Fred's Book Club: Oh! Henry!

This week, for reasons explained below, our Humpback Writer (because the book club is held on Wednesdays, ha-ha) is the great William Sydney Porter, best known by the pen name O. Henry. He wrote hundreds of short stories -- I have had difficulty getting an exact count -- and had nothing to do with the creation of the Oh Henry! candy bar.

My American Story professor dismissed O. Henry stories as gimmicky nonsense that, once you had a handle on how he constructed them, could never fool you with their twists again. Well, I'm not so sure about that, not in all the stories, anyway. But even grumpy ol' professor had to admire the man's prolific career, and the way he could construct a character and set a scene vividly and quickly. Porter had some genuine talent, which is why he is still beloved. Plus, anyone who is confused about the definition of irony can get a good education from him.

Sure, more than a century after his death, some of his stuff is very dated -- especially ethnic humor, which is a no-no now. There's one story, "A Harlem Tragedy," about an Irish woman feeling unloved because her husband won't hit her the way the other Irishmen hit their wives. You can see how the idea might have seemed funny, by turning expectations on their head, but it's really not. And you know I'm no social justice type. But a man who turns out that many stories that fast is not watching each one for the consideration of the feelings of more sensitive generations to come. With his output, it's a wonder they are as good as they are.

And they are, critical disdain be damned. O. Henry is such a beloved man of letters that plaques to his memory are displayed on locations in Austin, Texas, in Asheville, North Carolina, in Greesnboro, North Carolina, and at Pete's Tavern in Manhattan, a former haunt of his, and of my youth (when I had some money, because nothing near Gramercy Park has been cheap in a long time).

Between 1902 and his passing at the too-young age of 47 in 1910, Porter wrote a staggering 381 short stories. They say the drinking killed him, but you could almost as easily say he wrote himself to death.

Anyway, here is the book in question:

I'm pretty sure I picked up my copy at the Strand in Manhattan. The Best Stories of O. Henry was a Doubleday edition, one of a series of Best Short Stories by various authors, the kind of book run off the press by the ton in the pre-Internet era. A search of the ISBN tells me it was printed in 1962. It has 38 of his stories, chosen by editors including glory-hound publisher Bennett Cerf, who did everything he could to get his name on anything. It does include most of the best-known Henry stories, like "The Ransom of Red Chief" and "The Making of a New Yorker" and, of course, "The Gift of the Magi."

I know exactly when I was reading this book, almost precisely 30 years ago, because I noted on one of the blank front pages, "Inscribed on an 8:01 out of Flatbush -- stuck for well over 1/2 an hour. 11/10/89, 9:35 a.m." And I signed it. Obviously I was late.

These kinds of irritations are inevitable in the big city, now, then, and in Porter's day. But I have always been impressed by his love for the city, with which he is most identified, and which he found to be full of interesting, crazy, dangerous, hilarious, low-down, wonderful, charitable people. His stories covered them all, from Park Avenue to park bench. You can't fake his kind of affection as long as he did. He wrote a lot of Western stories, like "The Passing of Black Eagle," as any writer who put out work by the yard in his day had to do; I think it was the law. But unlike many writers of Westerns, Porter had lived in Texas for years -- as they say, that's another story.

His seasonal stories are also popular, like the Christmas "Gift of the Magi." There were stories like the autumnal tearjerker "The Last Leaf" and early winter comedy "The Cop and the Anthem."

That last story, included in my book and in his early collection called The Four Million -- available free at Gutenberg -- is a classic O. Henry reversal about Soapy, a career petty crook who wants to commit some small crime one chilly day so as to enjoy winter in the warmth of the penitentiary on "the Island." (NB: I've seen a Prestwick House edition of O. Henry stories that say "the Island," as Soapy calls it, referred to Rikers, but Rikers Island was not a prison until 1925. Blackwell's Island, now Roosevelt Island, housed prisoners until the 1930s. Just FYI.)

No matter what Soapy does, he literally cannot get arrested. A restaurateur looks at his clothes and throws him out before he can steal a meal. He breaks a window and the cop coming on the scene can't imagine Soapy would be standing there if he had done it. He gets fresh with a lady who gets fresh back with him. Later, defeated, he begins to see the light:

An instantaneous and strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position. He would be somebody in the world. He would—
     Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.
     "What are you doin' here?" asked the officer.
     "Nothin'," said Soapy.
     "Then come along," said the policeman.
     "Three months on the Island," said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.

The reason I bring up O. Henry the day before Thanksgiving is "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen," a tale included in my edition, which I reprint for you below the fold, courtesy of Gutenberg's volunteers, who did the typing. If you might consider making a donation to the Gutenberg Project this year, to help them keep the fires of civilization lit, it would be a grand gesture.

