The Texas Trail of O. Henry Part: 1 of 2

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The Dallas Morning News Magaz inr. Section, Sunday, July /5, 1923
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BY ODIE MINATRA.
THERE lived in Texas for sixteen years a modest genius
about whom the English-reading world is wild. Dough-
boys and statesmen read 0. Henry, clerks and college
professors devour him, the late William James and Lord North-
cliff e relished his genius. "His world remains the most solid
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——
fact to be reckoned with in the history of twentieth-century
American literature," says Dr. Alphonso C. Smith, the great
critic and scholar.
New York took him to her bosom, calling him "the great
American Humanist," "The American Kipling" and "The
Homer of the Tenderloin."
Attesting his popularity, 3,000,000 volumes of his refresh-
ingly clever stories have been sold in this country and another
million in Europe. He is thus perhaps the pace-setter in popu-
larity of sales of all authors.
Found Romance of the Cowboy, vividly. "He was the soul of hon-
In 1882, William Sydney Porter, a or, a young gentleman wh"tn it was
youth who was the wit, wag and a pleasure to know. When he
drug store clerk of Greensboro, N. worked for me he was an unassum-
C., came to a sheep ranch in L.a ing young man who did his work
Salle County, near San Antonio. He well and attracted attention by his
was half-guest and hired man of unusual ability at pencil sketching,
the Hall family, who owned the I recommended him for the posi-
ranch and had been his friends in tion in the bank about which the
their native State. This sparsely tragedy and the dark years hang."
made youth with pleasing manners A Clever Cartoonist,
brought with him only a common "My brother John," continued
school education but he was sat- Mr Maddox. "offered to send Will
urated with classical reading, and to New York to deVelop this tal-
had been reared in an atmosphere ent> but he declined it.
splendidly historic. "No, I did not know that he was
The son of a literary mother who ambitious in a literary way, and we
had died very early, and a father were all greatly,astonished that the
who divided his time between the great O. Henry was our Will Por-
practice of medicine and tinkering ter."
with inventions, young Porter, for- Even in Greensboro he was lo-
tunately, was instructed and influ- cally celebrated for his pencil
enced by a noble school téacher sketching, and he never ceased to
aunt. She gave him the first steps employ this fanciful art unless it
to and the love for good reading, was in his very last years,
so notably missed by the average Accompanying is a Porter draw-
child in our methodized school sys- ing of Mike Donley, a unique char-
tem. acter of the Texas Land Office,
For two years on the Hall ranch ^h. °- Henr£ drtew and casually
Will Porter studied cowboys, rode a workmate, J. F. 1 inck-
cow ponies and wrote humorous ?*• ,fMr" Pin°knf(y- "°Y a venera-
letters to friends back home. He ble ci^en of Austin, is justly proud
studied French and German, read o£"*is'souvenir of association with
everything in .ight, a.,sidU0U ly Xíí. to wíStí? fir íhe £iS
mkTfdJJox. O. Henry's emp/o^e/*
in administering the affairs of a State where he had suffered so
bank that was admittedly unbusi- ignobly.
nesslike in its methods? Literature has told the tale of
Rolling Stones. how Porter within a brief time
It was during these years that after his release became the
the young ¿reamer put forth mod- literary Hon of the East and how
estlv among his friends in Austin his place is steadily growing. A
a whimsical and clever little sheet master of the short story unex-
dubbed "The Rolling Stones." Un- celled, he was a genius superb in
AofiunatHy thW Wile tramp sheet finding r ,-•-.nce.iust around the
has very few copies preserved. But cornet. As. he mantled the bitter
his complete works contain suffi- and unchaste in his own heart,
cient extracts from it to show its just so he finds for others their
humorous and personal charcacter. best selves
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flike ¡yon/FyLfSkp/eloJy O.ttey
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carried a dictionary in his hat, and,
unsuspected by those about him,
found the romance of the cowboy
and the corral.
274 Masterpieces.
Out of this experience comes
"The Chaparral Prince" and many
other stories among his 274 inci-
time.
About the same years in which
Porter and Mr. Pinckney were
friends, the latter becam\ attached
in close business relations with
Colonel E. M. House, and he still
holds many evidences of House's
close regard. The venerable gen-
sive masterpieces. These storieu of tlema'n holds In equally high re-
the sheep ranch, of San Gabriel,
San Antonio and the roughly gal-
tleman holds in equally high regard
his contact with the Warwick of
lant, harcl-riding cowboys refresh- the Wilson policies and that of the
en, if not immortalize, the Texas quiet and sportive cartoonist.
prairies.
