CHAPTER 47

Uncle Remus and Mr. Cable

MR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ['Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta at

seven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were

able to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel-counter by

his correspondence with a description of him which had been furnished us

from a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired,

and somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside

tallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He

is a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface,

but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see

that it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and

beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle

Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign. I seem

to be talking quite freely about this neighbor; but in talking to the

public I am but talking to his personal friends, and these things are

permissible among friends.

He deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked eagerly to

Mr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage and oracle of

the nation's nurseries. They said--

'Why, he 's white!'

They were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book was brought,

that they might hear Uncle Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of Uncle

Remus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. But it

turned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shy to

venture the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours, to

show him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proof

against even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read about Brer

Rabbit ourselves.

Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better than

anybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master the

country has produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of

French dialects that the country has produced; and he reads them

in perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ah

Poquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing

'Louisihanna _rif_-fusing to Hanter the Union,' along with passages of

nicely-shaded German dialect from a novel which was still in manuscript.

It came out in conversation, that in two different instances Mr. Cable

got into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to-impossible

French names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living and

sensitive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either inventions or

were borrowed from the ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember

which; but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and were a good

deal hurt at having attention directed to themselves and their affairs

in so excessively public a manner.

Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote

the book called 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called

'Sellers.' I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;

but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved. He asked

me if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.' Of course I

said I could not, without stimulants. He said that away out West, once,

he had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken hands with a man

bearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.' He added--

'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off before

this; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow. We will

confiscate his name. The name you are using is common, and therefore

dangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses bearing it, and the

whole horde will come after us; but Eschol Sellers is a safe name--it is

a rock.'

So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,

one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking white

men that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libel

suit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his permission to

suppress an edition of ten million {footnote [Figures taken from memory,

and probably incorrect. Think it was more.]} copies of the book and

change that name to 'Mulberry Sellers' in future editions.