NIGHTS WITH UNCLE REMUS 
“En I let you know/’ said Uncle Remus, leaning back and 
laughing to see the little boy laugh, “I let you know Brer Fox got 
mighty skace in dat neighborhood!” 
XXV 
AFRICAN JACK 
Usually, the little boy, who regarded himself as Uncle Re¬ 
mus’s partner, was not at all pleased when he found the old 
man entertaining, in his simple way, any of his colored friends; 
but he was secretly delighted when he called one night and found 
Daddy Jack sitting by Uncle Remus’s hearth. Daddy Jack was 
an object of curiosity to older people than the little boy. He was 
a genuine African, and for that reason he was known as African 
Jack, though the child had been taught to call him Daddy Jack. 
He was brought to Georgia in a slave-ship when he was about 
twenty years old, and remained upon one of the sea-islands for 
several years. Finally, he fell into the hands of the family of which 
Uncle Remus’s little partner was the youngest representative, and 
became the trusted foreman of a plantation, in the southern part 
of Georgia, known as the Walthall Place. Once every year he was 
in the habit of visiting the Home Place in Middle Georgia, and it 
was during one of these annual visits that the little boy found him 
in Uncle Remus’s cabin. 
Daddy Jack appeared to be quite a hundred years old, but he 
was probably not more than eighty. He was a little, dried-up old 
man, whose weazened, dwarfish appearance, while it was calcu¬ 
lated to inspire awe in the minds of the superstitious, was not with¬ 
out its pathetic suggestions. The child had been told that the old 
African was a wizard, a conjurer, and a snake-charmer; but he 
was not afraid, for, in any event, — conjuration, witchcraft, or 
what not, — he was assured of the protection of Uncle Remus. 
112 
