“‘Gretchy, would you gone on vour ped mitout saiding your prayers?’
“She opened dem beautiful leedle blue eyses, und radder dreamily exclaimed:
‘Now I vas lay me down to shleep,
‘I pray der——’
dhen adding in one shweet leedle vhisper, ‘He knows der rest,’ she sunk down on her leedle ped, in His watchful care, who gifs His belofed shleeb.”
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.
“Uncle Remus” is a well-known character throughout the South, and his fame has even found its way northward. “Uncle Remus” is the literary nickname adopted by Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, a well-known journalist of the South. He was born in Eatonton, Georgia, on the 8th of December, 1846. At a very early age he was taken out of school, and placed at work as “printer’s devil” in the office of a country newspaper.
Charles Pilsbury, in a recent article, says of Harris: “He must have had access to many books, and those of the best sort, and he mastered them thoroughly. One can readily imagine him pursuing his studies in some shady nook in the summer time, and in the winter evenings by the blaze of pine knots or the modest tallow dip. It was in these days and evenings, we may be sure, that he obtained the insight into negro character, which has enabled him to portray in ‘Uncle Remus,’ the ante bellum negro.”
In 1866 Mr. Harris became connected with a publishing house at New Orleans, and he had plenty of spare time to devote to literature. He has written a good deal for southern periodicals, during the last five years; essays, sketches and lyrics have appeared from his pen that would have done honor to older heads. In January, 1867, he published in the New Orleans Times, a poem entitled The Sea Wind, which has been greatly admired.