by O. Henry
“Now, see here, Colonel,” said Thacker, throwing down the magazine, “this won’t do. You can’t successfully run a magazine for one particular section of the country. You’ve got to make a universal appeal. Look how the Northern publications have catered to the South and encouraged the Southern writers. And you’ve got to go far and wide for your contributors. You’ve got to buy stuff according to its quality without any regard to the pedigree of the author. Now, I’ll bet a quart of ink that this Southern parlor organ you’ve been running has never played a note that originated above Mason & Hamlin’s line. Am I right?”
“I have carefully and conscientiously rejected all contributions from that section of the country — if I understand your figurative language aright,” replied the colonel.
“All right. Now I’ll show you something.”
Thacker reached for his thick manila envelope and dumped a mass of typewritten manuscript on the editors desk.
“Here’s some truck,” said he, “that I paid cash for, and brought along with me.”
One by one he folded back the manuscripts and showed their first pages to the colonel.
Here are four short stories by four of the highest priced authors in the United States — three of ‘em living in New York, and one commuting. There’s a special article on Vienna-bred society by Tom Vampson. Here’s an Italian serial by Captain Jack — no — it’s the other Crawford. Here are three separate exposés of city governments by Sniffings, and here’s a dandy entitled ‘What Women Carry in Dress-Suit Cases’ — a Chicago newspaper woman hired herself out for five years as a lady’s maid to get that information. And here’s a Synopsis of Preceding Chapters of Hall Caine’s new serial to appear next June. And here’s a couple of pounds of vers de société that I got at a rate from the clever magazines. That’s the stuff that people everywhere want. And now here’s a write-up with photographs at the ages of four, twelve, twenty-two, and thirty of George B. McClellan. It’s a prognostication. He’s bound to be elected Mayor of New York. It’ll make a big hit all over the country. He— “
“I beg your pardon,” said Colonel Telfair, stiffening in his chair. “What was the name?”
“Oh, I see,” said Thacker, with half a grin. Yes, he’s a son of the General. We’ll pass that manuscript up. But, if you’ll excuse me, Colonel, it’s a magazine we’re trying to make go off — not the first gun at Fort Sumter. Now, here’s a thing that’s bound to get next to you. It’s an original poem by James Whitcomb Riley. J. W. himself. You know what that means to a magazine. I won’t tell you what I had to pay for that poem; but I’ll tell you this — Riley can make more money writing with a fountain-pen than you or I can with one that lets the ink run. I’ll read you the last two stanzas:
“‘Pa lays around ‘n’ loafs all day,
‘N’ reads and makes us leave him be.
He lets me do just like I please,
‘N’ when I’m bad he laughs at me,
‘N’ when I holler loud ‘n’ say
Bad words ‘n’ then begin to tease
The cat, ‘n’ pa just smiles, ma’s mad
‘N’ gives me Jesse crost her knees.
I always wondered why that wuz —
I guess it’s cause
Pa never does.
“‘‘N’ after all the lights are out
I’m sorry ‘bout it; so I creep
Out of my trundle bed to ma’s
‘N’ say I love her a whole heap,
‘N’ kiss her, ‘n’ I hug her tight.
‘N’ it’s too dark to see her eyes,
But every time I do I know
She cries ‘n’ cries ‘n’ cries ‘n’ cries.
I always wondered why that wuz —
I guess it’s ‘cause
Pa never does.’
“That’s the stuff,” continued Thacker. “What do you think of that?”
“I am not unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Riley,” said the colonel, deliberately. “I believe he lives in Indiana. For the last ten years I have been somewhat of a literary recluse, and am familiar with nearly all the books in the Cedar Heights library. I am also of the opinion that a magazine should contain a certain amount of poetry. Many of the sweetest singers of the South have already contributed to the pages of The Rose of Dixie. I, myself, have thought of translating from the original for publication in its pages the works of the great Italian poet Tasso. Have you ever drunk from the fountain of this immortal poet’s lines, Mr. Thacker?”
“Not even a demi-Tasso,” said Thacker. Now, let’s come to the point, Colonel Telfair. I’ve already invested some money in this as a flyer. That bunch of manuscripts cost me $4,000. My object was to try a number of them in the next issue — I believe you make up less than a month ahead — and see what effect it has on the circulation. I believe that by printing the best stuff we can get in the North, South, East, or West we can make the magazine go. You have there the letter from the owning company asking you to co-operate with me in the plan. Let’s chuck out some of this slush that you’ve been publishing just because the writers are related to the Skoopdoodles of Skoopdoodle County. Are you with me?”
“As long as I continue to be the editor of The Rose,” said Colonel Telfair, with dignity, “I shall be its editor. But I desire also to conform to the wishes of its owners if I can do so conscientiously.”
“That’s the talk,” said Thacker, briskly. “Now, how much of this stuff I’ve brought can we get into the January number? We want to begin right away.”
