The fact is that from the time of his birth until General Sherman swept toward the sea after burning Atlanta, Mr. Harris lived in Eatonton. When he was six years old he could read, and it is said that a stray copy of "The Vicar of Wakefield," met in his juvenile days, did much to develop his taste for good literature. Joel attended Eatonton Academy for a few terms, and at the age of twelve went to work for Colonel Turner, the publisher of a weekly called _The Countryman_. It was the boy's own enterprise and ambition which brought this about. It was Joel himself who heard that Colonel Turner was in need of a boy with "willing hands" to learn the printer's trade, and who went unbidden and unendorsed to apply for a job. The publisher and the youngster took a liking to each other on sight, and young Harris was put to work forthwith. Those were unquestionably among the happiest days of the humorist's life. This is not saying, of course, that his cup of happiness is not brimming over to-day; but those were days of new contentment. The young printer's work was not burdensome; but the happiest fact of all is that his employer, Colonel Turner, had a rich library, in which his youngest workman was free to browse in leisure moments. The acorn of taste for good books which the boy had cultivated at home here developed into an oak; and the soil in which the acorn took root was fertile, and there was ample room for the spread of every growing limb and bough. At first the lad delved among the Elizabethans. Sir Thomas Browne, too, became one of his favorite authors--nowadays Mr. Harris leans toward Thackeray, Stevenson, Scott, Kipling and James Whitcomb Riley--a good catholic taste. Few boys ever enjoyed a more advantageous course of reading. Gradually the juvenile printer drifted from his books into writing, just as a student one day quits the gallery and starts to paint some work of his own. Colonel Turner responded to the ambition of his protégé most generously. He praised the little works judiciously, and before long young Harris was prompted to doff his anonymity and stand up to be judged by himself. Thereafter he became a regular contributor to _The Countryman_--which was truly rustic in scope as well as in title--and the name of Harris began to be spoken throughout Georgia.