American Literature

American Literature. O. Henry

 

Born William Sidney Porter September 11, 1862 Greensboro, North Carolina

Died  June 5, 1910 (aged 47) New York City, New York

Peame    O. Henry, Olivier Henry, Oliver Henry[1]

Occupation Writer

Nationality American

William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his peame O. Henry, was an American writer. O. Henry’s short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.

Early life

William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–1865). They were married on April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved into the home of his maternal grandmother. As a child, Porter was always reading, everything from classics to dime novels; his favorite works were Lane’s translation of One Thousand and One Nights, and Burton‘s Anatomy of Melancholy. Porter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter’s elementary school in 1876. He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle’s drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist. At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk.

Porter in Austin as a young man

Porter traveled with Dr. James K. Hall to Texas in March 1882, hoping that a change of air would help alleviate a persistent cough he had developed. He took up residence on the sheep ranch of Richard Hall, James’ son, in La Salle County and helped out as a shepherd, ranch hand, cook and baby-sitter. While on the ranch, he learned bits of Spanish and German from the mix of immigrant ranch hands. He also spent time reading classic literature. Porter’s health did improve and he traveled with Richard to Austin in 1884, where he decided to remain and was welcomed into the home of the Harrells, who were friends of Richard’s. Porter took a number of different jobs over the next several years, first as pharmacist then as a draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began writing as a sideline. Porter led an active social life in Austin, including membership in singing and drama groups. Porter was a good singer and musician. He played both the guitar and mandolin. He became a member of the “Hill City Quartet,” a group of young men who sang at gatherings and serenaded young women of the town. Porter met and began courting Athol Estes, then seventeen years old and from a wealthy family. Her mother objected to the match because Athol was ill, suffering from tuberculosis. On July 1, 1887, Porter eloped with Athol to the home of Reverend R. K. Smoot, where they were married. The couple continued to participate in musical and theater groups, and Athol encouraged her husband to pursue his writing. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, in September 1889. Porter’s friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job. Porter started as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in 1887 at a salary of $100 a month, drawing maps from surveys and field notes. The salary was enough to support his family, but he continued his contributions to magazines and newspapers. In the GLO building, he began developing characters and plots for such stories as “Georgia‘s Ruling” (1900), and “Buried Treasure” (1908). The castle-like building he worked in was even woven into some of his tales such as “Bexar Scrip No. 2692” (1894). His job at the GLO was a political appointment by Hall. Hall ran for governor in the election of 1890 but lost. Porter resigned in early 1891 when the new governor was sworn in. The same year, Porter began working at the First National Bank of Austin as a teller and bookkeeper at the same salary he had made at the GLO. The bank was operated informally and Porter was apparently careless in keeping his books and may have embezzled funds. In 1894, he was accused by the bank of embezzlement and lost his job but was not indicted. He then worked full-time on his humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone, which he started while working at the bank. The Rolling Stone featured satire on life, people and politics and included Porter’s short stories and sketches. Although eventually reaching a top circulation of 1500, The Rolling Stone failed in April 1895 since the paper never provided an adequate income. However, his writing and drawings had caught the attention of the editor at the Houston Post. Porter and his family moved to Houston in 1895, where he started writing for the Post. His salary was only $25 a month, but it rose steadily as his popularity increased. Porter gathered ideas for his column by loitering in hotel lobbies and observing and talking to people there. This was a technique he used throughout his writing career. While he was in Houston, the First National Bank of Austin was audited by federal auditors and they found the embezzlement shortages that had led to his firing. A federal indictment followed and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.

Flight and return

Porter’s father-in-law posted bail to keep Porter out of jail. Porter was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, but the day before, as he was changing trains to get to the courthouse, an impulse hit him. He fled, first to New Orleans and later to Honduras. While holed up in a Trujillo hotel for several months, he wrote Cabbages and Kings, in which he coined the term “banana republic” to describe the country, subsequently used to describe almost any small, unstable tropical nation in Latin America.[3] Porter had sent Athol and Margaret back to Austin to live with Athol’s parents. Unfortunately, Athol became too ill to meet Porter in Honduras as Porter had planned. When he learned that his wife was dying, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal. Once again, Porter’s father-in-law posted bail so Porter could stay with Athol and Margaret. Athol Estes Porter died on July 25, 1897, from tuberculosis (then known as consumption). Porter, having little to say in his own defense, was found guilty of embezzlement in February 1898, sentenced to five years in prison, and imprisoned on March 25, 1898, as federal prisoner 30664 at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. While in prison, Porter, as a licensed pharmacist, worked in the prison hospital as the night druggist. Porter was given his own room in the hospital wing, and there is no record that he actually spent time in the cell block of the prison. He had fourteen stories published under various pseudonyms while he was in prison, but was becoming best known as “O. Henry”, a pseudonym that first appeared over the story “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking” in the December 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine. A friend of his in New Orleans would forward his stories to publishers, so they had no idea the writer was imprisoned. Porter was released on July 24, 1901, for good behavior after serving three years. Porter reunited with his daughter Margaret, now age 11, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Athol’s parents had moved after Porter’s conviction. Margaret was never told that her father had been in prison—just that he had been away on business.

Later life

Porter’s most prolific writing period started in 1902, when he moved to New York City to be near his publishers. While there, he wrote 381 short stories. He wrote a story a week for over a year for the New York World Sunday Magazine. His wit, characterization, and plot twists were adored by his readers, but often panned by critics. Porter married again in 1907, to childhood sweetheart Sarah (Sallie) Lindsey Coleman, whom he met again after revisiting his native state of North Carolina. Porter was a heavy drinker, and his health deteriorated markedly in 1908, which affected his writing. In 1909, Sarah left him, and he died on June 5, 1910, of cirrhosis of the liver, complications of diabetes, and an enlarged heart. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, who died in 1927, was buried next to her father.

