Rolling Stones

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I suppose you have started to school again some time ago. I hope you
like to go, and don't have to study too hard. When one grows up, a thing
they never regret is that they went to school long enough to learn all
they could. It makes everything easier for them, and if they like books
and study they can always content and amuse themselves that way even if
other people are cross and tiresome, and the world doesn't go to suit
them.

You mustn't think that I've forgotten somebody's birthday. I couldn't
find just the thing I wanted to send, but I know where it can be had,
and it will reach you in a few days. So, when it comes you'll know it
is for a birthday remembrance.

I think you write the prettiest hand of any little girl (or big one,
either) I ever knew. The letters you make are as even and regular as
printed ones. The next time you write, tell me how far you have to go
to school and whether you go alone or not.

I am busy all the time writing for the papers and magazines all over the
country, so I don't have a chance to come home, but I'm going to try to
come this winter. If I don't I will by summer SURE, and then you'll have
somebody to boss and make trot around with you.

Write me a letter whenever you have some time to spare, for I am always
glad and anxious to hear from you. Be careful when you are on the
streets not to feed shucks to strange dogs, or pat snakes on the head
or shake hands with cats you haven't been introduced to, or stroke the
noses of electric car horses.

Hoping you are well and your finger is getting all right, I am, with
much love, as ever,

PAPA.




My Dear Margaret: Here it is summertime, and the bees are blooming and
the flowers are singing and the birds making honey, and we haven't been
fishing yet. Well, there's only one more month till July, and then we'll
go, and no mistake. I thought you would write and tell me about the high
water around Pittsburg some time ago, and whether it came up to where
you live, or not. And I haven't heard a thing about Easter, and about
the rabbit's eggs--but I suppose you have learned by this time that eggs
grow on egg plants and are not laid by rabbits.

I would like very much to hear from you oftener, it has been more than a
month now since you wrote. Write soon and tell me how you are, and when
school will be out, for we want plenty of holidays in July so we can
have a good time. I am going to send you something nice the last of this
week. What do you guess it will be?

Lovingly,
PAPA.




The Caledonia

WEDNESDAY.

My Dear Mr. Jack:

I owe Gilman Hall $175 (or mighty close to it) pussonally--so he tells
me. I thought it was only about $30, but he has been keeping the
account.

He's just got to have it to-day. _McClure's_ will pay me some money on
the 15th of June, but I can't get it until then. I was expecting it
before this--anyhow before Gilman left, but they stick to the letter.

I wonder if you could give me a check for that much to pay him to-day.
If you will I'll hold up my right hand--thus: that I'll have you a
FIRST-CLASS STORY ON YOUR DESK BEFORE THE LAST OF THIS WEEK.

I reckon I'm pretty well overdrawn, but I've sure got to see that Hall
gets his before he leaves. I don't want anything for myself.

Please, sir, let me know right away, by return boy if you'll do it.

If you can't, I'll have to make a quick dash at the three-ball
magazines; and I do hate to tie up with them for a story.

The Same
SYDNEY PORTER.

MR. J. O. H. COSGRAVE
[at this time editor of Everybody's Magazine.]




[A letter to Gilman Hall, written just before the writer's
marriage to Miss Sara Lindsay Coleman of Asheville, N. C.]


WEDNESDAY.

Dear Gilman:

Your two letters received this A.M. Mighty good letters, too, and
cheering.

Mrs. Jas. Coleman is writing Mrs. Ball to-day. She is practically the
hostess at Wynn Cottage where the hullabaloo will occur.

Say, won't you please do one or two little things for me before you
leave, as you have so kindly offered?

(1) Please go to Tiffany's and get a wedding ring, size 5-1/4. Sara says
the bands worn now are quite narrow--and that's the kind she wants.

(2) And bring me a couple of dress collars, size 16-1/2. I have ties.