"The Last of the Troubadours"
is as good a story as ever drew
breath from a ranchhouse or
genius from an author's p<n. Who
but O. Henry could make the in-
dolent, tune-picking Sam Galloway
harneanfl hfifnrt 1™?of !Tn wool served lyPe oí humor, and an out-
hero and blunderer of an all-wool j kj . h h- ü g JU
gun storv / W ho could go into the ¡n the tblleg of the new \and office
lonely shack and heart of Old Man ,g & map of Webb county drawn
Ettlson, finding t^licre the iron of a . ^ T-Tpnrv and on its marcin
stoic and the gentleness of a Sa- °y_ltf „ma.r,S'n.
Four Years in the Land Office.
His friend and patron, Hall, be-
came Commissioner of the Texas
Land Office, and here O. Henry
spent four years, 1887-91, as an
assistant draftsman. He character-
ized himself by efficient work, a re-
Ed R. Smith of Austin, a dis-
cerning gentleman who knew O.
Henry and his family well, was
among the few who appreciated the
quality and effort expressed in this
literary prodigal. He loaned I or-
ter money to satisfy the printers,
encouraged the idea, and kept a
complete file of the issues that later
came into the possession of an
Eastern publishing house.
"Porter repaid the loans with
money received from the sale of
his material elsewhere, and on
these occasions he usually ap-
proached me with a humorously
turned remark about "having got-
ten a knockdown," says Mr. Smith.
Associated with O. Henry in the
venture of the short-rolling
"Stones" was an obscure young
man named J. P. Crane, brother
of the now celebrated Dr. Frank
Crane. But Crane soon gave up . Hü. v. M ,
literary ventures for real estate and storiea Ben for birthday pres-
His boyhood playmate and ex-
cellent biographer, Dr. C. Alphonso
Smith, tells twk thrilling end of
how O. Henry brought the short
story world in pilgrimage to his
feet and how his early death post-
poned perhaps "The Great Ameri-
can Novel."
Those who would know the heart
of the man must read the letters
written from prison to his little
girl, Margaret. That the little girl
should not feel bad nor know, the
imprisoned author wrote classically
tender and sportive letters to the
child. The bravery of his wit, the
cleanness of his courage, the es-
sential tenderness of the man came
forth in those whimsically sweet
messages to his child. And never
did he complain!
Twice the young father and moth-
er had journeyed back to North
Carolina to fondly exhibit the baby.
Margaret. From prison he had out
has become wealthy in California
The Ill-Starrcd Years.
Some two years after the First
National Bank had closed its doors
a zealous bank examiner secured
a grand jury indictment of Porter
for misapplication of funds. The
writer has interviewed numbers of
persons who knew O. Henry, in-
cluding a few who think perhaps
pBuí as;
ents for the little girl and when
the stories would not sell he would
send a cleverly playful letter. How
cheerful he forced those child let-
ters to be!
Margaret is now the wife of the
well-known New York artist.
Cesare, and also draws handsome
royalty from her father's pen.
How shall Texas pay her debt to
O. Henry? He made the old State
found not one who believes Por-
ter was in the least criminal by
nature. Rather he was the oppo-
site.
dreamer and word artist flung
Texas romance before every En-
glish-reading eye. Texas exiled him
to a prison cell and forgot him.
How shall we do penance at tha
Porter at this time was editing tomb of the trustful little wife who
a column on the Houston Post tor sleeps in a .simple grave in Austin
Editor R. M. Johnston. He was Cemetery, a victim to it nil?
doing his work with such spark- Ought Texas not nroelafm tv.tn
ling ability and refreshing style ^h?p to ™
that attention was coming to the morlu!ize hís ^níus or ' ^
column from everywlieie. Then wreath upon the trrav« *>f i ,
comes the crushingly bewildering stricicen little wife?
summons to court. '
He starts for Austin, but while
awaiting a train at Hempstead the
panicky nerves of the poet seized
tUPy He impulsively catches the
first trafñ in flRj. ""Spposite direc-
tion. Next he is in Central Amer-
ica, where he adventures with Al
Jennings. In this period he .found
the color and material for "Cab-
How You Can Make
Hairs Quickly Disappear
(Helps to Beauty)
Even a stubborn growth of hair
fi-or
bages and Kings." "The Fourth in ^ck^o^arm^aftii- a s?n^ tre^
Salvador" tells of his and Jennings merit with delaten . Tu ¡wiovo hair
first excitement in that revolution- from arms, neok or faeo make a stt--
loving country of brown skins and paste with a little powdered dela-
babv republics. tone u,ld apply to hairy sur-.
