Literary Hearthstones of Dixie Part 6

When the end of his visit came his father pleaded:

"Do not think of Charleston. Whatever your talents they will there be poured out like water on the sands. Charleston! I know it only as a place of tombs."

There came a time when he, too, knew it only as a place of tombs. Just now he knew it as the home of the Only Girl in the world, so--what was the use? And then, Charleston is born into the blood of all her sons, whether she recognizes them or not. It is better to be a door-keeper in Charleston than to dwell in the most gorgeous tents of outside barbarians. So he who was born to the Queen City would hang on to the remotest hem of her trailing robe at the imminent risk of having his brains dashed out on the cobble-stones as she swept along her royal way, rather than sit comfortably upon velvet-cushioned thrones in a place unknown to her regal presence. Simms came back to his native city with her "unsociable houses which rose behind walls, shutting in beautiful gardens that it would have been a sacrilege to let the public enjoy."

Soon after his return he was admitted to the bar and proved his forensic prowess by earning $600 in the first year of his practice, a degree of success which enabled him to unite his destiny with that of the Only Girl, and begin housekeeping in Summerville, a suburban village where living was cheap. For, though "Love gives itself and is not bought," there are other essentials of existence which are not so lavish with themselves.

The pen-fever had seized upon Simms with great virulence and he followed his fate. Soon after his return from Mississippi, General Charles Coates Pinckney died and Simms wrote the memorial poem for him. When LaFayette visited Charleston the pen of Simms was called upon to do suitable honor to the great occasion. Such periodical attacks naturally resulted in a chronic condition. Charleston was the scene of his brief, though not wholly unsuccessful, career as a play-wright. In Charleston he edited the _Daily Gazette_ in the exciting tunes of Nullification, taking with all the strength that was in him the unpopular side of the burning question. In the doorway of the Gazette office he stood defiantly as the procession of Nullifiers came down the street, evidently with hostile intentions toward the belligerent editor. Seeing his courageous att.i.tude the enthusiasts became good-natured and contented themselves with marching by, giving three cheers for their cause.

In that famous bookshop, Russell's, on King Street he was accustomed to meet in the afternoons with the youthful writers who looked upon him as their natural born leader. In his "Wigwam," as he called his Charleston home, he welcomed his followers to evenings of brightness that were like stars in their memory through many after years of darkness. When he made his home at Woodlands he often came to the "Wigwam" to spend a night, calling his young disciples in for an evening of entertainment. His powerful voice would be heard ringing out in oratory and declamation so that neighbors blocks away would say to Hayne or Timrod next morning, "I noticed that you had Simms with you last night." In 1860 the "Wigwam" was accidentally burned.

At Woodlands, Simms awaited the coming of the war which he had predicted for a number of years. There he was when the battle of Fredericksburg filled him with triumphant joy, and he saw in fancy "Peace with her beautiful rainbow plucked from the bosom of the storm and spread from east to west, from north to south, over all the sunny plains and snowy heights." Unfortunately, his radiant fancy wrought in baseless visions and the fires of the storm had burned away that brilliant rainbow before Peace came, as a mourning dove with shadowy wings hovering over a Nation's grave.

In May, 1864, Simms went to Columbia and was there when the town was destroyed by fire, the house in which he was staying being saved by his presence therein. "You belong to the whole Union," said an officer, placing a guard around the dwelling to protect the st.u.r.dy writer who counted his friends all over the Nation. He said to friends who sympathized with him over his losses, "Talk not to me about my losses when the State is lost."

Simms describes the streets of Columbia as "wide and greatly protected by umbrageous trees set in regular order, which during the vernal season confer upon the city one of its most beautiful features."

The _Daily South Carolinian_ was sent to Charleston to save it from destruction. Its editors, Julian Selby and Henry Timrod, remained in the office on the south side of Washington Street near Main, where they prepared and sent out a daily bulletin while bomb-sh.e.l.ls fell around them, until their labors were ended by the burning of the building.

