by O. Henry
All things were conducive to making my grandmother’s home a peaceful place in which to dream dreams and put them into words. For this purpose I used to resort to the attic — a huge space with slanting roof, and to my mind the best furnished region in the house. There was a spinning wheel, and several old chests (one had a secret drawer), and, most eerie of all, was a huge-faced, highly decorated clock, decrepit and out of use, that stood on the floor. This clock had an uncanny way of striking One at rare intervals, apparently for no reason at all, though we finally concluded that some unnoticed jarring of. the floor must have occasioned it. An apple tree bough, close to the house, swept across one of the attic windows. In the spring, when this bough was abloom and the window was open — ah! — it was a place for any sort of wild fancy to unfold.
Secreted one day in my precious attic, I had seated myself on the floor by a chest, where I was scribbling energetically and picturing myself as a starving poet forced to dwell near the eaves, when I heard the voice of my mother:
“Come down, Mabel; here’s a letter from Henry!”
I had a distant cousin by this name from whom letters were frequent and I was puzzled at the special summons to read a letter from him. Again she called:
“From Henry, the author.” Whereupon I said “O!” I came down and was soon reading aloud the jolliest, breeziest, most unusual letter that had ever come my way.
After several re-readings to the entire household, there loomed before me the prospect of replying to this post-impressionist epistle. How to answer this answer to my query about “O. Henry” was a problem. But I didn’t go up to the attic to do it. I drew the old Boston rocker up to my grandmother’s big centre table, shoved back the Bible, the family album, and the lamp, and soon pushed my pen easily enough into the opening sentence with the natural statement that his letter had been forwarded to Lithopolis. Then, as day follows night, as ferment follows yeast, that name “Lithopolis” had to be explained. It is a name never xvii mentioned to the uninitiated without eliciting a circle of questions, so I put down, then and there, all that seemed to me needful about the cosmopolis Lithopolis. After dinner I handed the letter over the fence to Nellie Laney (the postmistress) on her way up street to sort the noon mail.
Not long after this there was another red-letter day in the little house next to the Lutheran church; eight pages of uproarious manuscript from my mysterious, ink-slinging, Texas- cowboy correspondent sojourning in New York were read aloud to my mother and grandmother, the hired girl and the cat, to say nothing of a neighbour or two (O. Henry’s reputation was growing!). And right then, as I read those rollicking pages, I realized that Lithopolis had occasioned them. I realized this fact more and more as his letters con tinued to come. His publishers realize it to-day: hence the title on the cover of this book. A little old, obscure town it is, unfitted for any highway place along the roads of steel. In a quiet nook on “Roads of Destiny” is where you will find Lithopolis. A great mind and spirit, speeding on to fame, found time once to note and give heed in his letters to the side-tracked tiny town.
O. Henry, unheralded as yet, a lone stranger in New York, evidently found enough diversion in my Lithopolitan news-letters to impel him to continue making use of the Pennsylvania and Hocking Valley Railroads, in conjunction with two horses and a mail-wagon, as carriers for some high- grade samples of the World’s Best Literature. It required no exceptional genius on my part to realize that his letters were worth saving. I
kept them at first in my desk; then in a letter file; then (my precaution keeping pace with his fame) in a tin box; and finally they were handed over to my father who had suggested placing them in his safe at the office. This he did — unmindful of the fact that that particular safe had an uncanny reputation for discriminating judgment in the matter of priceless mementos. It was the same safe that had swallowed up and concealed for years Dr. Funk’s famous “Widow’s Mite” — an incident that required a whole book to explain. That safe now promptly made away with our precious O. Henry letters, and in spite of much frantic search for them, the little shelf where they had been, where they should have been, and where they certainly were placed — was a shelf blankly innocent of any papers bearing the Henry chirography. So great was our amaze at the wraith-like Houdini, the lock- conquering break-away of those letters, that at first I felt, as their author has said, “there could be no more calendar, neither days, weeks, nor months.”
But time sped firmly on, not only months but years. And during those years, O. Henry’s fame grew. Oh, how it grew! The whole world knew this, but none knew it better, none knew it so deeply, as my mother and I and Daddy — especially Daddy! We read columns and pages in the papers about O. Henry, and always we finished with the wail, “What a pity about those letters!” It did seem as though an unmerciful amount of news about America’s greatest humourist came our way. Friends, aware of my acquaintance with him, took pains to send me clippings. It finally became an unwritten law of our home to avoid the mention of his name, for the memory of those lost letters was too exasperating.
Still more years flocked by. Then one day came a voice over the telephone: my father from his office shouting good news: “I have found the O. Henry letters!” It is not clear to me yet how he found them, or where; apparently in some nook as obscure in that safe as Lithopolis is on the map. Anyway, here they are, and I truly believe every reader will receive the same thrill they imparted to us when first read aloud, long ago, in my grandmother’s cosy front room.