Stories

O. Henry’s stories frequently have surprise endings. In his day, he was called the American answer to Guy de Maupassant. Both authors wrote plot twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful. His stories are also known for witty narration. Most of O. Henry’s stories are set in his own time, the early 20th century. Many take place in New York City and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses, etc. O. Henry’s work is wide-ranging, and his characters can be found roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn-of-the-century New York. O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work is contained in Cabbages and Kings, a series of stories each of which explores some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town, while advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another. Cabbages and Kings was his first collection of stories, followed by The Four Million. The second collection opens with a reference to Ward McAllister’s “assertion that there were only ‘Four Hundred’ people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the ‘Four Million.'” To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called “Bagdad-on-the-Subway,”[4] and many of his stories are set there—while others are set in small towns or in other cities.

Among his most famous stories are:

“The Gift of the Magi” about a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim’s watch; while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della’s hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.

“The Ransom of Red Chief”, in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy’s father $250 to take him back.

“The Cop and the Anthem” about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so that he can be a guest of the city jail instead of sleeping out in the cold winter. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and “mashing” with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life—and is ironically charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison.

“A Retrieved Reformation”, which tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, recently freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to the door, he catches the eye of the banker’s beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town, taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe, when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine’s surprise, the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.

“The Duplicity of Hargraves”. A short story about a nearly destitute father and daughter’s trip to Washington, D.C.

Peame

Porter gave various explanations for the origin of his peame. In 1909 he gave an interview to The New York Times, in which he gave an account of it:

It was during these New Orleans days that I adopted my peame of O. Henry. I said to a friend: “I’m going to send out some stuff. I don’t know if it amounts to much, so I want to get a literary alias. Help me pick out a good one.” He suggested that we get a newspaper and pick a name from the first list of notables that we found in it. In the society columns we found the account of a fashionable ball. “Here we have our notables,” said he. We looked down the list and my eye lighted on the name Henry, “That’ll do for a last name,” said I. “Now for a first name. I want something short. None of your three-syllable names for me.” “Why don’t you use a plain initial letter, then?” asked my friend. “Good,” said I, “O is about the easiest letter written, and O it is.”

A newspaper once wrote and asked me what the O stands for. I replied, “O stands for Olivier, the French for Oliver.” And several of my stories accordingly appeared in that paper under the name Olivier Henry. In the introduction to The World of O. Henry: Roads of Destiny and Other Stories (Hodder & Stoughton, 1973), William Trevor writes that when Porter was in the Ohio State Penitentiary “there was a prison guard named Orrin Henry, whom William Sydney Porter . . . immortalised as O. Henry”. The writer and scholar Guy Davenport offers another explanation: “[T]he pseudonym that he began to write under in prison is constructed from the first two letters of Ohio and the second and last two of penitentiary.

Legacy

The O. Henry Award is a prestigious annual prize named after Porter and given to outstanding short stories. Several schools around the country bear Porter’s pseudonym. In 1952, a film featuring five stories, called O. Henry’s Full House, was made. The episode garnering the most critical acclaim[citatioeeded] was “The Cop and the Anthem” starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are “The Clarion Call”, “The Last Leaf”, “The Ransom of Red Chief” (starring Fred Allen and Oscar Levant), and “The Gift of the Magi”. The O. Henry House and O. Henry Hall, both in Austin, Texas, are named for him. O. Henry Hall, now owned by the University of Texas, previously served as the federal courthouse in which O. Henry was convicted of embezzlement. Porter has elementary schools named for him in Greensboro, North Carolina (William Sydney Porter Elementary[7]) and Garland, Texas (O. Henry Elementary), as well as a middle school in Austin, Texas (O. Henry Middle School[8]). The O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro is also named for Porter.

Biography

William Sidney Porter, best known by his peame O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862, the second son of Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter and Mary Jane Porter. When his mother died of pneumonia three years after his birth, he and his father and brother moved into the home of his grandmother and his aunt Lina, who took over his education and started him in his interest in literature.

O. Henry

In his late teens, O. Henry began working in his uncle’s drugstore as an assistant pharmacist, obtaining his pharmacy license in 1881. However, when he developed a cough that made him fear his mother’s fate, he moved to southwest Texas as the houseguest of family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hall. At age twenty-two, he moved to Austin where he met Athol Estes, the stepdaughter of a well-to-do Austin grocer; the two married in 1887. His first child, a son, died shortly after birth, and in 1889, after the birth of his daughter Margaret, his wife became very ill. After working for a few years as a draftsman in the Texas Land Office, he took a job as a teller in the First National Bank of Austin. In 1894, he sought to further his ambition to be an author and publisher by starting his own humor magazine, The Rolling Stone, writing all the stories and drawing all the illustrations himself; however, the venture failed after a year. In 1894, O. Henry was fired from his bank job because of shortages in his account and brought up before the grand jury. When they could find no cause to prosecute him, he took a job with the Houston Post, writing sketches and short stories. However, the case was reopened in 1896, and he was arrested in Houston. Out on bond, he fled to New Orleans and then to Honduras. In 1897, when he heard his wife was very ill again, he returned to Austin. After her death on July 25, 1897, he was tried and found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to five years at a federal penitentiary in Ohio. Whether O. Henry was actually guilty of the crime or whether it was the result of shoddy bookkeeping has never been determined. While in prison, he published more than one dozen stories in national magazines, and he was released after three years on good behavior. In the spring of 1902, at the urging of the editors of Ainslee’s Magazine, where many of his stories had been published, O. Henry moved to New York City and signed a contract with the New York Sunday World to write a story a week for one hundred dollars each, a very generous fee for the time. Over a two-year period, O. Henry published more than one hundred stories in the World, which, with its half-million readership, made him famous. His first book, Cabbages and Kings (1904), a collection of stories based on his experience living in Central America, was followed in 1906 by The Four Million, which contained twenty-five of his stories about New York. He was now celebrated and popular throughout the world. However, for all his fame and good pay, O. Henry, financially careless, was always in debt. In 1907, he married his childhood sweetheart, Sara Lindsay Coleman, and continued his breakneck writing schedule to try to keep ahead of his debtors and in front of his deadlines. Seven more volumes of his stories were published between 1907 and 1910. However, he was never financially secure. In 1908, he was diagnosed with diabetes. In the summer of 1910, he checked into a hospital after collapsing in his hotel room. Emptying his pockets, he joked, “Here I am going to die and only worth twenty-three cents.” He lost consciousness around midnight on June 4 and died the next morning of cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes at the age of forty-seven. He was buried in Asheville, North Carolina.

