網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[blocks in formation]

O. HENRY (1862-1910)

William Sidney Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on 11 September, 1862. His mother died when he was three years old. His father, a physician, lived until 1888, but was not very useful to William Sidney. He fell a victim to the notion that he could invent a perpetual-motion machine, and passed with increasing absorption to other inventions, intrinsically less absurd, but equally impracticable. The boy was not left quite without care, for he had an aunt who kept a private school, and who was evidently an effective teacher. To her school he went until he was fifteen years old, when all schooling ceased. He was early inclined to reading, but the books he read, in vast numbers, were dime novels. His aunt led him to better things. He himself said that he read more before he was twenty than during the remainder of his life, and that his taste in reading was at its best during the period when practically all of it was done, from his thirteenth year to his twentieth. At the same time he mentioned two examples, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Lane's translation of The Arabian Nights. But he also read Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Charles Reade, Bulwer Lytton, Wilkie Collins, Auerbach, Victor Hugo, and Alexander Dumas. (C. Alphonso Smith, 0. Henry Biography, 90.) When he was fifteen he began working in his uncle's drug store, where he remained until 1882, becoming a registered pharmacist. In the latter year his health was suffering from confinement, and a family friend took him to Texas, and there he lived until 1898. He spent two years on a ranch, and then moved to Austin, where his life was varied. He was an “occasional clerk in a tobacco store and later in a drug store, bookkeeper for a real estate firm, draftsman in a land office, paying and receiving teller in a bank, member of a military company, singer in the choirs of the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Episcopal churches, actor in private theatricals, editor of a humorous paper, serenader and cartoonist." His biographer adds that the only segment of the town's life "that he seems not to have touched was the University."

In 1887 Porter married Athol Estes, of Austin, and after this apparently made his first efforts to supplement his earnings by writing. He wrote humorous paragraphs, anecdotes, and the like odds and ends, and found a market for them. In the fall of 1895 he moved to Houston, where he conducted a daily column in a newspaper. This work suddenly ceased in the summer of 1896 when he received word that he had been charged with embezzlement while employed by an Austin bank. He started for Austin to answer the charge, which was not a complete surprise, but on the way, seized by fear of the possible outcome, he changed his mind and went instead to New Orleans and thence to Central America. He was brought back early in 1897 by the news that his wife was dying of tuberculosis (she died on 25 July), surrendered himself, and stood his trial. His flight had seemed a confession of guilt, he was convicted (1898), and was sentenced to serve five years in the penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio. He always asserted that he had been innocent, and there would seem to be every reason to believe that he was really the victim of incredible carelessness in the management of the bank. He felt his disgrace keenly, was a model prisoner, and was consequently released after he had served only three years and three months of his sentence. He had begun writing short stories at least as early as 1897, when he first sold one, and during his imprisonment he wrote steadily, soon showing “a range of imagination, a directness of style, and a deftness of craftsmanship to which little was to be added.” Immediately after his conviction he adopted the name Sydney Porter, as a first step towards a disguise, and while he was a prisoner he began to use, in connection with the stories he then sold, the name O. Henry. There can be little doubt that his imprisonment had the effect of sobering O. Henry and making him determine to master his highly artificial and deliberate craft. He came out of prison a more purposeful man than he had hitherto been, and one capable of sustained and masterly work. He first went to Pittsburgh, and was soon writing so acceptably to New York editors that he was urged to come to New York. He did so, and lived there, save for certain periods spent in North Carolina -during one of which, in 1907, he was married a second time-until his death on 5 June, 1910.

New York was endlessly stimulating to O. Henry, and he became so identified with the city that he could work nowhere else. His period of most rapid and successful work, from which dates the beginning of his fame, commenced in December, 1903, when he contracted with the New York Wri to contribute to that newspaper a story each week, to be paid for at the rate of $100 the story. Dur

Eng 1904 and 1905 he wrote 115 stories, 94 of which appeared in the World, and 99 of which deal with he New York scene. A number of his stories deal also with the far West, with the South, and with Latin America; and, though it is true that O. Henry discovered and profited by the vast field of the life of average New Yorkers (the "four million" as opposed to the smart "four hundred"), still, it is clear that his real discovery was not a new field for fiction so much as a new method of exploiting the humor, the pathos, and the romance of average, commonplace human beings. It has illuminatingly been remarked that his readers are likely to remember the points of his stories, but not their characters, and the reason is simply that O. Henry did not aim to delineate character. He has most frequently been compared with Poe and de Maupassant, and with justice, though there are also striking differences to be noted. Like Poe, O. Henry thought first of a particular impression he wished to create, and then selected and arranged his material to that end, with the utmost directness and economy, concealed in the latter's case beneath a careless manner. The lack of genuine human interest n O. Henry's tales is less obvious than in Poe's, because Poe aimed prevailingly at exciting terror, whereas O. Henry aimed at comedy heightened by pathos and, appropriately to this end, laid his scenes on such familiar ground as to mislead even competent critics, who have spoken of his tales as "an amazing transcript of American life." O. Henry's careless manner is another point of difference which nakes his calculated artifice less obvious, though it is no less real. It is, however, equally true of both hat they aimed not at the exploration of human nature, but at the exploitation of human appearinces for their own ends. Tennyson was O. Henry's favorite poet, but he was saved from cloying entimentalism by his vigorous comic sense. And that sense had the freer play because all of his ideas vere conventional, safe-so eminently safe that he could joke about them without fear, and without rousing fear in the minds of the hundred million readers whose minds were exactly like his own. And loubtless O. Henry's freedom from the weight of profound intellectual and moral problems aided him n concentrating himself as he did with so much success-upon the aim of becoming a consummate master of artifice.

