Free Joe and the Rest of the World
The title story (typically shortened to just “Free Joe”) features a title character who is a slave living in Hillsborough, Georgia owned by Major Frampton. After Frampton literally loses everything except Je in a game of chance, his last act before suicide is emancipating Joe. Now a freed slave, Joe finds himself metaphorically enslaved in the borderline between the free world of whites and the slave world of blacks; neither of which accept him as one of their own under present circumstances. Further complicating things for Joe is that his wife was one of the properties Frampton lost and eventually he loses even her when she falls into the hands of a cruel new master.
Little Compton
The title character here is a businessman from the North who develops a close friendship a highly respected and influential Hillsborough citizen named Jack Walthall in the years running up to the outbreak of Civil War. Fearful that his status as a Northerner will result in physical assault by Georgians fired up by the threat of war, Compton flees back home. The inevitable reunion that takes places between the two old friends occurs on the battlefield of Gettysburg. The story ends with both men back in Georgia, both minus one arm, but determined to attain personal reconciliation.
Aunt Fountain’s Prisoner
Continuing with theme of post-war reconciliation, this story also features a businessman from the North who develops a friendship with a prominent Georgia family. The war having ravaged the once extremely successful plantation known as Tomlinson Place, the family is more than delighted to accept the investment money of Ferris Trunion. As the fortunes turn once again for the better, a romance also blossom between Ferris and the Tomlinson’s daughter. The conflict is centered on the resistance of his future mother-in-law to the very concept of a Northerner being so intimately involved in running the plantation, but eventually reconciliation between North and South commences on the personal level here as well.
Trouble on Lost Mountain
For reader troubled by the views toward slavery and manifestations of racism in the works of Harris, “Trouble on Lost Mountain” is the story to seek out in this collection. Taking place entirely after the end of the war, the issues making Harris a controversial writer are at a minimum while his literary skills are allowed to shine brightly. The story is another one pursuing the volume’s overarching theme of reconciliation in its tale of a Boston businessman carving out a friendship with a Southern family. The influence of the Bostonian on the family which lives in isolation in the mountain dependent upon strong bonds with neighbors begins to impact those relationships, especially when that influence drives the pretty daughter of the mountain family to see possibilities of life beyond the mountain for the first time. The local boy she seems intended to marry has no such ambition himself and fear of losing her drives him toward an act which sets this story apart from the others with its tragic implications for attempted reconciliation.
Azalia
The final story, “Azalia,” is one of the longer entries in this collection, but ironically is one of the least complicated. Essentially another tale of reconciliation in the form of a romance between Boston woman and a former Confederate General, the story is really just a series of episodes intended to place the Northern sensibility into juxtaposition with the Southern for the purpose of carving out some kind of common ground over divisive issues which led to the rupture of war which both sides realize must be healed in order to facilitate full reconciliation.