(3) And go to a florist's--there is one named Mackintosh (or something
like that) on Broadway, East side of street five or six doors north of
26th St., where I used to buy a good many times. He told me he could
ship flowers in good shape to Asheville--you might remind him that I
used to send flowers to 36 West 17th Street some time ago. I am told by
the mistress of ceremonies that I am to furnish two bouquets--one of
lilies of the valley and one of pale pink roses. Get plenty of each--say
enough lilies to make a large bunch to be carried in the hand, and say
three or four dozen of the roses.

I note what you say about hard times and will take heed. I'm not going
into any extravagances at all, and I'm going to pitch into hard work
just as soon as I get the rice grains out of my ear.

I wired you to-day "MS. mailed to-day, please rush one century by wire."

That will exhaust the Reader check--if it isn't too exhausted itself to
come. You, of course, will keep the check when it arrives--I don't think
they will fall down on it surely. I wrote Howland a pretty sharp letter
and ordered him to send it at once care of _Everybody's_.

When this story reaches you it will cut down the overdraft "right
smart," but if the house is willing I'd mighty well like to run it up
to the limit again, because cash is sure scarce, and I'll have to have
something like $300 more to see me through. The story I am sending is
a new one; I still have another partly written for you, which I shall
finish and turn in before I get back to New York and then we'll begin
to clean up all debts.

Just after the wedding we are going to Hot Spring, N. C., only
thirty-five miles from Asheville, where there is a big winter resort
hotel, and stay there about a week or ten days. Then back to New York.

Please look over the story and arrange for bringing me the $300 when you
come--it will still keep me below the allowed limit and thereafter I
will cut down instead of raising it.

Just had a 'phone message from S. L. C. saying how pleased she was with
your letter to her.

I'm right with you on the question of the "home-like" system of having
fun. I think we'll all agree beautifully on that. I've had all the cheap
bohemia that I want. I can tell you, none of the "climbers" and the
cocktail crowd are going to bring their vaporings into my house. It's
for the clean, merry life, with your best friends in the game and a
general concentration of energies and aims. I am having a cedarwood club
cut from the mountains with knots on it, and I am going to stand in my
hallway (when I have one) and edit with it the cards of all callers. You
and Mrs. will have latchkeys, of course.

Yes, I think you'd better stay at the hotel--Of course they'd want you
out at Mrs. C's. But suppose we take Mrs. Hall out there, and you and I
remain at the B. P. We'll be out at the Cottage every day anyhow, and
it'll be scrumptious all round.

I'm simply tickled to death that "you all" are coming.

The protoplasm is in Heaven; all's right with the world. Pippa passes.

Yours as ever,
BILL.




FRIDAY.

My Dear Col. Griffith:

Keep your shirt on. I found I had to re-write the story when it came in.
I am sending you part of it just so you will have something tangible to
remind you that you can't measure the water from the Pierian Spring in
spoonfuls.

I've got the story in much better form; and I'll have the rest of it
ready this evening.

I'm sorry to have delayed it; but it's best for both of us to have it a
little late and a good deal better.

I'll send over the rest before closing time this afternoon or the first
thing in the morning.

In its revised form I'm much better pleased with it.

Yours truly,
SYDNEY PORTER.




[Mr. Al. Jennings, of Oklahoma City, was an early friend of
O. Henry's. Now, in 1912, a prominent attorney, Mr. Jennings,
in his youth, held up trains.]


28 W. 26. N. Y. SUNDAY.

ALGIE JENNINGS, ESQ., THE WEST.

DEAR BILL:

Glad you've been sick too. I'm well again. Are you?

Well, as I had nothing to do I thought I would write you a letter; and
as I have nothing to say I will close.

How are ye, Bill? How's old Initiative and Referendum? When you coming
back to Manhattan? You wouldn't know the old town now. Main Street is
building up, and there is talk of an English firm putting up a new
hotel. I saw Duffy a few days ago. He looks kind of thoughtful as if he
were trying to calculate how much he'd have been ahead on Gerald's board
and clothes by now if you had taken him with you. Mrs. Hale is up in
Maine for a 3 weeks' vacation.