From the ashes of the _Carolinian_ arose the _Phoenix_ and Simms was its editor through its somewhat brief existence. Selby relates that Simms offended General Hartwell and was summoned to trial at the General's headquarters on the corner of Bull and Gervais Streets. The result of the trial was an invitation for the defendant to a sumptuous luncheon and a ride home in the General's carriage accompanied by a basket of champagne and other good things. The next day the General told a friend that if Mr. Simms was a specimen of a South Carolina gentleman he would not again enter into a tilt with one. "He outtalked me, out-drank me, and very clearly and politely showed me that I lacked proper respect for the aged."

The _Phoenix_ promptly sank back into its ashes and Simms returned to Charleston to a life of toil and struggle, not only for his own livelihood but to help others bear the burden of existence that was very heavy in Charleston immediately succeeding the war. Timrod wrote to him, "Somehow or other, you always magnetize me on to a little strength."

In 1866 Simms visited Paul Hayne at Copse Hill, the shrine to which many footsteps were turned in the days when the poet and his little family made life beautiful on that pine-clad summit. Hayne welcomed his guest with joy and with sorrow--joy to behold again the face of his old friend; sorrow to see it lined with the pain and losses of the years.

Of all their old circle, Simms was the one whose wreck was the most disastrous. He had possessed so many of the things which make life desirable that his loss had left him as the storm leaves the ruined ship which, in the days of its magnificence, had ridden the waves with the greatest pride. The fortnight in Copse Hill was the first relief from toil that had come to him since death and fire and defeat had done their worst upon him. His biographer says, "He was as eager as ever to pa.s.s the night in profitless, though pleasant, discussions when he should have been trying to regain his strength through sleep."

To a later visitor Paul Hayne showed a cherished pine log on which were inscribed the names of Simms and Timrod.

Upon the return of Simms he wrote to his friend at Copse Hill that no language could describe the suffering of Charleston. He said that the picture of Irving, given him by Hayne, served a useful purpose in helping to cover the bomb-sh.e.l.l holes still in his walls. "For the last three years," he writes, "I have written till two in the morning.

Does not this look like suicide?" He mentions the fact that he shares with his two sons his room in which he sleeps, works, writes and studies, and is "cabin'd, cribbed, confined"--"I who have had such ample range before, with a dozen rooms and a house range for walking, in bad weather, of 134 feet." The old days were very fair as seen through the heavy clouds that had gathered around the Master of Woodlands.

In 1870, June 11th, the bell of Saint Michael's tolled the message that Charleston's most distinguished son had pa.s.sed away. His funeral was in Saint Paul's. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, at the dedication of which twenty-one years earlier he had read the dedication poem. The stone above him bears simply the name, "Simms."

On the Battery in Charleston a monument commemorates the broken life of one who gave of his best to the city of his home and his love.

Verily might he say: I asked for bread and you gave me a stone.

"UNCLE REMUS"

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

Seeing the name of Joel Chandler Harris, many people might have to stop and reflect a moment before recalling exactly what claim that gentleman had upon the attention of the reader. "Uncle Remus" brings before the mind at once a whole world of sunlight and fun, with not a few grains of wisdom planted here and there. The good old fun-loving Uncle has put many a rose and never a thorn into life's flower-garden.

Being in Atlanta some years ago, when Mr. Harris was on the editorial staff of the _Const.i.tution_, I called up the office and asked if I might speak to him. The gentleman who answered my call replied that Mr. Harris was not in, adding the information that if he were he would not talk through the telephone. I asked what time I should be likely to find him in the office.

"He will be in this afternoon, but I fear that he would not see you if you were the angel Gabriel," was the discouraging reply.

"I am not the angel Gabriel," I said. "Tell him that I am a lady--Mrs.

Pickett--and that I should like very much to see him."

