Excerpt from What to See and Do in the South: How to Get the Most Out of Your Trip

Innocent enough in itself, isn't it? But from the time of my first acquaintance with it, I found myself repeating it over and over again. It would not leave my mind, and I suffered appallingly from its haunting persistence. When, after a week had passed, I caught myself trying to eat soup in time to its devastating jingle, I realized something would have to be done.

On analysis of the lines, I saw that Mr. Harold Kaplan, Jr., and I had much in common. He had never been either to Timbuctoo or to China, and neither had I. Reading between the lines, I gathered that he had no great desire to go to either of those places, and for the moment neither had I. But we did share an enthusiasm for North Carolina - and that is where I won out over Mr. Harold Kaplan, Jr. For I had been to North Carolina, and it seemed to me that if I wrote a book about it, and then sent Mr. Harold Kaplan, Jr., a copy, his increased desire to go there would make him suffer as he had made me suffer, perhaps even more. So I went to work, and discovered that I had let myself in for something bigger than I had realized.

For it was impossible to write about North Carolina without writing about the states that bound it - and then I got enthusiastic about those states too. So I went on month after month piling page upon page until I finished this book, which has as one of its objects the forcing of Mr. Harold Kaplan, Jr., to rewrite his verse and somehow to include in it not only North Carolina but all the other states south of the Potomac and the Ohio and cast of the Mississippi as well.

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