by O. Henry
Milton could boast of having a spicy weekly paper known as the Milton Chronicle that carried its weekly message into all the neighboring counties. The editor was Charles Napoleon Bona- part Evans, who originated the character of “Jesse Holmes, the Fool-Killer.”*
* Readers of O. Henry will recall that in “The Fool-Killer” he says: “Down South whenever any one perpetrates some particularly monumental piece of foolishness everybody says: ‘Send for Jesse Holmes.’ Jesse Holmes is the Fool-Killer.” It is interesting to note that O. Henry was here quoting, unconsciously I presume, a saying originated by his mother’s cousin. Charles Napoleon Bonapart Evans’s mother was a Miss Shirley, sister of Abia Shirley. The familiarity of Greensboro boys with “Jesse Holmes” has here led O. Henry to ascribe a wider circuit to the saying than the facts seem to warrant. From queries sent out I am inclined to think that “Jesse Holmes” as a synonym for the Fool-Killer is not widely known in the South and is current in North Carolina only in spots. “I tried it out this morning in chapel,” writes President E. K. Graham, of the University of North Carolina, “on perhaps five hundred North Carolinians. Only three had heard of it.” One of these was from Greensboro and cited Charles Napoleon Bonapart Evans as the author.This character furnished sarcasm and wit in weekly instalments that kept the young people always on the edge of expectancy. Greensboro also had a paper of no mean pretentions and, perhaps leaving out the Salisbury Watchman and the Hillsboro paper long presided over by that venerable old editor Dennis Heartt, the Greensboro Patriot stood next in age in the State, and the name of William Swaim was almost as widely known as was Edward J. Hale of the Fayetteville Observer. There seemed to be warm and tender social ties that united the Swaim and Evans families and although dwelling fifty miles apart there were frequent interchanges of visits, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim always enjoyed with a relish her visits to Mrs. Evans and was the recipient of many hospitable attentions whenever she brightened by her presence our little village.
To have a new girl come into our social life was a source of great pleasure to our boys and I well remember the first time I ever saw Mary Swaim, and, had I been just a little older, perhaps there might have been a serious attempt to alter what is now both biography and family history. Calling one evening at the Evans home, which was diagonally across the street from my own, I was ushered into the presence of one of the most winsome women I ever saw, and from our first introduction we became friends.
Mary Swaim was not a beauty but her eyes could talk and when she became animated in conversation her every feature was instinct with expression and life and with the passing thoughts to which she gave expression. There was a play of color in her cheeks richer than the blush of the peach. She was quick of wit and a match for any would-be iconoclast who undertook to measure repartee with her. She was considerate of even her youngest cavalier and never seemed to shun the attentions of those younger in years than herself. To say that she was a universal favorite in old Milton with young and old, expresses but feebly the impression that she left on the hearts and memories of those who knew her in the happy days of long ago.
The tides of life ebbing and flowing carried this most winsome woman into new and untried paths and she became, as she had given promise to be, a lovely and loving mother. After the pleasant associations of those early days I saw her no more, but I was in the throng that assembled in Raleigh, on December 2, 1914, and witnessed the unveiling of the bronze tablet* in the Library Building, placed there in memory of her illustrious son, William Sydney Porter, more familiarly and affectionately known as O. Henry. Is it any wonder that such a woman as Mary Swaim should have given to the world such a son as William Sydney *Erected by the Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina under the presidency of Dr. Archibald Henderson.
Porter? In him and his wonderful literary work the mother will live on when marble monuments and bronze tablets shall have crumbled into dust.
O. Henry’s grandparents on his father’s side were Sidney Porter and Ruth Coffyn Worth. They rest side by side in the small and fast diminishing graveyard of the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, the headstones bearing the inscriptions:
Sidney Porter was a tall, jolly, heavy-set man but with little of the force or thrift of the family into which he married. He came from Connecticut to North Carolina about the year 1823 as the agent of a clock company. Several of the clocks that he sold are still doing duty in Guilford County and from the firm-name upon them, “Eight day repeating brass clock, made by C. and N. Jerome, Bristol, Conn.,” they would seem to indicate that Sidney Porter’s home was in Bristol. “C. and N. Jerome,” writes Judge Epaph- roditus Peck, of Bristol, “were the principal clock- makers here at that time. They used to send out as travelling sellers of their clocks young men here; and I think that the fact that Sidney Porter was sent out by them probably indicates that he was then living here. Communities were then isolated and self-centred and they were not likely to send men from other towns. I do not find any traces of him, however, on the local records.”
