The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-20

secretly at the last minute and took the
 train for Atlanta and-home Joel Chandler Harris never admitted
 that he had done anything great in his
 stories.
 "All did was to write out and put in print the stories I had heard all my life,'
 he said time and time again. In lit' tie article called "An Accidental Au- thor" written (by requesD for a large publishing house, he reduced the whole affair to the baldest terms possible He had happened to be familiar from child- hood with the plantation negroes of mid- dle GeoEgia.
 T absoeped the stories, songs and
 myths that l heard, but had no idea of their literary value until some time
 in the seventies, Lippincott's magazine
 published an article on the subject of
 negro folklore, containing some rough
 outlines of some of the stories. This ar ticle gave me my cue, and the legends told by Uncle Remus' are the result. . This was the accidental begin-
 ming of a career that has been accidental
 throughout. It was an accident that went to the 'Countryman, an accident that I wrote Uncle Remus,' and an ac-
 cident that the stories put forth undet that name struck the popular fancy"
 Nobody can doubt the sincerity of this
 
 Twain had set him right. II am perfectly well aware (Harris had
 written in answering the letter of praisel that my book has no basis of literary art to stand upon. understand that my relations toward Uncle Ren1us are similar to those that exist between , an almanac maker and the calendar To which Mark promptly retorted: You can argue yourself into the delu- -to 41,of rfr Nir,In nf fn fu in stories themselves and not in their set ting, but you will save labor by stopping l with that solitary convert, for he is tho l only intelligent one you will bag. In real- 1 ity the stories are only alligator pears- one eats them merely for the sake of the dressing"
 | His letters to his children, especially | those to his son Julian, are exquisite in their delicacy of feeling and tender to a | degree in affection. Particularly was l impressed with one of the letters to 1 Julian Harris when he first left home 1 to visit his La Rose grandparents in | Canada, and in which Uncle Remus says; 1 And, remember, too, that we love you; 1 that we and all who know you expect 1 great things of you-and remembering | this, let every act of yours bear some definite relation to your self-respect. We 1 are all here; the place is just as you l left it, except the hole made in the air 1 by your absence, and it Is pretty | large one, too. I am waiting for those long letters. Your Dad'
 | Could anything be more characteristic ] of Uncle Remus?
 l A most amusing experience is related ] by Mrs. Harris of her husband Julian, | starting out alone in July, 1890, on this | self-same trip-a slight, erect figure in i the cadet uniform of the Gordon Mili- 1 tary misunderstanding his grip and feel- | ing very important at the prospect of l taking in the sights of Washington and l New York en route to the land of 1 "habitaps."
 | Mrs. Harris tells the story in the fol- | lowing attractive manner
 Father had arranged with MT F. w. l Barrett, the correspondent of the Atlanta | Constitution (now editor of The Br
 mingham Age-Herald) to meet the young 1 traveller in Washington, and show him | the city. but when the train pulled in | and Julian alghted. his escort was mo- where to be seen and the boy inde- pendently set out for himself. He wan l dered about for part of a day, not being
 particularly impressed with the won ders of which he had heard. especially | when he saw number of crows Tapping
 across the sky. No truly metropolitan /, city could be Infected by crows, thought
 the young Georgian, so, in few hours, 1 and in a somewhat condescending mood, 1 he boarded his train and set out for l New York, and, in the careless fashion l of youth, he neglected to telegraph home 1 the news that he had reached Washing | ton safely"
 l Young Julian finally arrived in New | York, leaves the Desbrosses street ferry, | finds an eating house, enjoys a dish of
 lobster salad and a glass of milk, and | thereby gets into trouble, for everyone knows lobster and milk "don't go fur l together as the darky says, and with.