“There is yet space in the January number,” said the editor, “for about eight thousand words, roughly estimated.”
“Great!” said Thacker. “It isn’t much, but it’ll give the readers some change from goobers, governors, and Gettysburg. I’ll leave the selection of the stuff I brought to fill the space to you, as it’s all good. I’ve got to run back to New York, and I’ll be down again in a couple of weeks.”
Colonel Telfair slowly swung his eye-glasses by their broad, black ribbon.
“The space in the January number that I referred to,” said he, measuredly, “has been held open purposely, pending a decision that I have not yet made. A short time ago a contribution was submitted to The Rose of Dixie that is one of the most remarkable literary efforts that has ever come under my observation. None but a master mind and talent could have produced it. It would just fill the space that I have reserved for its possible use.”
Thacker looked anxious.
“What kind of stuff is it?” he asked. “Eight thousand words sounds suspicious. The oldest families must have been collaborating. Is there going to be another secession?”
“The author of the article,” continued the colonel, ignoring Thacker’s allusions, “is a writer of some reputation. He has also distinguished himself in other ways. I do not feel at liberty to reveal to you his name — at least not until I have decided whether or not to accept his contribution.”
“Well,” said Thacker, nervously, “is it a continued story, or an account of the unveiling of the new town pump in Whitmire, South Carolina, or a revised list of General Lee’s body-servants, or what?”
“You are disposed to be facetious,” said Colonel Telfair, calmly. “The article is from the pen of a thinker, a philosopher, a lover of mankind, a student, and a rhetorician of high degree.”
“It must have been written by a syndicate,” said Thacker. “But, honestly, Colonel, you want to go slow. I don’t know of any eight-thousand-word single doses of written matter that are read by anybody these days, except Supreme Court briefs and reports of murder trials. You haven’t by any accident gotten hold of a copy of one of Daniel Webster’s speeches, have you?”
Colonel Telfair swung a little in his chair and looked steadily from under his bushy eyebrows at the magazine promoter.
“Mr. Thacker,” he said, gravely, “I am willing to segregate the somewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitude that your business investments undoubted
ly have conferred upon you. But I must ask you to cease your jibes and derogatory comments upon the South and the Southern people. They, sir, will not be tolerated in the office of The Rose of Dixie for one moment. And before you proceed with more of your covert insinuations that I, the editor of this magazine, am not a competent judge of the merits of the matter submitted to its consideration, I beg that you will first present some evidence or proof that you are my superior in any way, shape, or form relative to the question in hand.”
“Oh, come, Colonel,” said Thacker, good-naturedly. “I didn’t do anything like that to you. It sounds like an indictment by the fourth assistant attorney-general. Let’s get back to business. What’s this 8,000 to 1 shot about?”
“The article,” said Colonel Telfair, acknowledging the apology by a slight bow, “covers a wide area of knowledge. It takes up theories and questions that have puzzled the world for centuries, and disposes of them logically and concisely. One by one it holds up to view the evils of the world, points out the way of eradicating them, and then conscientiously and in detail commends the good. There is hardly a phase of human life that it does not discuss wisely, calmly, and equitably. The great policies of governments, the duties of private citizens, the obligations of home life, law, ethics, morality — all these important subjects are handled with a calm wisdom and confidence that I must confess has captured my admiration.”
“It must be a crackerjack,” said Thacker, impressed.
“It is a great contribution to the world’s wisdom,” said the colonel. “The only doubt remaining in my mind as to the tremendous advantage it would be to us to give it publication in The Rose of Dixie is that I have not yet sufficient information about the author to give his work publicity in our magazine.
“I thought you said he is a distinguished man,” said Thacker.
“He is,” replied the colonel, “both in literary and in other more diversified and extraneous fields. But I am extremely careful about the matter that I accept for publication. My contributors are people of unquestionable repute and connections, which fact can be verified at any time. As I said, I am holding this article until I can acquire more information about its author. I do not know whether I will publish it or not. If I decide against it, I shall be much pleased, Mr. Thacker, to substitute the matter that you are leaving with me in its place.”
Thacker was somewhat at sea.
“I don’t seem to gather,” said he, “much about the gist of this inspired piece of literature. It sounds more like a dark horse than Pegasus to me.”
“It is a human document,” said the colonel-editor, confidently, “from a man of great accomplishments who, in my opinion, has obtained a stronger grasp on the world and its outcomes than that of any man living to-day.”
Thacker rose to his feet excitedly.
“Say!” he said. “It isn’t possible that you’ve cornered John D. Rockefeller’s memoirs, is it? Don’t tell me that all at once.”
“No, sir,” said Colonel Telfair. “I am speaking of mentality and literature, not of the less worthy intricacies of trade.”
“Well, what’s the trouble about running the article,” asked Thacker, a little impatiently, “if the man’s well known and has got the stuff?”