Dr. David Worth, father of Ruth, made minute inquiries into the past of his would-be son-in-law and became convinced, writes a descendant, that “Mr. Porter was a man of strictly upright character and worthy of his daughter’s hand.” The marriage took place at Center, the ancestral home of the Worths, on April 22, 1824, and was really a double celebration. Ruth Worth’s brother Jonathan, who was later to become Governor of North Carolina, had married Martitia Daniel of Virginia two days before, and the brother’s infare served as wedding reception for the sister. It was a notable occasion for the little Quaker village in more ways than mere festivity. Could I have been present when the infare was at its height, when congratulation and prophecy were bringing their blended tributes to father and mother and to son and daughter, I should not have been an unwelcome visitor, I think, could I have lifted the veil of the future for a moment and said to Doctor Worth and his wife: “Eighty-three years from now a statue will be dedicated in the capital of North Carolina to one of Jonathan’s grandsons, the first statue to be erected by popular subscription to a North Carolina soldier, and the name engraved upon it will be that of Worth Bagley; and ninety years from to-day a memorial tablet will be dedicated in the same city to one of Ruth’s grandsons, the only monument ever erected in the State to literary genius, and the name engraved upon it will be that of William Sydney Porter.” But the roads of destiny along which the two cousins were to travel to their memorial meeting-place were to be strangely diverse.
Sidney Porter, after a few unsuccessful years spent in a neighbouring county, came back to Guilford and opened a carriage-making and general repair shop in Greensboro, where he worked at his trade till his death. His shop stood on West Market Street where his daughter’s school was later to be erected, the only school that O. Henry ever attended. Sidney Porter was liked for his genial qualities by his neighbours but his business did not prosper. In 1841 he was compelled to mortgage to James Sloan, “trustee for the benefit of John A. Mebane and others,” all that he had even to his working tools except those “allowed to be retained by debtors who are workmen.” That the mortgage was not foreclosed was probably due to the standing and aid of his wife’s family and especially to his wife’s superior thrift and efficiency. It is probable also that slave labour was a handicap not sufficiently taken into account by one whose training had been in a community unaccustomed to the peculiar conditions that confronted the white labourer in the South.
That O. Henry’s grandfather was considered a man of at least more than ordinary directive ability, in spite of his habit of frequent tippling which is still remembered, appears from a public record of 1837. The little town, whose corporate limits had just been made one mile square, appointed groups of men to keep the streets in order. Four supervisors, representing the four quarters of the town, were chosen to have control of the new work. The position was one of responsibility and was given only to men of known enterprise, as is shown by the character of th
e appointees. James Sloan, one of the foremost citizens of the town and later to be Chief Quartermaster of the State during the war, was supervisor of the first division; Sidney Porter, of the second; Henry Humphreys, the richest man in Greensboro, the owner of the Mount Hecla Steam Cotton Mill, and the first to prove that cotton could be profitably manufactured in the State, of the third; and Reuben Dick, pioneer manufacturer of cigars, of the fourth.
Sidney Porter’s most characteristic trait, however, the quality that he was to transmit to his grandson, was not business efficiency. It was his sunny good humour.
“He joked and laughed at his work,” says an old citizen, “and was especially beloved by children. He would repair their toys for them free of charge and seemed never so happy as when they gathered about him on the street or in his workshop. He even let them tamper with his tools.” Fifty years later they were to say of O. Henry in Texas :f “ He was a favourite with the children. Those that have grown lip have pleasant memories of a jolly, big-hearted man who never failed to throw himself unreservedly into their games, to tell them stories that outrivalled in interest those of Uncle Remus, to sing delightfully humorous ongs to the merry jangle of a guitar, or to draw mirth- provoking cartoons.”