Say, Bill, I'm sending your MS. back by mail to-day. I kept it a little
longer after you sent for it because one of the McClure & Phillips firm
wanted to see it first. Everybody says it is full of good stuff, but
thinks it should be put in a more connected shape by some skilful writer
who has been trained to that sort work.

It seems to me that you ought to do better with it out there than you
could here. If you can get somebody out there to publish it it ought
to sell all right. N. Y. is a pretty cold proposition and it can't see
as far as the Oklahoma country when it is looking for sales. How about
trying Indianapolis or Chicago? Duffy told me about the other MS sent
out by your friend Abbott. Kind of a bum friendly trick, wasn't it?

Why don't you get "Arizona's Hand" done and send it on? Seems to me you
could handle a short story all right.

My regards to Mrs. Jennings and Bro. Frank. Write some more.

Still
BILL.




N. Y., May 23, '05.

Dear Jennings:

Got your letter all right. Hope you'll follow it soon.

I'd advise you not to build any high hopes on your book--just consider
that you're on a little pleasure trip, and taking it along as a side
line. Mighty few MSS. ever get to be books, and mighty few books pay.

I have to go to Pittsburg the first of next week to be gone about 3 or 4
days. If you decide to come here any time after the latter part of next
week I will be ready to meet you. Let me know in advance a day or two.

Gallot is in Grand Rapids--maybe he will run over for a day or two.

In haste and truly yours,
W. S. P.




[It was hard to get O. Henry to take an interest in his
books. He was always eager to be at the undone work, to
be writing a new story instead of collecting old ones.
This letter came from North Carolina. It shows how much
thought he gave always to titles.]


LAND O' THE SKY, Monday, 1909.

My dear Colonel Steger: As I wired you to-day, I like "Man About Town"
for a title.

But I am sending in a few others for you to look at; and if any other
suits you better, I'm agreeable. Here they are, in preferred order:

The Venturers.
Transfers.
Merry-Go-Rounds.
Babylonica.
Brickdust from Babel.
Babes in the Jungle.

If none of these hit you right, let me know and I'll get busy again. But
I think "Man About Town" is about the right thing. It gives the city
idea without using the old hackneyed words.

I am going to write you a letter in a day or so "touchin' on and
appertainin' to" other matters and topics. I am still improving and
feeling pretty good. Colonel Bingham has put in a new ash-sifter and
expects you to come down and see that it works all right.

All send regards to you. You seem to have made quite a hit down here for
a Yankee.

Salutations and good wishes.

Yours,
S. P.




[This letter was found unfinished, among his papers after
his death. His publishers had discussed many times his writing
of a novel, but the following letter constitutes the only
record of his own opinions in the matter. The date is surely
1909 or 1910.]


My Dear Mr. Steger: My idea is to write the story of a man--an
individual, not a type--but a man who, at the same time, I want to
represent a "human nature type," if such a person could exist. The story
will teach no lesson, inculcate no moral, advance no theory.

I want it to be something that it won't or can't be--but as near as I
can make it--the TRUE record of a man's thoughts, his description of
his mischances and adventures, his TRUE opinions of life as he has seen
it and his ABSOLUTELY HONEST deductions, comments, and views upon the
different phases of life that he passes through.

I do not remember ever to have read an autobiography, a biography, or a
piece of fiction that told the TRUTH. Of course, I have read stuff such
as Rousseau and Zola and George Moore and various memoirs that were
supposed to be window panes in their respective breasts; but, mostly,
all of them were either liars, actors, or posers. (Of course, I'm not
trying to belittle the greatness of their literary expression.)

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites and liars every day of
our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the
first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear
clothes. It is for the best.

