Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) By Joel Chandler Harris. NIGHTS WITH UNCLE REMUS. Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50; paper, 50 cents. MINGO, and other Sketches in Black and White. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. BALAAM AND HIS MASTER, and other Sketches and Stories. 16mo, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. BALAAM AND HIS MASTER _AND OTHER SKETCHES AND STORIES_ BY JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS AUTHOR OF “UNCLE REMUS, HIS SONGS AND HIS SAYINGS,” “FREE JOE,” “DADDY JAKE, THE RUNAWAY,” ETC. [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1891 Copyright, 1891, BY JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. _All rights reserved._ _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. CONTENTS. PAGE BALAAM AND HIS MASTER 7 A CONSCRIPT’S CHRISTMAS 45 ANANIAS 112 WHERE’S DUNCAN? 149 MOM BI 170 THE OLD BASCOM PLACE 192 BALAAM AND HIS MASTER. What fantastic tricks are played by fate or circumstance! Here is a horrible war that shall redeem a nation, that shall restore civilization, that shall establish Christianity. Here is a university of slavery that shall lead the savage to citizenship. Here is a conflagration that shall rebuild a city. Here is the stroke of a pen that shall change the destinies of many peoples. Here is the bundle of fagots that shall light the fires of liberty. As in great things, so in small. Tragedy drags comedy across the stage, and hard upon the heels of the hero tread the heavy villain and the painted clown. What a preface to write before the name of Billville! Years ago, when one of the ex-Virginian pioneers who had settled in Wilkes County, in the State of Georgia, concluded to try his fortune farther west, he found himself, after a tedious journey of a dozen days, in the midst of a little settlement in middle Georgia. His wagons and his negroes were at once surrounded by a crowd of curious but good-humored men and a swarm of tow-headed children. “What is your name?” he asked one of the group. “Bill Jones.” “And yours?” turning to another. “Bill Satterlee.”