Atlanta an
otherwise jolly looking. ruddy faced
man with one twinkling eye and one
dead looking black orb, and their in
coherent stories of the man with the
evil eye disturbed their home circles
not little. The dolls eye was finally
lost and Harris regretted it greatly. i
never had so much fun in my life oul
of little thing he said.