The earliest of O. Henry's volumes of tales was Cabbages and Kings (1904). The second was The Four Million (1906). Others followed rapidly: The Trimmed Lamp (1907), Heart of the West (1907), The Voice of the City (1908), The Gentle Grafter (1908), Roads of Destiny (1909), Options (1909), Strictly Business (1910), Whirligigs (1910), Sixes and Sevens (1911), Rolling Stones (1913), and Waifs and trays (1919).

A LICKPENNY LOVER 1

THERE were 3,000 girls in the Biggest tore. Masie was one of them. She was ighteen and a saleslady in the gents' gloves. lere she became versed in two varieties of uman beings-the kind of gents who buy heir gloves in department stores and the ind of women who buy gloves for unfortuLate gents. Besides this wide knowledge of he human species, Masie had acquired other formation. She had listened to the proulgated wisdom of the 2,999 other girls nd had stored it in a brain that was as cretive and wary as that of a Maltese cat. erhaps nature, foreseeing that she would ack wise counselors, had mingled the saving gredient of shrewdness along with her eauty, as she has endowed the silver fox E the priceless fur above the other animals. ith cunning.

1 This and the two following stories are reprinted ith the permission of Messrs. Doubleday, Page, and ompany. The present story was first printed in the ew York World, 29 May, 1904, and was republished The Voice of the City.

For Masie was beautiful. She was a deeptinted blonde, with the calm poise of a lady who cooks butter cakes in a window. She stood behind her counter in the Biggest Store; and as you closed your hand over the tape-line for your glove measure you thought of Hebe; and as you looked again. you wondered how she had come by Minerva's eyes.

When the floorwalker was not looking Masie chewed tutti frutti; when he was looking she gazed up as if at the clouds and smiled wistfully.

That is the shop-girl smile, and I enjoin you to shun it unless you are well fortified with callosity of the heart, caramels, and a congeniality for the capers of Cupid. This smile belonged to Masie's recreation hours and not to the store; but the floorwalker must have his own. He is the Shylock of the stores. When he comes nosing around, the bridge of his nose is a toll-bridge. It is googoo eyes or "git" when he looks toward a pretty girl. Of course not all floorwalkers are thus. Only a few days ago the papers printed news of one over eighty years of age.

One day Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, traveler, poet, automobilist, happened to enter the Biggest Store. It is due to him to add that his visit was not voluntary. Filial duty took him by the collar and dragged him inside, while his mother philandered among the bronze and terra-cotta statuettes.

Carter strolled across to the glove counter in order to shoot a few minutes on the wing. His need for gloves was genuine; he had forgotten to bring a pair with him. But his action hardly calls for apology, because he had never heard of glove-counter flirtations.

As he neared the vicinity of his fate he hesitated, suddenly conscious of this unknown phase of Cupid's less worthy profession.

Three or four cheap fellows, sonorously garbed, were leaning over the counters, wrestling with the mediatorial hand-coverings, while giggling girls played vivacious seconds to their lead upon the strident string of coquetry. Carter would have retreated, but he had gone too far. Masie confronted him behind her counter with a questioning look in eyes as coldly, beautifully, warmly blue as the glint of summer sunshine on an iceberg drifting in Southern

seas.

And then Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, etc., felt a warm flush rise to his aristocratically pale face. But not from diffidence. The blush was intellectual in origin. He knew in a moment that he stood in the ranks of the ready-made youths who wooed the giggling girls at other counters. Himself leaned against the oaken trysting place of a cockney Cupid with a desire in his heart for the favor of a glove salesgirl. He was no more than Bill and Jack and Mickey. And then he felt a sudden tolerance for them, and an elating, courageous contempt for the conventions upon which he had fed, and an unhesitating determination to have this perfect creature for his own.

When the gloves were paid for and wrapped Carter lingered for a moment. The dimples at the corners of Masie's damask mouth deepened. All gentlemen who bought gloves lingered in just that way. She curved an arm, showing like Psyche's through her shirt-waist sleeve, and rested an elbow upon the show-case edge.

Carter had never before encountered a situation of which he had not been perfect master. But now he stood far more awkward than Bill or Jack or Mickey. He had no chance of meeting this beautiful girl socially. His mind struggled to recall the nature and habits of shop-girls as he had read or heard of them. Somehow he had received the idea that they sometimes did not insist too strictly upon the regular channels of introduction. His heart beat loudly at the thought of proposing an unconventional meeting with this lovely and virginal being. But the tumult in his heart gave him courage.