Please enjoy, and have a happy Thanksgiving, and lift your glass of porter to Mr. Porter, the great O. Henry!

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TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN
 

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Bless the day. President Roosevelt gives it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans, but don't just remember who they were. Bet we can lick 'em, anyhow, if they try to land again. Plymouth Rocks? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots of us have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work in. But somebody in Washington is leaking out advance information to 'em about these Thanksgiving proclamations.

The big city east of the cranberry bogs has made Thanksgiving Day an institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. It is the one day that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.

And now for the story which is to prove to you that we have traditions on this side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider rate than those of England are—thanks to our git-up and enterprise.

Stuffy Pete took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 o'clock. For every time he had done so things had happened to him—Charles Dickensy things that swelled his waistcoat above his heart, and equally on the other side.

But to-day Stuffy Pete's appearance at the annual trysting place seemed to have been rather the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals.

Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion. His eyes were like two pale gooseberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been sewed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt.

The meal had been an unexpected one. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square. One of their traditional habits was to station a servant at the postern gate with orders to admit the first hungry wayfarer that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish. Stuffy Pete happened to pass by on his way to the park, and the seneschals gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.

After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision. With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out fearfully, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel.

For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. They do those things in England unconsciously. But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch American patriot, and considered himself a pioneer in American tradition. In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance. Or cleaning the streets.

The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal. It showed, at least, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y—ahem!—America.

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won't stay on your nose. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle.

As his established benefactor came up Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some woman's over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him. He would have flown, but all the skill of Santos-Dumont could not have separated him from his bench. Well had the myrmidons of the two old ladies done their work.

"Good morning," said the Old Gentleman. "I am glad to perceive that the vicissitudes of another year have spared you to move in health about the beautiful world. For that blessing alone this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being accord with the mental."

That is what the old Gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years. The words themselves almost formed an Institution. Nothing could be compared with them except the Declaration of Independence. Always before they had been music in Stuffy's ears. But now he looked up at the Old Gentleman's face with tearful agony in his own. The fine snow almost sizzled when it fell upon his perspiring brow. But the Old Gentleman shivered a little and turned his back to the wind.

Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech rather sadly. He did not know that it was because he was wishing every time that he had a son to succeed him. A son who would come there after he was gone—a son who would stand proud and strong before some subsequent Stuffy, and say: "In memory of my father." Then it would be an Institution.

But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the decayed old family brownstone mansions in one of the quiet streets east of the park. In the winter he raised fuchsias in a little conservatory the size of a steamer trunk. In the spring he walked in the Easter parade. In the summer he lived at a farmhouse in the New Jersey hills, and sat in a wicker armchair, speaking of a butterfly, the ornithoptera amphrisius, that he hoped to find some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. These were the Old Gentleman's occupations.

Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing and helpless in his own self-pity. The Old Gentleman's eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure. His face was getting more lined each year, but his little black necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them into Stuffy's old formula of acceptance.

"Thankee, sir. I'll go with ye, and much obliged. I'm very hungry, sir."

The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy's mind the conviction that he was the basis of an Institution. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if not, by the actual Statute of Limitations, to this kind old gentleman who bad preempted it. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some one must be a repetend—a repeating decimal. The heroes are not all heroes of steel and gold. See one here that wielded only weapons of iron, badly silvered, and tin.

The Old Gentleman led his annual protege southward to the restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized.

"Here comes de old guy," said a waiter, "dat blows dat same bum to a meal every Thanksgiving."

The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his corner-stone of future ancient Tradition. The waiters heaped the table with holiday food—and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken for hunger's expression, raised knife and fork and carved for himself a crown of imperishable bay.

No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks of an enemy. Turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be served. Gorged nearly to the uttermost when he entered the restaurant, the smell of food had almost caused him to lose his honor as a gentleman, but he rallied like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old Gentleman's face—a happier look than even the fuchsias and the ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it—and he had not the heart to see it wane.

In an hour Stuffy leaned back with a battle won. "Thankee kindly, sir," he puffed like a leaky steam pipe; "thankee kindly for a hearty meal." Then he arose heavily with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen. A waiter turned him about like a top, and pointed him toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving three nickels for the waiter.

They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy north.

Around the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like a sunstricken horse.

When the ambulance came the young surgeon and the driver cursed softly at his weight. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol wagon, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched him on a bed and began to test him for strange diseases, with the hope of getting a chance at some problem with the bare steel.

And lo! an hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. And they laid him on another bed and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the bill.

But pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses whose eyes he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases.

"That nice old gentleman over there, now," he said, "you wouldn't think that was a case of almost starvation. Proud old family, I guess. He told me he hadn't eaten a thing for three days."

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