My acquaintance with O. Henry, as an occasional caller in our New York home, leaves the memory of a quiet, serious, hard-working author; one whom I felt was predestined to fame though he had slight regard for the author-craft. He was sincere in his statement of belief that “writing pieces for the printer isn’t a man’s work.” His idea of a man’s work was to get out in the world and establish a great business — as John Wana- maker did. Several times I heard him speak with profound admiration of this merchant prince, whom he had never met. Equally sincere, I have good reason to believe, was his expressed indifference to music; he never asked me to play. I served tea and cakes when he called and we talked casually on any subject under the moon. I told him how his first letter reached me when I was up in the attic trying to imagine myself a poor, starving poet. I can hear yet his prompt and serious reply.
“That is something you cannot imagine. No one who has not known it can imagine the misery of poverty.”
O. Henry was so serious in saying this his voice became almost tragic. “Poverty is so terrible and so common, we should all do more than we do — much more — to relieve it. We intend to, perhaps, but we don’t do it. You ought to do more, so ought I,right now. I ought to give fifty dollars, but I don’t.” Though making a social call, O. Henry was just then deeply solemn and earnest. Was he ever jocose in his talk as in his writings? I never found him so. About the only witticism I recall was the last time I saw him; the very last words I heard from him. As he stood at the door after saying good-bye he asked whether he might come again, real soon. I laughingly asked what he called “real soon.”
“What time do you have breakfast?” was the merry retort.
Shortly after this my mother and I went to Europe and it chanced that we never again saw O. Henry. But some time later he sent, through my father’s office, his most recent book with an inscription highly typical and dashed off in his best freehand style:
“ To Miss Mabel Wagnails —
with pleasant recollections of a certain little tea party where there were such nice little cakes and kind hospitality to a timid stranger.
O. HENRY
“A timid stranger” — somehow that describes him. To life itself and the whole world he carried the air of a timid stranger. Something in his manner made me think of William Watson’s “World Strangeness”
“Strange the world about me lies,
Never yet familiar grown —
Still disturbs me with surprise,
Haunts me
like a face half-known.
I have never felt at home,
Never wholly been at ease.”
So it seemed with O. Henry. Never quite at home — just a little out of place — and even in death But I must tell this very gently, and with somewhat of bated breath. We went to O. Henry’s funeral, my mother and I. We had read in the papers of his passing, and had noted the hour and the place; a fitting place it was — the Little Church Around the Corner — the Church of the Strangers, as it sometimes is called. We supposed there would be a large crowd; probably cards of admission would be required. We had none, but we went intending to stand on the curb, if need be, to pay our last deference to one of America’s Immortals. But no crowd edged the curb; we saw a few carriages and a small group at the door that somehow was far from funereal in appearance. On entering the vestibule we were accosted with a question. So certain were we it must be a request for a card that for a moment we were uncomprehending — and good reason there was for our dismay. We had heard the strangest question ever worded, I believe, at chancel door since the cross of Christ stood over it:
“Have you come for the wedding or the funeral?”
Somehow it was a phrase that stabbed to the heart, though we soon understood, of course, that a mistake had been made in the time set for the two ceremonies. The wedding party was already there but it was decided to hold the funeral first. So a few of us — astonishingly few, unbelievably few — sat forward in the dim nave while a brief — a very brief — little service was read over the still form of one whose tireless hand had penned pages of truth, humour, and philosophy that will live as long as the foundation stones of our Hall of Fame endure.
One felt a hurried pulse through all the service, and as the cortege passed out a flower or two fell from the casket and we knew that soon the bridal train would be brushing them aside. Out of place, it would seem, to the last, was O. Henry; with hardly time in the church to bury him. But his work, his books — there is place for them in four million homes of those who speak his tongue; more than four million copies of his books have been sold.
Yes, there is room in the world for his work. And there is room in the hearts of the people for his fame to rest for ever.
Mabel Wagnalls.
I
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
New York, June 9 th, 1903.
My dear Madam:
THE “Cosmopolitan Magazine” forwarded to me yesterday the little note you wrote on May 9th, in regard to some of the short stories I have been perpetrating upon the public. I do not know why they held your letter so long unless they thought it was a MS. submitted for publication, and finally decided to reject it — in which case I think they showed very poor taste and judgment.
I’m glad to be able to tell you that I am a man, and neither a woman nor a wraith. Still I couldn’t exactly tell you why I’m glad, for there isn’t anything nicer than a woman; and I have often thought, on certain occasions, that to be a wraith would be exceedingly jolly and convenient.
When you were looking for “O. Henry” between the red covers of “Who’s Who” I was probably between two gray saddle blankets on a Texas prairie listening to the moonlight sonata of the coyotes.
Since you have been so good as to speak nicely of my poor wares I will set down my autobiography. Here goes!
Texas cowboy. Lazy. Thought writing stories might be easier than “busting” broncos. Came to New York one year ago to earn bread, butter, jam, and possibly asparagus that way. Last week loaned an editor $20.
Please pardon the intrusion of finances, but I regard the transaction as an imperishable bay. Very few story writers have done that. Not many of them have the money. By the time they get it they know better.
I think that is all that is of interest. I don’t like to talk about /iterature. Did you notice that teentsy-weentsy little “1”? That’s the way I spell it. I have much more respect for a man who brands cattle than for one who writes pieces for the printer. Don’t you? It doesn’t seem quite like a man’s work. But then, it’s quite often a man’s work to collect a cheque from some publications.
