by O. Henry
Miss Adams made a useless movement toward escape. The Ross chin stuck firm. “I don’t want to annoy you, Miss Adams, but, by heck, if it comes to that you’ll have to be annoyed. And I’ll have to have my say. This palm-ticklin’ slob of a Frenchman ought to be kicked off the place and if you’ll say the word, off he goes. But I don’t want to do the wrong thing. You’ve got to show a preference. I’m gettin’ around to the point, Miss — Miss Willie, in my own brick fashion. I’ve stood about all I can stand these last two days and somethin’s got to happen. The suspense hereabouts is enough to hang a sheepherder. Miss Willie” — he lassooed her hand by main force— “just say the word. You need somebody to take your part all your life long. Will you mar— “
“Supper,” remarked George, tersely, from the kitchen door.
Miss Adams hurried away.
Ross turned angrily. “You— “
“I have been revolving it in my head,” said George.
He brought the coffee pot forward heavily. Then bravely the big platter of pork and beans. Then somberly the potatoes. Then profoundly the biscuits. “I have been revolving it in my mind. There ain’t no use waitin’ any longer for Swengalley. Might as well eat now.”
From my excellent vantage-point on the couch I watched the progress of that meal. Ross, muddled, glowering, disappointed; Etienne, eternally blandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams, nervous, picking at her food, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now and then the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backs like a Dreadnaught in a fog.
I used to own a clock which gurgled in its throat three minutes before it struck the hour. I know, therefore, the slow freight of Anticipation. For I have awakened at three in the morning, heard the clock gurgle, and waited those three minutes for the three strokes I knew were to come. Alors. In Ross’s ranch house that night the slow freight of Climax whistled in the distance.
Etienne began it after supper. Miss Adams had suddenly displayed a lively interest in the kitchen layout and I could see her in there, chatting brightly at George — not with him — the while he ducked his head and rattled his pans.
“My fren’,” said Etienne, exhaling a large cloud from his cigarette and patting Ross lightly on the shoulder with a bediamonded hand which, hung limp from a yard or more of bony arm, “I see I mus’ be frank with you. Firs’, because we are rivals; second, because you take these matters so serious. I — I am Frenchman. I love the women” — he threw back his curls, bared his yellow teeth, and blew an unsavory kiss toward the kitchen. “It is, I suppose, a trait of my nation. All Frenchmen love the women — pretty women. Now, look: Here I am!” He spread out his arms. “Cold outside! I detes’ the col-l-l! Snow! I abominate the mees-ser-rhable snow! Two men! This— “ pointing to me— “an’ this!” Pointing to’ Ross. “I am distracted! For two whole days I stan’ at the window an’ tear my ‘air! I am nervous, upset, pr-r-ro-foun’ly distress inside my ‘ead! An’ suddenly — be’old! A woman, a nice, pretty, charming, innocen’ young woman! I, naturally, rejoice. I become myself again — gay, light-’earted, ‘appy. I address myself to mademoiselle; it passes the time. That, m’sieu’, is wot the women are for — pass the time! Entertainment — like the music, like the wine!
“They appeal to the mood, the caprice, the temperamen’. To play with thees woman, follow her through her humor, pursue her — ah! that is the mos’ delightful way to sen’ the hours about their business.”
Ross banged the table. “Shut up, you miserable yeller pup!” he roared. “I object to your pursuin’ anything or anybody in my house. Now, you listen to me, you— “ He picked up the box of stogies and used it on the table as an emphasizer. The noise of it awoke the attention of the girl in the kitchen. Unheeded, she crept into the room. “I don’t know anything about your French ways of lovemakin’ an’ I don’t care. In my section of the country, it’s the best man wins. And I’m the best man here, and don’t you forget it! This girl’s goin’ to be mine. There ain’t going to be any playing, or philandering, or palm reading about it. I’ve made up my mind I’ll have this girl, and that settles it. My word is the law in this neck o’ the woods. She’s mine, and as soon as she says she’s mine, you pull out.” The box made one final, tremendous punctuation point.
Etienne’s bravado was unruffled. “Ah! that is no way to win a woman,” he smiled, easily. “I make prophecy you will never win ‘er that way. No. Not thees woman. She mus’ be played along an’ then keessed, this charming, delicious little creature. One kees! An’ then you ‘ave her.” Again he displayed his unpleasant teeth. “I make you a bet I will kees her— “
As a cheerful chronicler of deeds done well, it joys me to relate that the hand which fell upon Etienne’s amorous lips was not his own. There was one sudden sound, as of a mule kicking a lath fence, and then — through the swinging doors of oblivion for Etienne.
I had seen this blow delivered. It was an aloof, unstudied, almost absent-minded affair. I had thought the cook was rehearsing the proper method of turning a flapjack.
Silently, lost in thought, he stood there scratching his head. Then he began rolling down his sleeves.
“You’d better get your things on, Miss, and we’ll get out of here,” he decided. “Wrap up warm.”
I heard her heave a little sigh of relief as she went to get her cloak, sweater, and hat.