Colonel Telfair sighed.
“Mr. Thacker,” said he, “for once I have been tempted. Nothing has yet appeared in The Rose of Dixie that has not been from the pen of one of its sons or daughters. I know little about the author of this article except that he has acquired prominence in a section of the country that has always been inimical to my heart and mind. But I recognize his genius; and, as I have told you, I have instituted an investigation of his personality. Perhaps it will be futile. But I shall pursue the inquiry. Until that is finished, I must leave open the question of filling the vacant space in our January number.”
Thacker arose to leave.
“All right, Colonel,” he said, as cordially as he could. “You use your own judgment. If you’ve really got a scoop or something that will make ‘em sit up, run it instead of my stuff. I’ll drop in again in about two weeks. Good luck!”
Colonel Telfair and the magazine promoter shook hands.
Returning a fortnight later, Thacker dropped off a very rocky Pullman at Toombs City. He found the January number of the magazine made up and the forms closed.
The vacant space that had been yawning for type was filled by an article that was headed thus:
Second Message To Congress
Written for
THE ROSE OF DIXIE
BY
A Member of the Well-known
BULLOCH FAMILY, OF GEORGIA
T. Roosevelt
THE THIRD INGREDIENT
The (so-called) Vallambrosa Apartment-House is not an apartment-house. It is composed of two old-fashioned, brownstone-front residences welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the wraps and head-gear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with the sophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You may have a room there for two dollars a week or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa’s roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail when the door-bell rings.
This treatise shall have to do with but two of the Vallambrosians — though meaning no disrespect to the others.
At six o’clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floor rear $3.50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharply pointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store where you have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in your purse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely chiselled.
And now for Hetty’s thumb-nail biography while she climbs the two flights of stairs.
She walked into the Biggest Store one morning four years before with seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waist department counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewildering scene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godivas.
The capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man whose task it was to engage six of the contestants, was aware of a feeling of suffocation as if he were drowning in a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds, hand-embroidered, floated about him. And then a sail hove in sight. Hetty Pepper, homely of countenance, with small, contemptuous, green eyes and chocolate-colored hair, dressed in a suit of plain burlap and a common-sense hat, stood before him with every one of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight.
“You’re on!” shouted the bald-headed young man, and was saved. And that is how Hetty came to be employed in the Biggest Store. The story of her rise to an eight-dollar-a-week salary is the combined stories of Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. You shall not learn from me the salary that was paid her as a beginner. There is a sentiment growing about such things, and I want no millionaire store-proprietors climbing the fire-escape of my tenement-house to throw dynamite bombs into my skylight boudoir.
The story of Hetty’s discharge from the Biggest Store is so nearly a repetition of her engagement as to be monotonous.
In each department of the store there is an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnivorous person carrying always a mileage book and a red necktie, and referred to as a “buyer.” The destinies of the girls in his department who live on (see Bureau of Victual Statistics) — so much per week are in his hands.
This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department he seemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds, machine-embroidered, floated around him. Too many sweets bring surfeit. He looked upon Hetty Pepper’s homely countenance, emerald eyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in a desert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched her arm kindly, three inc
hes above the elbow. She slapped him three feet away with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily-white right. So, now you know why Hetty Pepper came to leave the Biggest Store at thirty minutes’ notice, with one dime and a nickel in her purse.
This morning’s quotations list the price of rib beef at six cents per (butcher’s) pound. But on the day that Hetty was “released” by the B. S. the price was seven and one-half cents. That fact is what makes this story possible. Otherwise, the extra four cents would have —
But the plot of nearly all the good stories in the world is concerned with shorts who were unable to cover; so you can find no fault with this one.
Hetty mounted with her rib beef to her $3.50 third-floor back. One hot, savory beef-stew for supper, a night’s good sleep, and she would be fit in the morning to apply again for the tasks of Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood.
In her room she got the granite-ware stew-pan out of the 2×4-foot china — er — I mean earthenware closet, and began to dig down in a rat’s-nest of paper bags for the potatoes and onions. She came out with her nose and chin just a little sharper pointed.
There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now, what kind of a beef-stew can you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster-soup without oysters, turtle-soup without turtles, coffee-cake without coffee, but you can’t make beef-stew without potatoes and onions.
But rib beef alone, in an emergency, can make an ordinary pine door look like a wrought-iron gambling-house portal to the wolf. With salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of flour (first well stirred in a little cold water) ‘twill serve— ’tis not so deep as a lobster à la Newburg nor so wide as a church festival doughnut; but ‘twill serve.
Hetty took her stew-pan to the rear of the third-floor hall. According to the advertisements of the Vallambrosa there was running water to be found there. Between you and me and the water-meter, it only ambled or walked through the faucets; but technicalities have no place here. There was also a sink where housekeeping roomers often met to dump their coffee grounds and glare at one another’s kimonos.