“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 attitude toward his caller; his only fault being that he was prone 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 passing 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 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.