later contact with the tendencies of his era and the ephemeral
production of the daily press was not able to change.

* * * * *

It was in the office of the _Countryman_ that Joel Chandler Harris
made his first venture into the world of print, shyly, as became one
who would afterward be known as the most modest literary man in
America. When Colonel Hunter found out the authorship of the bright
paragraphs that slipped into his paper now and then with increasing
frequency, he captured the elusive young genius and set it to work as
a regular contributor. In this periodical the young writer's first
poem appeared: a mournful lay of love and death, as a first poem
usually is, however cheerful a philosopher its author may ultimately
become.

This idyllic life soon ceased. When the tide of war rolled over
central Georgia, it swept many lives out of their accustomed paths and
destroyed many a support around which budding aspirations had wound
their tendrils. The "printer's boy" sat upon a fence on the old Turner
plantation, watching Slocum's Corps march by, and amiably receiving
the good-natured gibes and jests of the soldiers, who apparently found
something irresistibly mirth-provoking in the quaint little figure by
the wayside. Sherman was marching to the sea, and the Georgia boy was
taking his first view of the progress of war.

Among the many enterprises trampled to earth by those ruthless feet
was the _Countryman_, which survived the desolating raid but a short
time. It was years before the young journalist knew another home. For
some months he set type on the Macon _Daily Telegraph_, going from