The memory of Sidney Porter that survives is clear, therefore, in outline, though faint in content. From him O. Henry got also the wanderlust that urged him unceasingly from place to place. Clocks were never as interesting to Grandpa Porter as were the faces and places that he saw on his frequent tours. From Hartford County, Connecticut, to Guilford County, North Carolina, from Guilford to Randolph, from Randolph back to Guilford, Sidney Porter’s shifts brought him a widened fellowship but neither prosperity nor geographical contentment. He handed down his name and a goodly share of his disposition to his grandson and, as the original rolling stone, might well typify if he did not suggest the title of the first and only periodical that O. Henry was to edit.
Ruth Worth, wife of Sidney Porter and grandmother of O. Henry, was what is known in North Carolina parlance as “a character,” the term implying marked individuality and will power. Her parents were Quakers of honourable ancestry and of distinguished service. David Worth, the father, was a descendant of John Worth who emigrated from England, during Cromwell’s reign, and settled in Massachusetts. David Worth became a physician, was active in the Manumission Society of North Carolina, and represented Guilford County in the legislature from 1822 to 1823. Through him O. Henry was eighth in lineal descent from Peter Folger, Benjamin Franklin’s grandfather. Eunice Gardner, whom David Worth married in 1798, was born in North Carolina, though her parents came from Nantucket. On the death of her husband she began the practice of medicine, in which she attained notable success. The best-known member of the family was Ruth Worth’s brother Jonathan, who was Governor of North Carolina from 1865 to 18G8 and whom the Chronicle, of Charleston, South Carolina, described as “a quiet little old gentleman, sharp as a briar, and with a well of wisdom at the root of every gray hair.”
The description fits Ruth Worth though it omits her native kindness of heart. I have found no memorial tribute to this grandmother of O. Henry that does not emphasize her loyalty to her convictions, her practical efficiency, her self-reliance, and her goodness of heart. “So genuine was her kindness of heart and sympathy for suffering,” says Church Society, “that the surest passports to her ministry were sickness, poverty, and want, and long will she be remembered.” Says another local paper: “She was perhaps the best known and most useful, self-sacrificing woman of her day. A history of her eventful life cannot be given in a few words but it would require a volume to do justice to her honoured career.” Six years after her death Mr. J. R. Bulla, in his “Reminiscences of Randolph County,” compared her with Pocahontas, Lady Arabella, Flora McDonald, Queen Margaret, and Queen Elizabeth, all of whom were hopelessly and pathetically outclassed. “If Queen Elizabeth,” he concludes, “had had as much wisdom as Ruth Porter, her reign would not only be extolled by the English but by all the civilized world. No Queen that Britain has ever had, had the eighth part of the common sense of Ruth Porter.”
Left a widow at the age of forty-three with seven children and a mortgaged home she set to work first with her needle and then with a few boarders to earn a support for herself and those dependent on her. To these were later added Shirley Worth Porter, William Sydney Porter [O. Henry], and David Weir Porter, the motherless children of her son, Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter. David Weir died in early childhood but O. Henry lived with his grandmother, his father, his aunt, “Miss Lina,” and his brother Shirley till 1882 when he moved to Texas Finding neither her needle nor her table sufficiently remunerative Mrs. Porter studied medicine and drugs under her son and became, as her mother had become before her, a practitioner in many homes.
She also collected or tried to collect the bills due her son. It was not good form in those days for a physician to dun a patient or even to send in a statement of the amount due. The patient was supposed to settle once a year without a reminder. This did not accord with Mrs. Porter’s ways of doing business and she used to make out the bills and send them. In return she often received very sharp replies. Doctor Porter had on one occasion visited two maiden ladies and when the bill was sent to their father he replied indignantly that Doctor Porter’s visits were only “social calls.” “Social calls!” wrote O. Henry’s grandmother. “I want you to understand that my son Algernon don’t make social calls on maiden ladies at two o’clock in the morning and they a-suffering with cramp colic.” The bill was paid.