Analysis

In the first decade of the twentieth century, O. Henry was the most popular short-story writer in the United States. By 1920, nearly five million copies of his books were sold in the United States. What was the secret of his success? Partially, it was the personality of the man whose voice was heard in the stories, a personality with which readers could identify and who spoke to some universal humaeed. Author William Saroyan once wrote that Americans loved O. Henry because “He was a nobody, but he was a nobody who was also a somebody, everybody’s somebody.” One of the underlying assumptions of O. Henry’s stories is that there is some order in the world, some poetic justice that follows a plan. Everything happens for a reason in an O. Henry story, and everything fits into the overall pattern. Furthermore, O. Henry exploits a universal romantic wish that people are basically good and unselfish and possess an inherent dignity. O. Henry combines two different aspects of the short story that contributed to his success—the oral voice of the raconteur derived from frontier humorists and a highly patterned structure originated by Edgar Allan Poe. Combining the local color and melodrama of Bret Harte with the ironic reversals and empathy for ordinary people of Guy de Maupassant, O. Henry staked out his own territory of New York City and developed a storytelling voice more polished than the usual barroom wag who always seems to have one more tale to tell. He was a talented storyteller who would slap people on the back and stand them to a drink as well as a marketing specialist who knew exactly what buttons to push to make his audience react. He never really took himself seriously as an artist, preferring instead the title “journalist.” O. Henry polished and formalized the kind of ironic reversal stories that Giovanni Boccaccio innovated during the Renaissance. Boris Èjxenbaum, a Russian Formalist critic of the 1920’s, was one of the first to recognize that what O. Henry had discovered was something about the short story that was unique and characteristic of the form. In his brief 1968 study, O. Henry and the Theory of the Short Story, he argued that the short story is a fundamental or elementary form. Basing his theories largely on the stories of O. Henry, he suggested that the short story was constructed on the basis of some contradiction or incongruity and amassed its whole weight toward its ending. Whereas the novel ended with a point of letup or unraveling, the short story “gravitates toward maximal unexpectedness of a finale concentrating around itself all that has preceded.” The late nineteenth century focus on realism that made novels so popular and well respected marked a decline of interest in the short story that early nineteenth century writers such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Poe had stimulated. However, O. Henry’s facility in creating snappy, comic, and sentimental stories renewed the public’s interest in the form. As a result of his success, many other writers sought to emulate him, and many academics began to study the characteristics of the form. One result was the creation of short-story handbooks—quasi-academic treatises that attempted to teach others how to write a short story. In the best early history of the form, Fred Lewis Pattee listed “ten commandments” of the short story codified in these handbooks and taught in college courses and correspondence schools, all of which were derived from the stories of O. Henry.

As a result of O. Henry’s success and the handbooks that sought to reveal his method, the short story became formalized and static. Finally serious readers and critics called for an end to it, filling the quality periodicals with articles on the “decline,” the “decay,” and the “senility” of the short story. Even Edward J. O’Brien, probably the greatest champion of the form that the United States has ever had, wrote his book The Dance of the Machines in 1929, censuring the mechanized structure of American society and the machinelike short story that both sprang from it and reflected it. The short story did not recover from this O. Henry formalization until the seemingly unstructured stories of Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, and Sherwood Anderson gained popularity during the 1920’s.

“The Cop and the Anthem”

First published: 1905 (collected in The Four Million, 1906)

Type of work: Short story

 

A likable and literate bum tries unsuccessfully to get himself arrested.

The first thing one notices about “The Cop and the Anthem” is the storyteller’s use of elevated language typical of the central character, Soapy. Indeed, the character of Soapy is as important to this story as its ironic structure, in which every action that he takes creates a reaction opposite to the one he wishes. The basic irony of the story is that as long as Soapy is “free,” that is, loose in the city, he is not free at all, because of the coming winter. If he were in prison, however, he would indeed be “free” to enjoy life without fear. Soapy is a proud man; he does not want something for nothing and is willing to “pay” for his room and board by going to some effort to commit an act that will get him in jail. He rejects charity, for he knows that he will have to pay for philanthropy by being preached at and lectured to. The additional problem is that although Soapy breaks the law, he does not act like a criminal. Moreover, although he tries to be a “crook,” he keeps running into real criminals who thwart him, such as the umbrella thief, from whom he cannot steal what is already stolen, and the streetwalker, whom he cannot offend because she considers him a potential customer. Thus, Soapy seems “doomed to liberty.” A story with an ironic, mocking tone such as this one, in which a bum who talks like a gentleman tries to get himself thrown into jail but continually fails, can only end one way. The ultimate irony is that Soapy, who does not want something for nothing and who goes to a great deal to get thrown into jail, finally does get thrown into jail for doing precisely nothing.