The trouble about writing the truth has been that the writers have kept
in their minds one or another or all of three thoughts that made a
handicap--they were trying either to do a piece of immortal literature,
or to shock the public or to please editors. Some of them succeeded in
all three, but they did not write the TRUTH. Most autobiographies are
insincere from beginning to end. About the only chance for the truth to
be told is in fiction.

It is well understood that "all the truth" cannot be told in print--but
how about "nothing but the truth"? That's what I want to do.

I want the man who is telling the story to tell it--not as he would to
a reading public or to a confessor--but something in this way: Suppose
he were marooned on an island in mid-ocean with no hope of ever being
rescued; and, in order to pass away some of the time he should tell a
story to HIMSELF embodying his adventure and experiences and opinions.
Having a certain respect for himself (let us hope) he would leave out
the "realism" that he would have no chance of selling in the market; he
would omit the lies and self-conscious poses, and would turn out to his
one auditor something real and true.

So, as truth is not to be found in history, autobiography, press reports
(nor at the bottom of an H. G. Wells), let us hope that fiction may be
the means of bringing out a few grains of it.

The "hero" of the story will be a man born and "raised" in a somnolent
little southern town. His education is about a common school one, but
he learns afterward from reading and life. I'm going to try to give him
a "style" in narrative and speech--the best I've got in the shop. I'm
going to take him through all the main phases of life--wild adventure,
city, society, something of the "under world," and among many
characteristic planes of the phases. I want him to acquire all the
sophistication that experience can give him, and always preserve his
individual honest HUMAN view, and have him tell the TRUTH about
everything.

It is time to say now, that by the "truth" I don't mean the
objectionable stuff that so often masquerades under the name. I mean
true opinions a true estimate of all things as they seem to the "hero."
If you find a word or a suggestive line or sentence in any of my copy,
you cut it out and deduct it from the royalties.

I want this man to be a man of natural intelligence, of individual
character, absolutely open and broad minded; and show how the Creator
of the earth has got him in a rat trap--put him here "willy nilly" (you
know the Omar verse); and then I want to show what he does about it.
There is always the eternal question from the Primal Source--"What are
you going to do about it?"

Please don't think for the half of a moment that the story is going to
be anything of an autobiography. I have a distinct character in my mind
for the part, and he does not at all


[Here the letter ends. He never finished it.]




THE STORY OF "HOLDING UP A TRAIN"


[In "Sixes and Sevens" there appears an article entitled
"Holding Up a Train." Now the facts were given to O. Henry
by an old and dear friend who, in his wild avenging youth,
had actually held up trains. To-day he is Mr. Al. Jennings,
of Oklahoma City, Okla., a prominent attorney. He has
permitted the publication of two letters O. Henry wrote
him, the first outlining the story as he thought his friend
Jennings ought to write it, and the second announcing that,
with O. Henry's revision, the manuscript had been accepted.

From W. S. Porter to Al. Jennings, September 21st (year not
given but probably 1902).]


DEAR PARD:

In regard to that article--I will give you my idea of what is wanted.
Say we take for a title "The Art and Humor of the Hold-up"--or something
like that. I would suggest that in writing you assume a character. We
have got to respect the conventions and delusions of the public to a
certain extent. An article written as you would naturally write it would
be regarded as a fake and an imposition. Remember that the traditions
must be preserved wherever they will not interfere with the truth. Write
in as simple, plain and unembellished a style as you know how. Make your
sentences short. Put in as much realism and as many facts as possible.
Where you want to express an opinion or comment on the matter do it as
practically and plainly as you can. Give it LIFE and the vitality of
FACTS.