After a few friendly and well-received remarks on general subjects, he laid his card by her hand on the counter.

"Will you please pardon me," he said, "if I seem too bold; but I earnestly hope you will allow me the pleasure of seeing you again. There is my name; I assure you that it is with the greatest respect that I ask the favor of becoming one of your fr acquaintances. May I not hope for the privilege?"

Masie knew men-especially men who buy gloves. Without hesitation she looked him frankly and smilingly in the eyes, and said:

"Sure. I guess you're all right. I don't usually go out with strange gentlemen, though. It ain't quite ladylike. When should you want to see me again?"

"As soon as I may," said Carter. "I you would allow me to call at your home,

[ocr errors]

Masie laughed musically. "Oh, gee, no!" she said, emphatically. "If you could see our flat once! There's five of us in three rooms. I'd just like to see ma's face if i was to bring a gentleman friend there!”

"Anywhere, then," said the enamored Carter, "that will be convenient to you."

"Say," suggested Masie, with a brightidea look in her peach-blow face; "I guess Thursday night will about suit me. Suppose you come to the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street at 7:30. I live right near the corner. But I've got to be back home by eleven. Ma never lets me stay out after eleven."

Carter promised gratefully to keep the tryst, and then hastened to his mother, who was looking about for him to ratify her purchase of a bronze Diana.

A salesgirl, with small eyes and an obtuse nose, strolled near Masie, with a friendly leer. "Did you make a hit with his nobs, Masie?" she asked, familiarly.

"The gentleman asked permission to call," answered Masie, with the grand air, as she slipped Carter's card into the bosom of her waist.

"Permission to call!" echoed small eyes, with a snigger. "Did he say anything about dinner in the Waldorf and a spin in his auto afterward?"

"Oh, cheese it!" said Masie, wearily. "You've been used to swell things, I don't think. You've had a swelled head ever since that hose-cart driver took you out to a chop suey joint. No, he never mentioned the Waldorf; but there's a Fifth Avenue address on his card, and if he buys the supper you can bet your life there won't be no pigtail on the waiter what takes the order."

As Carter glided away from the Biggest Store with his mother in his electric runabout, he bit his lip with a dull pain at his heart. He knew that love had come to him for the first time in all the twenty-nine years of his life. And that the object of it should make so readily an appointment with him at a street corner, though it was a step toward his desires, tortured him with misgivings.

Carter did not know the shop-girl. He did not know that her home is often either a scarcely habitable tiny room or a domicile filled to overflowing with kith and kin. The street-corner is her parlor; the park is her drawing-room; the avenue is her garden walk; yet for the most part she is as iniolate mistress of herself in them as is my ady inside her tapestried chamber.

One evening at dusk, two weeks after heir first meeting, Carter and Masie strolled arm-in-arm into a little, dimly-lit park. They found a bench, tree-shadowed and ecluded, and sat there.

For the first time his arm stole gently round her. Her golden-bronze head slid estfully against his shoulder.

"Gee!" sighed Masie, thankfully. "Why Lidn't you ever think of that before?"

"Masie," said Carter, earnestly, “you urely know that I love you. I ask you Encerely to marry me. You know me well nough by this time to have no doubts of e. I want you, and I must have you. I

care nothing for the difference in our stations."

"What is the difference?" asked Masie, curiously.

"Well, there isn't any," said Carter, quickly, "except in the minds of foolish people. It is in my power to give you a life of luxury. My social position is beyond dispute, and my means are ample."

"They all say that," remarked Masie. "It's the kid they all give you. I suppose you really work in a delicatessen or follow the races. I ain't as green as I look."

"I can furnish you all the proofs you want," said Carter, gently. "And I want you, Masie. I loved you the first day I saw you.'

[ocr errors]

"They all do," said Masie, with an amused laugh, "to hear 'em talk. If I could meet a man that got stuck on me the third time he'd seen me I think I'd get mashed on him."

"Please don't say such things," pleaded Carter. "Listen to me, dear. Ever since I first looked into your eyes you have been the only woman in the world for me.”

"Oh, ain't you the kidder!" smiled Masie. "How many other girls did you ever tell that?"

But Carter persisted. And at length he reached the flimsy, fluttering little soul of the shop-girl that existed somewhere deep down in her lovely bosom. His words penetrated the heart whose very lightness was its safest armor. She looked up at him with eyes that saw. And a warm glow visited her cool cheeks. Tremblingly, awfully, her moth wings closed, and she seemed about to settle upon the flower of love. Some faint glimmer of life and its possibilities on the other side of her glove counter dawned upon her.

Carter felt the change and crowded the opportunity.

"Marry me, Masie," he whispered softly, "and we will go away from this ugly city to beautiful ones. We will forget work and business, and life will be one long holiday. I know where I should take you—I have been there often. Just think of a shore where summer is eternal, where the waves are always rippling on the lovely beach and the people are happy and free as children. We will sail to those shores and remain there as long as you please. In one of those faraway cities there are grand and lovely

« 上一頁繼續 »