J .. . face and after about: two mtnutea
A message comes that Aethol, the rub olfi ,Vash the skin and it wftf
wife, Is at last stricken with the bo left free from hair or blemish,
dreadful tubercular plague, and To avoid disappointment, be quite
The certain you get real delatone and
mix fresh as wanted..— (Advt,)
stoic and the gentlene
maritan? Who but he could show
milky human kindness in the ar-
rogant heart of the Grass Baron,
King James?
is a fanciful drawing of a cowboy
in pursuit, lasso in air, of a chap-
arral. The late C. M. Calloway
worked the four years in this office
with Porter and recalls his quiet
in March !884 Will Porter made ^^efined manners and his knack
his debut as a bookkeeper in Aus-
tin, for the firm of Maddox Bros.
& Anderson, where eleven years of
hia life were to be spent.
¿SPSS*
* 'f ~ WÍ ■
at discerning all the bubbling
humor that comes from quaint
characters.
O Henry the Youii" Man ' He was a clean and &ne young Southern grandmother whom you much. He was kind, would speak
O. Henry's associates at this wí,o'nn'a"would like to claim as a saint, says: ill of no one, and often would re-
time recall him as a neat, unim-
He dressed neat and simple and "Wil1 Porter firs* can}? to ?"r main at home to read Uncle Remus
wore a small mustache in those house as a serenader. He was the stories to their little Margaret when
daín these early years he spent his ^ wk?," quie^, ^nTpla^ng' two others were out of evenings. We
evenings as nearly 1 ike a trou- instruments^ We did not at ^ the extent of
Viarioxr q? he micht "He serenaripri objected to his marriage to Aethol his literary aims.
hedancednTrh-ins sant- in thó °llly because she was scarcely out. about everything connected w
Presbvterian choir with ^he da intv of her childhood, and because both himself, although we knew that he
lent, he, nevertheless, loved fellow- 1 r®siayter:iain cno:ir vit.n tne dainty he and ghe being. Qf tubercular occasionally submitted material for
ship with a congenial few. In fact. ^'.Aethol hiSt ss, with whom familie8i we (eared the result. But publication, the great aim of his
there was a drop of the bohemian ne later romanncaiiy eiopeo. there was never any unpleasant- life he kept grandly secret."
in his blood. Came as Serenader. ness and we brought them home Mrs. Roach was his faithful
Frank Maddox, now retired busi- Mrs. P. G. Roach, the mother of at once." friend all the years, reminding
ness man in Austin, recalls Porter Aethol and herself a fine little "Will talked little and read one of the faithful Mrs. Clemm and school to direct it.
poaing figure, well dressed, with
dark blue eyes and curly hair. Nev-
er obtruding nor seeking recogni-
tion, he might well have belonged
to his own army of the "Four Mil-
lion."
Reserved, self-effacing and si-
Porter is soon by her side.
young wife dies of disease and a
broken heart. Then come the trial
and the conviction. He would not
plead nor show interest in the case.
' The attorneys could get no help
' from him. Apparently crushed, he
was indifferent to fate.
"Will would never fight back,"
'' ■ says Mrs. Roach. And there are
■C * scores in Austin who believe that
this effacing disposition and the
panicky flight were the decisivo
factors in his conviction.
the ill-starred Poe. She handles Porter was no more suited to ^The^ history ^ ^
his memory as a mother. financial affairs than was Poe, or mastersi anc\ o. Henry is but
Banking Experience. Byron. He once referred to him- another victim. The world in the
After four years in the land of- self as a "money £ooL" °nce hands of men is a big machine.
' returned for lunch with his usual an<^ woe to the visionary who
fice, Texas took her customary calm perturbed, but silent. Mrs. {ouches the wheels.
quadrennial political convention Roach later on inquiry of Mrs. After
He was reticent and O. Henry became teller in the Porter learned that during the
with First National Bank of Austin, forenoon to a man who had ap- We hasten to the resurrection.
Major It. J. Breckenridge, a fine plied at his window for change
Southern figure, directed the for a $50 bill, Porter had inadver- Columbus (Ohio) penitentiary, hi
bank and evidently the affairs of tently given $500. The man was immaculate rccord, his study and
the institution were conducted never located, and the dreaming application to writing are familiar
iome cohere O.T/enry spe,o/ mueA-
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much as one would expect an elder- teller was responsible. Any won- facts to all who love him, and ¡s fERD. T. HOPKINS & CON. NewYnritCifo
ly Southern gentleman of the old der that a man like that should not properly a part of his Texas |,,
have become technically entangeld life. He never returned to the