“The Gift of the Magi”

First published: 1905 (collected in The Four Million, 1906)

Type of work: Short story

 

A young couple sells their most valued possessions to buy Christmas gifts for each other.

O. Henry’s most famous story, “The Gift of the Magi,” translated and reprinted every Christmas around the world, was written in three hours to meet a deadline that O. Henry had ignored for several days. The plot alone—a young woman sells her long beautiful hair to buy her husband a fob chain for his prized watch, only to discover that he has sold his watch to buy a set of tortoiseshell combs for her vanished hair—is sufficient to make the story a classic about the spirit of Christmas. However, it is also O. Henry’s avuncular storytelling voice and his use of a scenic film style that makes it so accessible and irresistible. The story opens on a scene right out of a pantomimed melodrama of the young woman, Della, in her modest apartment crying because she has no money to buy her husband a Christmas gift; that is, until she thinks of the brilliant yet terrifying idea of selling her long beautiful hair to a wig maker. When the young husband comes home and sees his wife with her hair cropped off, the reader has no way of knowing that the peculiar expression on his face is not shock at her changed appearance but rather bemused recognition that she will be unable to use the gift he has purchased for her. When she opens the combs, the reader sighs at Della’s grand but seemingly worthless sacrifice. When she gives him the watch fob, Jim flops down on the couch, puts his hands under the back of his head and smiles, telling her simply that he sold the watch to get the money to buy her the combs. The story then ends with O. Henry’s little homily about the wise magi, who invented the act of giving Christmas presents, suggesting that the two “foolish children” of his “uneventful chronicle” who unwisely sacrificed for each other the “greatest treasures of their homes” are indeed the wisest of all, for “they are the magi.”

“The Furnished Room”

First published: 1904 (collected in The Four Million, 1906)

Type of work: Short story

 

A young man unsuccessfully searches an unsympathetic city for his sweetheart.

This is perhaps the bleakest of O. Henry’s best-known stories. Although the basic ironic plot can be summarized in a sentence—a young man commits suicide in the same room where a young woman for whom he has vainly searched killed herself—it is the musty atmosphere of the room and the suggestion that every place bears the traces of the lives that have inhabited it that makes the story so compelling. It is a story of transience, of lives that move through a bleak, indifferent world, leaving only bits of themselves, which the young man uncovers as he searches through drawers and pokes into every corner and crevice of the room looking for something that remains of the woman he seeks. However, all that is left is an illusory sweet familiar smell, which melodramatically becomes the sweet smell of the gas he turns on in despair, as she did only one week previously. Although the fact that the young man ends up in the very same room in which his lost sweetheart took her life is one of the most extreme coincidences in all of O. Henry’s fiction, the power of the atmosphere of the story is so strong that readers are willing to accept it.

 

The story ends with two old Dickensian landladies prattling over their beer about the death of a young woman in the room the previous week, which the landlady has kept secret because she did not want to lose the young man’s rent. As the young man lies dead upstairs, the ending of the story, with its focus on the mendacity of the old women, reinforces the squalor of the room, further suggesting the unfeeling city that has no room for the romanticism of the two lovers.

“A Municipal Report”

First published: 1909 (collected in Strictly Business, 1910)

Type of work: Short story

A noble African American carriage driver protects a Southern lady from her abusive husband.

Most critics agree that “A Municipal Report”—set in Nashville, Tennessee, as a challenge to Frank Norris’s assertion that the only “story cities” in the United States are New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans—is O. Henry’s best. It is often singled out to suggest that O. Henry could have written better stories if he had tried harder, took himself and his writing more seriously, and had more discipline. The story is more sophisticated than other O. Henry stories because of its complex narrative structure and its creation of two compelling characters—the southern lady writer abused by her husband and the African American carriage driver who rescues her. As a result, the story is more ambitious than merely an illustration that an exciting story can be based in such an ordinary place like Nashville. Alternating quotations from encyclopedias and atlases about the geography and history of Nashville with the first-persoarrative of one man’s discovery of a little personal drama of cruelty, avarice, endurance, and loyalty, O. Henry creates what some have called his masterpiece. Although it makes use of the conventions of melodrama, it exceeds those conventions. The villain of the piece is Major Caswell, the worst kind of cardboard southerner who bangs his fist on the bar and replays the Civil War from Fort Sumter to Appomattox. The hero is Uncle Caesar, a noble African American man with a regal bearing who tries to protect a southern lady. The heroine is Azalea Adair, a genteel, educated, and gentle lady of the old South. What Alfred Hitchcock once called the maguffin, a key device that eventually reveals the secret that propels the plot, is a torn dollar bill held together with blue tissue paper and a button from the carriage driver’s coat. The story ends with the narrator’s complicity in the death of Caswell by picking the button up at the crime scene and tossing it out the window into the Cumberland River as he leaves town.

Summary

Although O. Henry was primarily a showman and a journalist who wrote stories to make a living rather than to create art, no study of the short story would be complete without some consideration of his brilliant ability to create an irresistible storytelling persona; to fulfill the humaeed for unity, order, and poetic justice; and to leave his readers—whether laughing or crying—always satisfied.

Discussion Topics

What are some of the universal human wishes that make “The Gift of the Magi” such a classic Christmas story?

How can you justify O. Henry’s dependence on coincidence and poetic justice in his stories?

How would you describe the personality of the typical O. Henry storyteller?

What characteristics of “The Cop and the Anthem” make it something other than a story about the plight of the homeless?

