Fitzgerald enterprise. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1895-1912, 1908-08-27
GL|MPSES OF
JUNGLE REMUS, "
Fun Joel Chandler Harris Had
With a False Eye.
INSTANCES OF HIS KINDNESS.

How He Bought Out Soap Vender
and Helped a Printer-Amuslns
Stories of His BashfuIness-Souree
of His Famous Negro Tales.
Joel Chandler Harris, the author
who recently died at his home in West
End. suburb of Atlanta, was known
throughout the English reading world
| for his creation of the character OF
"TTncle 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 to 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 CHASTITY 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 it's 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 ia
vorable moment, when his newspaper
concealed his face, he fixed the dolPs
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 it 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 a few moments, and, with
very pale faces and in evident nerv-
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.
"An 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
| the remainder of the sentence was
| 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 oil into q brown
study. No doubt she thought Of con-
suIting an oculist about the strange
trick her vision had played her.
1.-THE dolls eye caused his possessor
endless fun while he had 1t. Ere
quently children and simple Africans
met 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 1t greatly. I
never had so much fun in my life out
of little thing he said
THE members of the Harris family
spent most of their time at home, but
occasionally they took a long summer
outing, leaving Uncle Remus' to hold
the fort during their absence. At such
times he worked hard and turned out
piles of copy for his publishers. One
morning when he was alone in the
house, working on a free silver, six
teen to one editorial, ring at the door
disturbed him. He answered the bell,
and a rather genteel looking, middle
aged man saluted him, Offering toilet
soap for sale at 10 cents a cake or
three cakes for a quarter Annoyed
by the interruption, Harris said rather
bruesquely that he did not need any
soap
but I am on the verge of starva-
tton,' said the man.
1.-The idear laughed Mr.. Harris
Why, man, you are wearing a better
coat than l have
"'You would not talk so,' he replied
in tremulous voice, If you had seen
how hard my poor wife rubbed and
brushed my coat this morning so that
would present a respectable appear
ance.'
Harris then saw that the coat was
old nIrnnr+ 4hron lhnrn hut nxonndi1n0-