Southern Stories Retold from St. Nicholas   By: Various

RETOLD FROM ST. NICHOLAS

[Illustration]

NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1907

Copyright, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1907, by THE CENTURY CO.

THE DE VINNE PRESS

[Illustration: A REAL UNCLE REMUS STORY.]

CONTENTS

PAGE

A REAL UNCLE REMUS STORY Frontispiece

HIS HERO Margaret Minor 3

JERICHO BOB Anna Eichberg King 18

HOW WE BOUGHT LOUISIANA Helen Lockwood Coffin 28

THE CITY THAT LIVES OUTDOORS W. S. Harwood 34

QUEER AMERICAN RIVERS F. H. Spearman 52

THE WATERMELON STOCKINGS Alice Caldwell Hegan 65

THE "'GATOR" Clarence B. Moore 80

THE EARTHQUAKE AT CHARLESTON Ewing Gibson 96

HIDING PLACES IN WAR TIMES J. H. Gore 102

ST. AUGUSTINE Frank R. Stockton 108

CATCHING TERRAPIN Alfred Kappes 126

"LOCOED" Edward Marshall 130

A DIVIDED DUTY M. A. Cassidy 165

THE "WALKING BEAM BOY" L. E. Stofiel 178

THE CREATURE WITH NO CLAWS Joel Chandler Harris 185

SOUTHERN STORIES

SOUTH

Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit trees; Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.

Longfellow.

HIS HERO

BY MARGARET MINOR

It was an October afternoon, and through Indian summer's tulle like haze a low swinging sun sent shafts of scarlet light at the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge. The sweet gum leaves looked like blood colored stars as they floated slowly to the ground, and brown chestnuts gleamed satin like through their gaping burs; while over all there rested a dense stillness, cut now and then by the sharp yelp of a dog as he scurried through the bushes after a rabbit.

Surrounded by this splendid autumn beauty stood Mountain Top Inn, near the crest of the Blue Ridge in Rockfish Gap, its historical value dating from the time when Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, after a long and spirited discussion in one of its low ceiled rooms, decided upon the location of the University of Virginia.

On the porch of this old inn there now sat a little boy, idly swinging a pair of sun tanned legs. Occasionally he tickled an old liver colored hound that lay dozing in a limp heap; but being rewarded only by toothless snaps at very long intervals, he finally grew tired of this amusement, and stretching himself out on his back, he began to dream with wide open eyes. At these dream times, when he let his thoughts loose, they always bore him to the very same field, and here his fancy painted pictures with the vivid colors of a boy's imagination: pictures so strong that they left him flushed and tingling with pride; again, pictures that brought a cool, choking feeling to his throat; and at times pictures that made his childish mouth quiver and droop. Among all of these thought born scenes, at intervals there would stand out the real ones, scenes that were etched on the clean walls of his memory in everlasting strokes.