n he had finished, the call for "Harris" came
with great volume and persistency. He arose and said, "I am coming,"
walked down from the platform and was lost in the crowd.

[Illustration: JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
At Home]

Uncle Remus wrote his stories at "Snap Bean Farm," in West End, a
suburb of Atlanta. They filled his evenings with pleasure after the
office grind was over. If no one but himself had ever seen them, he
would have been as happy in the work as he was when the public was
delighting in the adventures of Br'er Wolf and Br'er B'ar. In that
cosy home the early evening was given to the children, and the later
hours to recording the tales which had amused them through the
twilight.

A home it was, not only to him but to all who came in friendship to
see him in his quiet retreat. There was no room in it for those whom
curiosity brought there to see the man of letters or to do honor to a
lion. The lionizing of Uncle Remus was the one ambition impossible of
achievement in the literary world. For everything else that touched
upon the human, the vine-embowered, tree-shaded house on Gordon Street
opened hospitable doors.

* * * * *

Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, the county-seat of Putnam
County, Georgia, and in his early days attended the Eatonton Academy,
where he received all the academic training he ever had. His vitally
helpful education was gained in the wider and deeper school of life,
and few have been graduated therefrom with greater honors.

At six years of age he had the good fortune to encounter "The Vicar of
Wakefield," than whom, it is safe to assert, no boy of such tender
years had ever a better and more inspiring friend. This beloved
clerical gentleman led young Joel into a charmed land of literature,
in which he dwelt all his life.

In the post-office at Eatonton was an old green sofa, very much the
worse for wear, which yet offered a comfortable lounging place for the
boy Joel, adapted to his kittenish taste for curling up in quiet
retreats. There he would spend hours in reading the newspapers that
came to the office. In one of them he found an announcement of a new
periodical to be published by Colonel Turner on his plantation nine
miles from Eatonton. In connection with this announcement was an
advertisement for an office boy. It occurred to the future "Uncle
Remus," then twelve years old, that this might open a way for him. He
wrote to Colonel Tur