Compare and contrast the importance of “place” in “The Furnished Room” and “A Municipal Report.”

Bibliography

Arnett, Ethel Stephens. O. Henry from Polecat Creek. Greensboro, N.C.: Piedmont Press, 1963. Described by Porter’s cousin as a delightful and authentic story of O. Henry’s boyhood and youth, this entertaining biography of the early years goes far in illuminating both the character-shaping environment and experiences of Porter and his fiction. Supplemented by illustrations, notes, a bibliography, and an index. Bloom, Harold, ed. O. Henry. Broomal, Pa.: Chelsea House, 1999. Collection of essays that constitute a study guide and handbook of O. Henry criticism, assembled by leading scholars in the field. Bibliographic references and index. Current-Garcia, Eugene. O. Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993. An introduction to O. Henry’s stories, largely drawn from Current-Garcia’s earlier Twayne volume. Focuses on O. Henry’s frequent themes, his romanticism, and his narrative techniques, such as his use of the tall-tale conventions. Includes critical excerpts from discussions of O. Henry by other critics. Eichenbaum, Boris. O. Henry and the Theory of the Short Story. Translated by I. R. Titunik. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1968. Originally published in Russia in 1925, this study reflects both the Russian interest in O. Henry as a serious writer and the brand of criticism known as Russian Formalism. Because Formalism was more concerned with technical achievement than thematic profundity, O. Henry, who was a technical master, is a perfect candidate for the exercise of this kind of analysis. Evans, Walter. “‘A Municipal Report’: O. Henry and Postmodernism.” Tennessee Studies in Literature 26 (1981): 101-116. Recognizing modern criticism’s either trite interpretation or complete indifference to O. Henry’s work, through the fiction of postmodernists like Vladimir Nabokov, John Barth, Robert Coover, and William Gass, Evans embarks on a radical revisioning of Porter’s literary contributions. Gallegly, Joseph. From Alamo Plaza to Jack Harris’s Saloon: O. Henry and the Southwest He Knew. The Hague: Mouton, 1970. By investigating contemporary photographs, literature, popular pursuits, news items, and personalities—both real and fictional—from the contemporary scene of the author, Gallegly provides significant insight into the southwestern stories. Jennings, Al. Through the Shadows with O. Henry. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2000. Reprint of a classic O. Henry study, with a new introduction by Mike Cox and afterword by Patrick McConal, who consider the reception of Henry’s work in the twentieth century. Langford, Gerald. Alias O. Henry: A Biography of William Sidney Porter. New York: Macmillan, 1957. A well-documented biography that considers in detail Porter’s marriages and the evidence used in his embezzlement trial. The foreword provides a brief but penetrating overview of O. Henry’s critical reputation (including overseas) and his place within the context of American literature. Supplemented by illustrations, an appendix about Rolling Stone, notes, and an index. Monteiro, George. “Hemingway, O. Henry, and the Surprise Ending.” Prairie Schooner 47, no. 4 (1973-1974): 296-302. In rehabilitating O. Henry and his most famous technique, Monteiro makes comparisons with Hemingway’s own—but very different—use of the same device. This significant difference Monteiro ascribes to Hemingway’s essentially uneasy reception of Porter’s work and to the two authors’ divergent outlooks on life.

Pattee, Frederick Lewis. The Development of the American Short Story. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1923. Although this is an old study of the short story, the O. Henry chapter represents an influential negative criticism of his fiction. Stuart, David. O. Henry: A Biography of William Sydney Porter. Chelsea, Mich.: Scarborough House, 1990. A good, updated edition of a portrait of O. Henry. Includes bibliographical references and index. Watson, Bruce. “If His Life Were a Short Story, Who’d Ever Believe It?” Smithsonian 27 (January, 1997): 92-102. Biography of O. Henry strewn with anecdotes and some literary criticism. Includes photographs. Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Hearts of Darkness: Wellsprings of a Southern Literary Tradition. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. Discusses the distinctively southern aspects of Henry’s stories, as well as his influence on other southern American authors. Bibliographic references and index. Summary: William Sydney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry, published nearly 200 short stories that drew the attention of the American public. A writer of unique skill and atypical mindset, O. Henry left a significant impact on American literature; especially through the new dimensions he added to the short story genre, the timeless popularity of his works, and his inspiring rise to fame. William Sydney Porter has been recognized among the greatest American authors due to his remarkable life story and outstanding literary reputation. His life and experiences contributed immensely to his eventual career as an author, and the stories he wrote. Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry, published nearly 200 short stories that drew the attention of the American public. A writer of unique skill and atypical mindset, O. Henry left a significant impact on American literature; especially through the new dimensions he added to the short story genre, the timeless popularity of his works, and his inspiring rise to fame.

