Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/342

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324
SOUTHERN LIFE IN SOUTHERN LITERATURE

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

[Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1848. He left school at the age of twelve to go to the farm of a Mr. Turner, nine miles from Eatonton, to learn the printer's trade in connection with the publication of a newspaper.

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

Most of his training for his future work was obtained from the books of Mr. Turner's library and from the negroes on the plantation, from whom he stored his mind with their folk lore. In 1876 Harris became a member of the editorial staff of the Atlanta Constitution. For this paper he wrote the negro folk tales which were gathered into the volume "Uncle Remus: his Songs and Sayings," published in 1880. This book at once gave the author a national reputation, which has been sustained by his further volumes dealing with negro folklore and the life of Georgia country people. He died at his home, "Sign of the Wren's Nest," in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1908.]


BRER RABBIT GROSSLY DECEIVES BRER FOX

When the little boy, whose nights with Uncle Remus are as entertaining as those Arabian ones of blessed memory, had finished supper the other evening and hurried out to sit with his venerable patron, he found the old man in great glee. Indeed, Uncle Remus was talking and laughing to himself at