"If you are a lady, and Mrs. Pickett, I fear that he will vanish and never be found again."

Notwithstanding the discouragements, I was permitted to call that afternoon in the hope that the obdurate Uncle Remus might graciously consent to see me. I found him in his office in the top story of the building, an appropriate place to avoid being run to covert by the public, but inconvenient because of the embarra.s.sment which might result from dropping out of the window if he should have the misfortune to be cornered. To say that I was received might be throwing too much of a glamour over the situation. At least, I was not summarily ejected, nor treated to a dissolving view of Uncle Remus disappearing in the distance, so I considered myself fortunate. I told him that I had called up by telephone that morning to speak to him.

"I never talk through the telephone," he said. "I do not like to talk in a hole. I look into a man's eyes when I talk to him."

When Uncle Remus was fairly run to earth and could not escape, he was quite human in his att.i.tude toward his caller; his only fault being that he was p.r.o.ne to talk of his visitor's work rather than his own, and a question that would seem to lead up to any personal revelation on his part would result in so strong an indication of a desire for flight that the conversation would be directed long distances away from Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. He was a born story-teller, and had not the made author's owl-like propensity to perch upon high places and hoot his wisdom to the pa.s.sing crowd. The expression "literary" as applied to him filled him with surprise. He called himself an "accidental author"; said he had never had an opportunity of acquiring style, and probably should not have taken 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.semblage 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, the county-seat of Putnam County, Georgia, and in his early days attended the Eatonton Academy, where he received all the academic training he ever had. His vitally helpful education was gained in the wider and deeper school of life, and few have been graduated therefrom with greater honors.

At six years of age he had the good fortune to encounter "The Vicar of Wakefield," than whom, it is safe to a.s.sert, no boy of such tender years had ever a better and more inspiring friend. This beloved clerical gentleman led young Joel into a charmed land of literature, in which he dwelt all his life.

In the post-office at Eatonton was an old green sofa, very much the worse for wear, which yet offered a comfortable lounging place for the boy Joel, adapted to his kittenish taste for curling up in quiet retreats. There he would spend hours in reading the newspapers that came to the office. In one of them he found an announcement of a new periodical to be published by Colonel Turner on his plantation nine miles from Eatonton. In connection with this announcement was an advertis.e.m.e.nt for an office boy. It occurred to the future "Uncle Remus," then twelve years old, that this might open a way for him. He wrote to Colonel Turner, and a few days later the Colonel drove up to town to take the unknown boy to his plantation. So beside the editor Joel Chandler Harris rode to the office of the _Countryman_ and to his happy destiny. It has been said that but for the Turner plantation there would have been no Uncle Remus, but what would have become of the possibilities of that good old darky if the little Joel had not enjoyed the acquaintance of a good-natured post-master who permitted him to occupy the old green sofa and browse among the second-cla.s.s mail of the Eatonton community?

Surely there was never a better school for the development of a budding author than the office of the _Countryman_, and the well-selected library in the home of its editor, and the great wildwood that environed the plantation.

Best of all, there were the "quarters," where "Uncle Remus" conducted a whole university of history and zoology and philosophy and ethics and laughter and tears. Down in the cabins at night the printer's boy would sit and drink in such stores of wit and wisdom as could not lie unexpressed in his facile mind, and the world is the richer for every moment he spent in that primitive, child-mind community, with its ancient traditions that made it one with the beginning of time.

At times he joined a 'c.o.o.n hunt, and with a gang of boys and a pack of hounds chased the elusive little animal through the night, returning home triumphant in the dawn. He hunted rabbits in the woods, and, maybe, became acquainted with the character of the original Br'er Rabbit from his descendants in the old plantation forest.

From the window near which his type-case stood he saw the squirrels scampering over trees and roofs, heard the birds singing in the branches, caught dissolving views of Br'er Fox flitting across the garden path, and breathed in beauty and romance to be exhaled later for the enchantment of a world of readers.