 Before the phenomena of O. Henry had dawned onto the literary world, William Sydney Porter led a frenzied life. It is these unforgettable experiences, which made his work so unique and bewildering (Current-Garcia 12). William’s mother died when he was still young, and his father developed a serious problem with alcoholism. After a brief schooling, completed at the age of 15, he left his North Carolina home for success in the Midwest (Seeyle 462). Current-Garcia states that O. Henry never forgot his “southern ties,” and his southern upbringing was imprinted in his later writings (12). “If the Old South furnished the seedbed of O. Henry’s art, the Southwest furnished the nutrient that stimulated it’s growth and embellished its forms” (Current-Garcia 21). Here, Porter developed the dream of writing, and began experimenting with his talents. Porter’s life changed forever, when he was accused of embezzlement and he hastily fled to Central America. Only to return and face trial four months later, where he was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison (Perkins 428). During his incarceration, Porter underwent remarkable changes. Porter had entered prison an “experimental and amateurish” writer, and through a rigorous process of self-discipline, he emerged a “skilled professional” (Current-Garcia 52). His exemplary behavior ultimately resulted in his release after three years, and it is this behavior, which most justifies his eventual recognition as a great writer. An inexorable determination coupled with humility gave rise to O. Henry. After his release Porter would move to New York and feel “public fame and private misery” for the rest of his days (Current-Garcia 56). Porter’s works, appearing in several magazines and newspapers nationwide even before his release from prison, would quickly gain him fame and recognition. His emergence surprised many, including F. L. Pattee, who said, “In this unschooled druggist, this cowboy and Main Street clerk, this Texas funny man, one would hardly expect to find verbal precision and [a] wide range of vocabulary” (Cerrito 37). O. Henry’s stories had many recognizable elements, some of which became distinctly his own. Some of these were “poor, working-class characters, a humorous tone, realistic detail, and a surprise ending” (Milne 68). He was so adept and skilled in utilizing the unexpected ending, it became know as the O. Henry twist. This became the signature ending to his short stories, compiled with repeating themes and structures. Many of his stories were exceedingly allegoric, expressing themes of love, compassion, and poverty. O. Henry’s taste for ordinary characters and everyday plots appealed to the masses. According to Harold Bloom, people “find themselves in his stories, not more truly and more strange, but rather as they were and are” (Seeyle 467). This sentimental idealism explains his continuous popularity, even through “the subsequent decline of his reputation among literary critics” (Seeyle 467). Many critics still view O. Henry in positive light, highlighting the trademarks, which became synonymous with his name.

O. Henry may have always enjoyed a devoted fan base, but his relations with critics were far more tumultuous. Once renown for being “the most widely read author in America,” Porter still struggled to gain instant or lasting recognition from some critics (Golde. pag.; Current-Garcia 147). After his death in 1910, criticism arose over his idealistic, almost superficial, storylines. This new view of his stories could easily be attributed to the pessimistic outlook that took hold in and after the Great War. The O. Henry Festival in 1985 can exemplify his everlasting popular appeal (Current-Garcia 150). This was a celebration of his accomplishments at his birthplace in North Carolina, which drew formidable crowds. Current-Garcia suggests that “the steady accumulation of biographical and critical studies” has allowed the public to see the author and his work in view of the dreadful circumstances surrounding his life (149). Another attribute to his lasting popularity, was that Porter wrote about normal people, “speaking in a voice that could be understood by the multitudes,” according to Karen Charmaine Blansfield, author of Cheap Rooms and Restless Hearts: A Study of Formula in the Urban Tales of William Sydney Porter (Milne 77). Whether critics regarded his work with scorn or adornment, all agreed to “the very brilliance of his technical skill” (Current-Garcia 147). O. Henry’s popularity ensured that his literary stature was secure, and remained so as again demonstrated by the award that bears his name (Seeyle 467). Created in 1918, this award recognizes great achievements of American short story writers. This is an annual reminder to his critics and fans alike, of his enduring legacy to American literature.

 William Sydney Porter is a dynamic author and individual who established himself among significant American authors by emerging from a troubled past, creating a vast unique collection of short stories, and through the lasting popularity that he earned. Most of his 200 short stories followed a “pattern of character, plot, structure, and setting,” often culminating with an O. Henry twist (Milne 72). This continuity allowed him to garner considerable fame, added to by the persistent use of idealistic and romanticized themes. William Saroyan stated, “The people of America love O. Henry…He was a nobody, but he was a nobody who was also a somebody, everybody’s somebody” (Milne 77). Underestimating the importance of Porter’s background would be doing injustice to his work and the true nature of the author. Current-Garcia supports this view in saying, “The landscapes of his stories were vastly enriched by his unique life experiences, both as a convicted criminal who learned to write short stories while in jail and, later, as a literary celebrity in New York City” (n. pag.). William Sydney Porter has deservingly merited his stature among the greatest American authors. Stephen Leacock epitomizes this point in saying that “the whole English-speaking world will recognize in O. Henry one of the greatest masters of modern literature” (qtd. in Current-Garcia 148).

Works Cited

Current-Garcia, Eugene. O. Henry. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1993.

Seeyle, John. “William Sydney Porter.” The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-

 Century American Short Story. Ed. Blache H. Gelfaut. New York, NY. Columbia University Press: 2000. 462-468.

“Henry, O.” Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature. Ed. George Perkins. New

York, NY: Harper Collins. 428-429.

 “O. Henry.” Modern American Literature. 5th ed. Vol. 2. Ed. Joann Cerrito. Farmington

 Hills, MI: St. James Press, 2000. 36-38.

 “The Gift of the Magi.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 2. Detroit,

MI: Gale, 1997. 67-82.

Golden, Harry. Afterword. O. Henry Stories. By O. Henry. New York, NY: Platt & Munk, 1962.

 

Title:     Last Leaf Author: O Henry

In a little district west of

Washington Square

the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account! So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from

Sixth avenue

, and became a “colony.” At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. “Johnsy” was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d’hote of

an Eighth street

“Delmonico’s,” and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown “places.”

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

“She has one chance in–let us say, ten,” he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. “And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she’s not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?”

“She–she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day,” said Sue.

“Paint?–bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice–a man, for instance?”

“A man?” said Sue, with a jew’s-harp twang in her voice. “Is a man worth–but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.”

“Well, it is the weakness, then,” said the doctor. “I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent. from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in- five chance for her, instead of one in ten.”

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy’s room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy’s eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting–counting backward.

“Twelve,” she said, and a little later “eleven;” and then “ten,” and “nine;” and then “eight” and “seven,” almost together.