Ross jumped to his feet, and said: “George, what are you goin’ to do?”
George, who had been headed in my direction, slowly swivelled around and faced his employer. “Bein’ a camp cook, I ain’t over-burdened with hosses,” George enlightened us. “Therefore, I am going to try to borrow this feller’s here.”
For the first time in four days my soul gave a genuine cheer. “If it’s for Lochinvar purposes, go as far as you like,” I said, grandly.
The cook studied me a moment, as if trying to find an insult in my words. “No,” he replied. “It’s for mine and the young lady’s purposes, and we’ll go only three miles — to Hicksville. Now let me tell you somethin’, Ross.” Suddenly I was confronted with the cook’s chunky back and I heard a low, curt, carrying voice shoot through the room at my host. George had wheeled just as Ross started to speak. “You’re nutty. That’s what’s the matter with you. You can’t stand the snow. You’re getting nervouser, and nuttier every day. That and this Dago” — he jerked a thumb at the half-dead Frenchman in the corner— “has got you to the point where I thought I better horn in. I got to revolving it around in my mind and I seen if somethin’ wasn’t done, and done soon, there’d be murder around here and maybe” — his head gave an imperceptible list toward the girl’s room— “worse.”
He stopped, but he held up a stubby finger to keep any one else from speaking. Then he plowed slowly through the drift of his ideas. “About this here woman. I know you, Ross, and I know what you reely think about women. If she hadn’t happened in here durin’ this here snow, you’d never have given two thoughts to the whole woman question. Likewise, when the storm clears, and you and the boys go hustlin’ out, this here whole business ‘ll clear out of your head and you won’t think of a skirt again until Kingdom Come. Just because o’ this snow here, don’t forget you’re living in the selfsame world you was in four days ago. And you’re the same man, too. Now, what’s the use o’ getting all snarled up over four days of stickin’ in the house? That there’s what I been revolvin’ in my mind and this here’s the decision I’ve come to.”
He plodded to the door and shouted to one of the ranch hands to saddle my horse.
Ross lit a stogy and stood thoughtful in the middle of the room. Then he began: “I’ve a durn good notion, George, to knock your confounded head off and throw you into that snowbank, if— “
“You’re wrong, mister. That ain’t a durned good notion you’ve got. It’s durned bad. Look here!” He pointed steadily out of doors until we were both forced to follow his finger. “You’re in here for more’n a week yet.” After allowin
g this fact to sink in, he barked out at Ross: “Can you cook?” Then at me: “Can you cook?” Then he looked at the wreck of Etienne and sniffed.
There was an embarrassing silence as Ross and I thought solemnly of a foodless week.
“If you just use hoss sense,” concluded George, “and don’t go for to hurt my feelin’s, all I want to do is to take this young gal down to Hicksville; and then I’ll head back here and cook fer you.”
The horse and Miss Adams arrived simultaneously, both of them very serious and quiet. The horse because he knew what he had before him in that weather; the girl because of what she had left behind.
Then all at once I awoke to a realization of what the cook was doing. “My God, man!” I cried, “aren’t you afraid to go out in that snow?”
Behind my back I heard Ross mutter, “Not him.”
George lifted the girl daintily up behind the saddle, drew on his gloves, put his foot in the stirrup, and turned to inspect me leisurely.
As I passed slowly in his review, I saw in my mind’s eye the algebraic equation of Snow, the equals sign, and the answer in the man before me.
“Snow is my last name,” said George. He swung into the saddle and they started cautiously out into the darkening swirl of fresh new currency just issuing from the Snowdrop Mint. The girl, to keep her place, clung happily to the sturdy figure of the camp cook.
I brought three things away from Ross Curtis’s ranch house — yes, four. One was the appreciation of snow, which I have so humbly tried here to render; (2) was a collarbone, of which I am extra careful; (3) was a memory of what it is to eat very extremely bad food for a week; and (4) was the cause of (3) a little note delivered at the end of the week and hand-painted in blue pencil on a sheet of meat paper.
“I cannot come back there to that there job. Mrs. Snow say no, George. I been revolvin’ it in my mind; considerin’ circumstances she’s right.”
O HENRYANA
This collection of seven ‘odds and ends’ was published in 1920 and contains both poems and short stories.
CONTENTS
THE CRUCIBLE
A LUNAR EPISODE
THREE PARAGRAPHS
BULGER’S FRIEND
A PROFESSIONAL SECRET
THE ELUSIVE TENDERLOIN
THE STRUGGLE OF THE OUTLIERS
O HENRYANA
Seven odds and ends of poetry and short stories
THE CRUCIBLE
HARD ye may be in the tumult,
Red to your battle hilts,
Blow give for blow in the foray,
Cunningly ride in the tilts;
But when the roaring is ended,
Tenderly, unbeguiled,
Turn to a woman a woman’s
Heart, and a child’s to a child.
Test of the man, if his worth be
In accord with the ultimate plan,
That he be not, to his marring,
Always and utterly man;
That he bring out of the tumult,
Fitter and undefiled,
To a woman the heart of a woman,
To children the heart of a child.
