ken advantage of it
if he had. He was always as much astonished by his success as other
people are by their failures.

* * * * *

I met him once at a Confederate reunion in Atlanta, where I took my
little grand-children, who had been brought up on Uncle Remus, to see
him. Having heard their beauty praised, he cautioned them not to think
too much of their looks, telling them that appearance was of little
consequence. He gave each of them a coin, saying, "I don't believe in
giving money to boys; I believe in their working for it."

"Well," said little George, "haven't we earned it listening to Uncle
Remus?"

"If that is so, I'm afraid I haven't money enough to pay you what I
owe you."

He was at ease and natural and like other people with children. He
invited them to come to his farm and see the flowers and trees,
telling them how his home received the name of "The Wren's Nest." As
he sat one morning on the veranda, he saw a wren building a nest on
his letter-box by the gate. When the postman came he went out and
asked him to deliver the mail at the door, to avoid disturbing Madam
Wren's preparations for housekeeping. The postman was faithful, and
the Wren family had a prosperous and happy home.

"You must never steal an egg from a nest," he told the boys. Curving
one hand into an imitation nest holding an imaginary egg, he hovered
over it with the other hand, rubbing it gently, explaining to the
boys, who watched him with absorbing interest, how the egg would
change to a beautiful fluff of feathers and music, and after a while
would fly away among the trees and fill the woods with sweet sounds.
"If you destroy the egg, you kill all that beauty and music, and there
will be no little bird to sit on the tree and sing to you." The boys
assured him that they had never taken an egg, nor even so much as
looked into the nest, because some birds will leave their nests if you
just look into them.

At the reception given to Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Stuart, Winnie Davis, and
myself, Mr. Harris was invited to stand in line, but declined. It
would be difficult to imagine him as standing with a receiving party,
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. Whe