I was very glad to get your letter, even though it comes as to a wraith or an impersonality. Why? Well, down in Texas we are sort of friendly, you know, and when we see a man five miles off we holler at him “Hello, Bill”! In New York the folks- well, — (I wish I could show you right here how the Mexicans shrug one shoulder). Your letter seemed to read like a faint voice out of the chaparral calling: “Hello, Bill, you old flop-eared wraith, how’re they comin’?” In Texas the folks freeze to you; in New York they freeze you. Sabe?
But I do not consider this a fault in New York. After one gets acquainted with the people they prove to be very agreeable and friendly. I have made a number of friends among the magazine men whom I like very much.
What a pity it is that a downtrodden scribbler can’t manage to claim kinship with a publisher’s family! ‘Way down in Louisiana is where my “Henry” name came from. Can’t you dig up an ancestor among the old Southern aristocracy so we can be cousins?
Do you know, Miss Wagnalls, what would be the proper procedure on this occasion if this happened to be Texas? Til tell you. I’d get on my bronco and ride over to 15th Street and holler “Hello, folkses!” And your pa would come out and say: “Light and hitch, stranger”; and you would kill a chicken for supper, and we would all talk about /iterature and the price of cattle.
But as this is New York and not Texas I will only say I hope you will overlook the nonsense, and believe that I much appreciate your cheering letter. There are one or two stories that I think you have not seen that I would like to have your opinion of if you would let me submit them to you some time. I think the judgment of a normal, intelligent woman is superior to that of an editor in a great many instances.
Sincerely yours, O. Henry.
47 West 24th Street.
II
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
New York, June 25, 1903.
My dear Miss Wagnalls:
Your pleasant little note from the metropolis Lithopolis was received and appreciated, although some envy was stirred up at the sight of your postmark. Just think! — you are out in the wilds of Ohio where you can pick daisies and winners at the county racetrack, wear kimonos and shoes large enough for you and run either for exercise or office as often as you please. Me — I’m in my garret nibbling at my crust (softened by a little dry Sauterne) and battling with the wolf at the door — (he’s trying to get out — don’t like it inside).
Lemme see! Fairfield County — that’s over across the “crick,’ isn’t it, just this side of the woods? And Lithopolis — wait a minute — b’lieve I’ve heard of No, it wasn’t the town — I guess it was a new $3 shoe or a trotting horse I was thinking of. (The whole paragraph was inspired by envy. I know it’s peaceful & lovely & rural and restful out there. “Lost in Lithopolis; or Lolling among the Lotuses — not to mention the Lima Beans.” ’Twould make a summer drama that would snow “The Old Homestead “ under — paper snow, of course.)
Wait a minute — let me consult my notes... Oh yes... Thanks again for saying such kind things about my stories. But let’s talk about something else — writing little pieces for the printer man isn’t much. There ought to be a law reserving literature for one-legged veterans and widows with nine children to write. Men ought to have the hard work to do — they ought to read the stuff.
Er — lemme see Oh yes: —
will I be wending my way back to Texas? (Please don’t say “wending”; it has such a footsore, stone- bruisy sound to it. Makes you think of railroad ties and things.) Well, I dunno. Sometimes I get tired of New York, and want to be where I can holler “Hello, Aunt Emily!” to the mayor’s wife, and go back of the counter in the post office with a sort of Lithopolitan insouciance and freedom. The other night I went up to the Madison Square post office and sat on the steps for two hours. Do you know, that postmaster never even came out and said “how’s tricks,” much
less joining in for a social chat. Everybody is so stiff in New York. But I hardly think I’ll leave this year. I’ve got the editor men chasing me for stuff now, and I want to work ‘em a while longer.
Now, let’s see again Oh yes — am I interested in music? Now, I think right here is where you are going to repudiate your cousin, for I know all about why you asked the question. I can just see the dreamy look in your eyes as you slather Chopin and Bay Toven out of the piano keys. Am I interested in music? — Well, er — why, certainly — interested, but not implicated. I once was reputed to know something about printed music, but I acquired the distinction by fraud. I gained it by being able to stand at the piano and turn the music exactly at the proper time for a certain young lady, who aggravated the ivory frequently. No one ever found out that she gave me the signal by moving her right ear, a singularly enviable accomplishment that she possessed. I may say that I had an ear for music, but it did not belong to me.
I was going to send you a couple of old magazines with plot stories that I think would have interested you, but on looking I find that I haven’t kept copies of them. I trespass so far on your good nature, though, to send i or 3 recent ones that you may not have noticed, as being afflicted with “O. H.” stuff. I’ll send you the July “McClure’s” in a day or two (if I may) which contains another. I don’t think that anybody but you reads them, and I don’t want my audience to get away. I am thinking of getting out a nice red book with chewed-up edges pretty soon, and I was feeling really hopeful and enthusiastic at the thought that you might buy a copy and thus enable it to appear in the list of most popular works sold in the Lithopolis department stores. But I reflected that as a member of a publisher’s family you would be able to get one at wholesale rates, or maybe free, and the dream has faded.