Good when the bugles are ranting
It is to be iron and fire;
Good to be oak in the foray,
Ice to a guilty desire.
But when the battle is over
(Marvel and wonder the while)
Give to a woman a woman’s Heart,
and a child’s to a child.
A LUNAR EPISODE
THE scene was one of supernatural weirdness. Tall, fantastic mountains reared their seamed peaks over a dreary waste of igneous rock and burned-out lava beds. Deep lakes of black water stood motionless as glass under frowning, honey-combed crags, from which ever and anon dropped crumbled masses with a sullen plunge. Vegetation there was none. Bitter cold reigned and ridges of black and shapeless rocks cut the horizon on all sides. An extinct volcano loomed against a purple sky, black as night and old as the world.
The firmament was studded with immense stars that shone with a wan and spectral light. Orient’s belt hung high above.
Aldebaran faintly shone millions of miles away, and the earth gleamed like a new-risen moon -with a lurid, blood-like glow.
On a lofty mountain that hung toppling above an ink-black sea stood a dwelling built of stone. From its solitary window came a bright light that gleamed upon the misshapen rocks. The door opened and two men emerged locked in a deadly struggle.
They sw ayed and twisted upon the edge of the precipice, now one gaining the advantage, now the other.
Strong men they were, and stone rolled from their feet into the valley as each strove to overcome the other.
At length one prevailed. He seized his opponent, and raising him high above his head, hurled him into space.
The vanquished combatant shot through the air like a stone from a catapult in the direction of the luminous earth.
‘“That’s three of ‘em this week,” said the Man in the Moon as he lit a cigarette and turned back into the house. “Those New York interviewers are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer.”
THREE PARAGRAPHS
“COPY,” yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the bed began to move her lingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpane. Her eyes were bright with fever; her face, once beautiful, was thin and pain drawn. She was dving, but neither she nor the man who held her hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near.
I hree paragraphs were lacking to fill the column of humorous matter that the foreman had sent for. The small pay it brought them barely furnished shelter and food. Medicine was lacking but the need for that was nearly over.
The woman’s mind was wandenng; she spoke quickly and unceasingly, and the man bit his pencil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her slim, hot hand.
“Oh, Jack; Jack, papa says no, 1 cannot go with you. Not love you! Jack, do you want to break my heart? Oh, look, look! the fields are like heaven, so filled with fiowers. Why have you no ice? I had ice when I was at home. Can’t you give me just a little piece, my throat is burning?”
The humourist wrote: “When a man puts a piece of ice down a girl’s back at a picnic, does he give her the cold shoulder?”
The woman feverishly put back the loose masses of brown hair from her burning face.
“Jack, Jack, I don’t want to die! Who is that climbing in the window?
Oh, it’s only Jack, ami here is Jack holding my hand, too. How funny! We are going to the river to-night.. The quiet, broad, dark, whispering river. Hold my hand tight, Jack, I can feel the water coming in. Tt is so cold. How queer it seems to be dead, dead, and see the trees above you.
The humourist wrote: “On the dead square- -a cemetery lot.”
“Copy, sir,” yelled the small boy agc’in. “Forms locked in half an hour.”
The man bit his pencil into splinters. The hand he held was growing cooler; surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now, a little crooning song she might have learned at her mother’s knee, and her lingers had ceased moving.
“They told me,” she satd weakly and sadly, “that hardships and suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can’t think. No, no, the white dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing, sailing, sailing, where does this river go? You are not Jack, you are too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister, let’s make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great black cloud above us — I’ll be better in the morning, Jack, if you’ll hold my hand tight, Jack, I feel as light as a feather — I’m just floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can’t feel your hand. Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her face. I must go to her, Jack. Mother, mother!
The man wrote quickly:
“A woman generally likes her husband’s mother-in-law the best of all his relatives.”
&n
bsp; Then he sprang to the door, dashed the column of copy into the boy’s hand, and moved swiftly to the bed.
He put his arm softly under the brown head that had suffered so much, hut it turned heavily aside.
The fever was gone. The humourist was alone.
BULGER’S FRIEND
IT WAS rare sport for a certain element in the town when old Bulger joined the Salvation Army. Bulger was the town’s odd “character,” a shiftless, eccentric old man, and a natural foe to social conventions. He lived on the bank of a brook that bisected the town, in a wonderful hut of his own contriving, made of scrap lumber, clapboards, pieces of tin, canvas and corrugated iron.
The most adventurous boys circled Bulger’s residence at a respectful distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with belligerent and gruff inhospitality.
In return, the report was current that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.
One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly attended meeting in its hall. Bulger had appeared and asked permission to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the peaceful militants of his order.
Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus prominently displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from the burning, at least a weli-charred and sap-dried chunk, So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played “Sweet By and By” and “Only an Armor-Bearer” :n unison upon their cornets. And never before in chat town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always wo- fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and rocked from side to side like a bear.