Sue looked solicitously out the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet, away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

“What is it, dear?” asked Sue.

“Six,” said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. “They’re falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it’s easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.”

“Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie.”

“Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I’ve known that for three days. Didn’t the doctor tell you?”

“Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. “What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don’t be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were–let’s see exactly what he said–he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that’s almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.”

“You needn’t get any more wine,” said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. “There goes another. No, I don’t want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I’ll go, too.”

“Johnsy, dear,” said Sue, bending over her, “will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.”

“Couldn’t you draw in the other room?” asked Johnsy, coldly.

“I’d rather be here by you,” said Sue. “Besides I don’t want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.”

“Tell me as soon as you have finished,” said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, “because I want to see the last one fall. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of thinking. I went to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.”

“Try to sleep,” said Sue. “I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I’ll not be gone a minute. Don’t try to move ’till I come back.”

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo’s Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress’s robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy’s fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

“Vass!” he cried. “Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy.”

“She is very ill and weak,” said Sue, “and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn’t. But I think you are a horrid old–old flibbertigibbet.”

“You are just like a woman!” yelled Behrman. “Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes.”

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour’s sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

“Pull it up; I want to see,” she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark greeear its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a branch some twenty feet above the ground.

“It is the last one,” said Johnsy. “I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.”

“Dear, dear!” said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, “think of me, if you won’t think of yourself. What would I do?”

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

“I’ve been a bad girl, Sudie,” said Johnsy. “Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and–no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.”

An hour later she said.

“Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.”

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

“Even chances,” said the doctor, taking Sue’s thin, shaking hand in his. “With good nursing you’ll win. And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is–some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable.”

The next day the doctor said to Sue: “She’s out of danger. You’ve won. Nutrition and care now–that’s all.”

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

“I have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said. “Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn’t imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and–look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece–he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.”

 

Title:     “Girl” Author: O Henry

In gilt letters on the ground glass of the door of room No. 962 were the words: “Robbins & Hartley, Brokers.” The clerks had gone. It was past five, and with the solid tramp of a drove of prize Percherons, scrub-women were invading the cloud-capped twenty-story office building. A puff of red-hot air flavoured with lemon peelings, soft-coal smoke and train oil came in through the half-open windows.

Robbins, fifty, something of an overweight beau, and addicted to first nights and hotel palm-rooms, pretended to be envious of his partner’s commuter’s joys.

“Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night,” he said. “You out-of-town chaps will be the people, with your katydids and moonlight and long drinks and things out on the front porch.”

Hartley, twenty-nine, serious, thin, good-looking, nervous, sighed and frowned a little.

“Yes,” said he, “we always have cool nights in Floralhurst, especially in the winter.”

A man with an air of mystery came in the door and went up to Hartley.

“I’ve found where she lives,” he announced in the portentous half-whisper that makes the detective at work a marked being to his fellow men.

Hartley scowled him into a state of dramatic silence and quietude. But by that time Robbins had got his cane and set his tie pin to his liking, and with a debonair nod went out to his metropolitan amusements.

“Here is the address,” said the detective in a natural tone, being deprived of an audience to foil.

Hartley took the leaf torn out of the sleuth’s dingy memorandum book. On it were pencilled the words “Vivienne Arlington, No. 341 East —-th Street, care of Mrs. McComus.”

“Moved there a week ago,” said the detective. “Now, if you want any shadowing done, Mr. Hartley, I can do you as fine a job in that line as anybody in the city. It will be only $7 a day and expenses. Can send in a daily typewritten report, covering–”

“You needn’t go on,” interrupted the broker. “It isn’t a case of that kind. I merely wanted the address. How much shall I pay you?”

“One day’s work,” said the sleuth. “A tenner will cover it.”

Hartley paid the man and dismissed him. Then he left the office and boarded a Broadway car. At the first large crosstown artery of travel he took an eastbound car that deposited him in a decaying avenue, whose ancient structures once sheltered the pride and glory of the town.

Walking a few squares, he came to the building that he sought. It was a new flathouse, bearing carved upon its cheap stone portal its sonorous name, “The Vallambrosa.” Fire-escapes zigzagged down its front–these laden with household goods, drying clothes, and squalling children evicted by the midsummer heat. Here and there a pale rubber plant peeped from the miscellaneous mass, as if wondering to what kingdom it belonged–vegetable, animal or artificial.

Hartley pressed the “McComus” button. The door latch clicked spasmodically–now hospitably, now doubtfully, as though in anxiety whether it might be admitting friends or duns. Hartley entered and began to climb the stairs after the manner of those who seek their friends in city flat-houses–which is the manner of a boy who climbs an apple-tree, stopping when he comes upon what he wants.

On the fourth floor he saw Vivienne standing in an open door. She invited him inside, with a nod and a bright, genuine smile. She placed a chair for him near a window, and poised herself gracefully upon the edge of one of those Jekyll-and-Hyde pieces of furniture that are masked and mysteriously hooded, unguessable bulks by day and inquisitorial racks of torture by night.

Hartley cast a quick, critical, appreciative glance at her before speaking, and told himself that his taste in choosing had been flawless.

Vivienne was about twenty-one. She was of the purest Saxon type. Her hair was a ruddy golden, each filament of the neatly gathered mass shining with its own lustre and delicate graduation of colour. In perfect harmony were her ivory-clear complexion and deep sea-blue eyes that looked upon the world with the ingenuous calmness of a mermaid or the pixie of an undiscovered mountain stream. Her frame was strong and yet possessed the grace of absolute naturalness. And yet with all her Northern clearness and frankness of line and colouring, there seemed to be something of the tropics in her–something of languor in the droop of her pose, of love of ease in her ingenious complacency of satisfaction and comfort in the mere act of breathing–something that seemed to claim for her a right as a perfect work of nature to exist and be admired equally with a rare flower or some beautiful, milk-white dove among its sober-hued companions.