Her son’s practice declined steadily, however, and the household was often in sore straits. Mrs. Porter’s rather intermittent calls, Miss Lina’s little school, and O. Henry’s meagre salary as clerk in his uncle Clark Porter’s drug store were practically the only means of family support during the latter years of O. Henry’s life in his native State. One cannot but feel a keen regret that neither the grandmother, nor the father, nor the aunt lived to witness or even to fore-glimpse the fame of the youngest member of the Porter household. Indeed the chief trait which Mrs. Sidney Porter saw in her grandson was his constitutional shyness. “I sometimes regret,” she remarked, “that we did not send him to Trinity College, for Dr. Braxton Craven makes every student feel that he, Braxton Craven, is the greatest man on earth and the student himself the next greatest.” An education away from home, however, could never have been seriously considered. “I would have given my eyes for a college education,” O. Henry said, when his daughter Margaret brought home her college diploma.
O. Henry’s father, Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter, was the oldest of the seven children. He was born in 1825 and died in 1888. If O. Henry received from his mother his gift of repartee, his artistic temperament, and a certain instinctive shyness, he received from his father his sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, his over-flowing generosity, his utter indifference to caste, in a word a large share of his characteristic and ineradicable democracy. To the same source may also be ascribed, through association at least, some of O. Henry’s constructive ingenuity.
Doctor Porter was for several years the best-known and the best-loved physician in Guilford County. An old friend* of his, to whom the memory of Doctor Porter brought tears, said recently: “He was the best-hearted man I ever knew; honest, high-toned, and generous. Rain or shine, sick or well, he would visit the poorest family in the county. He would have been a rich man if he had collected a half of what was due him. His iron-gray hair and the shape of his head reminded you of Zeb Vance.” His office, like his father’s before him, became a sort of general repair shop, though in a different way. “I shall never forget,” said the late Joe Reece, editor of the Daily Record of Greensboro, “something that happened in my boyhood. A giant of a negro had been cut down the back in a street fight. He passed me making straight for Doctor Porter’s office, and yelling like a steam piano. Everybody in those days when they got hurt made for Doctor Porter’s office as straight as a June shad in fly-time. Whe
n I got to the little office, I’ll be john-squizzled if Alg. Porter didn’t have that darky down on the floor.
He was sitting on him and sewing him up and lecturing to him about the evils of intemperance all at the same time. He lectured sort o’ unsteadily on that theme but nobody could beat his sewing.”
A few of the older citizens kept Doctor Porter as their physician to the last in spite of his lessening interest in the practice of medicine. “I never knew his equal,” said one. “You got better as soon as he entered the room. He was the soul of humour and geniality and resourcefulness and all my children were devoted to him.”
My own memory of Doctor Porter is of a small man with a huge head and a long beard; quiet, gentle, soft- voiced, self-effacing, who looked at you as if from another world and who walked with a step so noiseless, so absolutely echo-less, as to attract attention. This characteristic was also inherited by O. Henry who always seemed to me to be treading on down. They used to say of Doctor Porter that he had a far more scientific knowledge of medicine and drugs than any other physician in the community. He had studied under Dr. David P. Weir, in whose drug store he had clerked, and for a time he lectured on chemistry at the Edgeworth Female Seminary, of which Doctor Weir was principal from 1844 to 1845.
Doctor Porter’s interests, however, became more and more absorbed in fruitless inventions and remained less and less with the problems or with the actual practice of medicine. A perpetual motion water- wheel, a new-fangled churn, a washing machine, a flying machine, a horseless carriage to be run by steam, and a cotton-picking contrivance that was to take the place of negro labour became obsessions with him. In the winter time his room would be littered with wooden wheels and things piled under the bed, but in the summer time he moved or was moved out to the barn. In one of his last interviews O. Henry said that he often found himself recalling the days when as a boy he used to lie prone and dreaming on the old barn floor while his father worked quietly and assiduously on his perpetual motion water-wheel. “He was so absent-minded,” O. Henry said, “that he would frequently start out without his hat and we would be sent to carry it to him.” A schoolmate of O. Henry writes of those days: