shaking hands with the public. He was asked to speak, but that was
even less to be expected. The nearest he ever came to making a speech
was once when he sat upon the platform while his friend, Henry O.
Grady, was addressing a large assemblage with all that eloquence for
which he was noted. When 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.

* * * * *