She was dressed in a white waist and dark skirt–that discreet masquerade of goose-girl and duchess.

“Vivienne,” said Hartley, looking at her pleadingly, “you did not answer my last letter. It was only by nearly a week’s search that I found where you had moved to. Why have you kept me in suspense when you knew how anxiously I was waiting to see you and hear from you?”

The girl looked out the window dreamily.

“Mr. Hartley,” she said hesitatingly, “I hardly know what to say to you. I realize all the advantages of your offer, and sometimes I feel sure that I could be contented with you. But, again, I am doubtful. I was born a city girl, and I am afraid to bind myself to a quiet suburban life.”

“My dear girl,” said Hartley, ardently, “have I not told you that you shall have everything that your heart can desire that is in my power to give you? You shall come to the city for the theatres, for shopping and to visit your friends as often as you care to. You can trust me, can you not?”

“To the fullest,” she said, turning her frank eyes upon him with a smile. “I know you are the kindest of men, and that the girl you get will be a lucky one. I learned all about you when I was at the Montgomerys‘.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Hartley, with a tender, reminiscent light in his eye; “I remember well the evening I first saw you at the Montgomerys‘. Mrs. Montgomery was sounding your praises to me all the evening. And she hardly did you justice. I shall never forget that supper. Come, Vivienne, promise me. I want you. You’ll never regret coming with me. No one else will ever give you as pleasant a home.”

The girl sighed and looked down at her folded hands.

A sudden jealous suspicion seized Hartley.

“Tell me, Vivienne,” he asked, regarding her keenly, “is there another–is there some one else ?”

A rosy flush crept slowly over her fair cheeks and neck.

“You shouldn’t ask that, Mr. Hartley,” she said, in some confusion. “But I will tell you. There is one other–but he has no right–I have promised him nothing.”

“His name?” demanded Hartley, sternly.

“Townsend.”

“Rafford Townsend!” exclaimed Hartley, with a grim tightening of his jaw. “How did that man come to know you? After all I’ve done for him–”

“His auto has just stopped below,” said Vivienne, bending over the window-sill. “He’s coming for his answer. Oh I don’t know what to do!”

The bell in the flat kitchen whirred. Vivienne hurried to press the latch button.

“Stay here,” said Hartley. “I will meet him in the hall.”

Townsend, looking like a Spanish grandee in his light tweeds, Panama hat and curling black mustache, came up the stairs three at a time. He stopped at sight of Hartley and looked foolish.

“Go back,” said Hartley, firmly, pointing downstairs with his forefinger.

“Hullo!” said Townsend, feigning surprise. “What’s up? What are you doing here, old man?”

“Go back,” repeated Hartley, inflexibly. “The Law of the Jungle. Do you want the Pack to tear you in pieces? The kill is mine.”

“I came here to see a plumber about the bathroom connections,” said Townsend, bravely.

“All right,” said Hartley. “You shall have that lying plaster to stick upon your traitorous soul. But, go back.” Townsend went downstairs, leaving a bitter word to be wafted up the draught of the staircase. Hartley went back to his wooing.

“Vivienne,” said he, masterfully. “I have got to have you. I will take no more refusals or dilly-dallying.”

“When do you want me?” she asked.

“Now. As soon as you can get ready.”

She stood calmly before him and looked him in the eye.

“Do you think for one moment,” she said, “that I would enter your home while Heloise is there?”

Hartley cringed as if from an unexpected blow. He folded his arms and paced the carpet once or twice.

“She shall go,” he declared grimly. Drops stood upon his brow. “Why should I let that woman make my life miserable? Never have I seen one day of freedom from trouble since I have known her. You are right, Vivienne. Heloise must be sent away before I can take you home. But she shall go. I have decided. I will turn her from my doors.”

“When will you do this?” asked the girl.

Hartley clinched his teeth and bent his brows together.

“To-night,” he said, resolutely. “I will send her away to-night.”

“Then,” said Vivienne, “my answer is ‘yes.’ Come for me when you will.”

She looked into his eyes with a sweet, sincere light in her own. Hartley could scarcely believe that her surrender was true, it was so swift and complete.

“Promise me,” he said feelingly, “on your word and honour.”

“On my word and honour,” repeated Vivienne, softly.

At the door he turned and gazed at her happily, but yet as one who scarcely trusts the foundations of his joy.

“To-morrow,” he said, with a forefinger of reminder uplifted.

“To-morrow,” she repeated with a smile of truth and candour.

In an hour and forty minutes Hartley stepped off the train at Floralhurst. A brisk walk of ten minutes brought him to the gate of a handsome two-story cottage set upon a wide and well-tended lawn. Halfway to the house he was met by a woman with jet-black braided hair and flowing white summer gown, who half strangled him without apparent cause.

When they stepped into the hall she said:

“Mamma’s here. The auto is coming for her in half an hour. She came to dinner, but there’s no dinner.”

“I’ve something to tell you,” said Hartley. “I thought to break it to you gently, but since your mother is here we may as well out with it.”

He stooped and whispered something at her ear. His wife screamed. Her mother came running into the hall. The dark-haired woman screamed again–the joyful scream of a well-beloved and petted woman.

“Oh, mamma!” she cried ecstatically, “what do you think? Vivienne is coming to cook for us! She is the one that stayed with the Montgomerys a whole year. And now, Billy, dear,” she concluded, “you must go right down into the kitchen and discharge Heloise. She has been drunk again the whole day long.”