Now, I will give you a sort of general synopsis of my idea--of course,
everything is subject to your own revision and change. The article,
we will say, is written by a TYPICAL train hoister--one without your
education and powers of expression (bouquet) but intelligent enough to
convey his ideas from HIS STANDPOINT--not from John Wanamaker's. Yet,
in order to please John, we will have to assume a virtue that we do
not possess. Comment on the moral side of the proposition as little as
possible. Do not claim that holding up trains is the only business a
gentleman would engage in, and, on the contrary, do not depreciate a
profession that is really only financiering with spurs on. Describe the
FACTS and DETAILS--all that part of the proceedings that the passenger
sitting with his hands up in a Pullman looking into the end of a tunnel
in the hands of one of the performers does not see. Here is a rough
draft of my idea: Begin abruptly, without any philosophizing, with your
idea of the best times, places and conditions for the hold-up--compare
your opinions of this with those of others--mention some poorly
conceived attempts and failures of others, giving your opinion why--as
far as possible refer to actual occurrences, and incidents--describe
the manner of a hold-up, how many men is best, where they are stationed,
how do they generally go into it, nervous? or joking? or solemnly. The
details of stopping the train, the duties of each man of the gang--the
behavior of the train crew and passengers (here give as many brief odd
and humorous incidents as you can think of). Your opinions on going
through the passengers, when is it done and when not done. How is the
boodle gotten at? How does the express clerk generally take it? Anything
done with the mail car? UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WILL A TRAIN ROBBER
SHOOT A PASSENGER OR A TRAIN MAN--suppose a man refuses to throw up
his hands? Queer articles found on passengers (a chance here for some
imaginative work)--queer and laughable incidents of any kind. Refer
whenever apropos to actual hold-ups and facts concerning them of
interest. What could two or three brave and determined passengers do if
they were to try? Why don't they try? How long does it take to do the
business. Does the train man ever stand in with the hold-up? Best means
of getting away--how and when is the money divided. How is it mostly
spent. Best way to manoeuvre afterward. How to get caught and how not
to. Comment on the methods of officials who try to capture. (Here's your
chance to get even.)

These ideas are some that occur to me casually. You will, of course,
have many far better. I suggest that you make the article anywhere from
4,000 to 6,000 words. Get as much meat in it as you can, and, by the
way--stuff it full of western, GENUINE slang--(not the eastern story
paper kind). Get all the quaint cowboy expressions and terms of speech
you can think of.

INFORMATION is what we want, clothed in the peculiar western style of
the character we want to present. The main idea is to be NATURAL,
DIRECT, AND CONCISE.

I hope you will understand what I say. I don't. But try her a whack and
send it along as soon as you can, and let's see what we can do. By the
way, Mr. "Everybody" pays good prices. I thought I would, when I get
your story, put it into the shape my judgment decides upon, and then
send both your MS. and mine to the magazine. If he uses mine, we'll
whack up shares on the proceeds. If he uses yours, you get the check
direct. If he uses neither, we are out only a few stamps.

Sincerely your friend,
W. S. P.




[And here is the letter telling his "pard" that the article
had been bought by _Everybody's Magazine_. This is dated
Pittsburg, October 24th, obviously the same year:]


DEAR PARD.

You're It. I always told you you were a genius. All you need is to
succeed in order to make a success.

I enclose pubrs letter which explains itself. When you see your baby in
print don't blame me if you find strange ear marks and brands on it. I
slashed it and cut it and added lots of stuff that never happened, but I
followed your facts and ideas, and that is what made it valuable. I'll
think up some other idea for an article and we'll collaborate again some
time--eh?

I have all the work I can do, and am selling it right along. Have
averaged about $150 per month since August 1st. And yet I don't
overwork--don't think I ever will. I commence about 9 A. M. and
generally knock off about 4 or 5 P. M.

As soon as check mentioned in letter comes I'll send you your "sheer" of
the boodle.

By the way, please keep my _nom de plume_ strictly to yourself. I don't
want any one to know, just yet.

Give my big regards to Billy. Reason with him and try to convince him
that we believe him to be pure merino and of more than average width.
With the kindest remembrances to yourself I remain,

Your friend,
W. S. P.


[At this time O. Henry was unknown and thought himself lucky
to sell a story at any price.]