_O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES of 1921_
CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS
1922
CONTENTS
THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA. By Edison Marshall
THE MAN WHO CURSED THE LILIES. By Charles Tenney Jackson
THE URGE. By Maryland Allen
MUMMERY. By Thomas Beer
THE VICTIM OF HIS VISION. By Gerald Chittenden
MARTIN GERRITY GETS EVEN. By Courtney Ryley Cooper and Leo F. Creagan
STRANGER THINGS. By Mildred Cram
COMET. By Samuel A. Derieux
FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE. By Elizabeth Alexander Heermann
WILD EARTH. By Sophie Kerr
THE TRIBUTE. By Harry Anable Kniffin
THE GET-AWAY. By O.F. Lewis
"AURORE." By Ethel Watts Mumford
MR. DOWNEY SITS DOWN. By L.H. Robbins
THE MARRIAGE IN KAIRWAN. By Wilbur Daniel Steele
GRIT. By Tristram Tupper
FOUNDER OF THE O. HENRY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
The plan for the creation of the O. Henry Memorial Committee was
conceived and the work of the Committee inaugurated in the year 1918
by the late John F. Tucker, LL.M., then Directing Manager of the
Society of Arts and Sciences. The Society promptly approved the plan
and appropriated the sum necessary to inaugurate its work and to make
the award.
The Committee is, therefore, in a sense, a memorial to Mr. Tucker, as
well as to O. Henry. Up to the time of his death Mr. Tucker was a
constant adviser of the Committee and an attendant at most of its
meetings.
Born in New York City in 1871 and educated for the law, Mr. Tucker's
inclinations quickly swept him into a much wider stream of
intellectual development, literary, artistic, and sociological. He
joined others in reviving the Twilight Club (now the Society of Arts
and Sciences), for the broad discussion of public questions, and to
the genius he developed for such a task the success of the Society up
to the time of his death was chiefly due. The remarkable series of
dinner discussions conducted under his management, for many years, in
New York City, have helped to mould public opinion along liberal
lines, to educate and inspire. Nothing he did gave him greater pride
than the inception of the O. Henry Memorial Committee, and that his
name should be associated with that work perpetually this tribute is
hereby printed at the request of the Society of Arts and Sciences.
E.J.W.
INTRODUCTION
In 1918 the Society of Arts and Sciences established, through its
Managing Director, John F. Tucker, the O. Henry Memorial. Since that
year the nature of the annual prize and the work of the Committee
awarding it have become familiar to writer, editor, and reader of
short stories. To the best short story written by an American and
published in America the sum of $500 is awarded; to the second best,
the sum of $250. In 1919 the prize winning story was Margaret Prescott
Montague's "England to America"; in 1920 it was Maxwell Struthers
Hurt's "Each in His Generation." Second winners were: 1919, Wilbur
Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do," and, 1920, Frances
Noyes Hart's "Contact!" [The prizes were delivered on June 2, 1920,
and on March 14, 1921, at the annual memorial dinner, Hotel Astor.]
In 1921 the Committee of Award consisted of these members:
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph. D., Chairman
EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt. D.
ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD
FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD
GROVE E. WILSON
And the Committee of Administration:
JOHN F. TUCKER, [Deceased, February 27, 1921.], Founder of the O.
Henry Memorial
EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D.
GLENN FRANK, Editor of _The Century Magazine_
GEORGE C. HOWARD, Attorney.
As in previous years each member of the Committee of Award held
himself responsible for reviewing the brief fiction of certain
magazines and for circulating such stories as warranted reading by
other members.
Results in 1921 differ in a number of respects from those of 1919 and
1920. In the earlier half year, January excepted, every reader
reported a low average of current fiction, so low as to excite
apprehension lest the art of the short story was rapidly declining.
The latter six months, however, marked a reaction, with a higher
percentage of values in November and December. Explanation of the low
level lies in the financial depression which forced a number of
editors to buy fewer stories, to buy cheaply, or to search their
vaults for remnant of purchases made in happier days. Improvement
began with the return to better financial conditions.
The several members of the Committee have seldom agreed on the
comparative excellence of stories, few being of sufficient superiority
in the opinion of the Committee as a whole to justify setting them
aside for future consideration. The following three dozen candidates,
more or less, average highest:
Addington, Sarah, Another Cactus Blooms (_Smart Set_, December).
Alexander, Elizabeth, Fifty-Two Weeks for Florette [Reprinted as by
Elizabeth Alexander Heermann.] (_Saturday Evening Post_, August 13).
Allen, Maryland, The Urge (_Everybody's_, September).
Arbuckle, Mary, Wasted (_Midland_, May).
Beer, Thomas, Mummery (_Saturday Evening Post_, July 30).
Burt, Maxwell Struthers, Buchanan Hears the Wind (_Harper's_, August).
Byrne, Donn, Reynardine (_McClure's_, May).
Chittenden, Gerald, The Victim of His Vision (_Scribner's_, May).
Comfort, Will Levington, and Dost, Zamin Ki, The Deadly Karait
(_Asia_, August).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, and Creagan, Leo F. Martin, Gerrity Gets Even
(_American_, July).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, Old Scarface (_Pictorial Review_, April).
Cram, Mildred, Stranger Things--(_Metropolitan_, January).
Derieux, Samuel A., Comet (_American_, December).
Hull Helen R., Waiting (_Touchstone_, February).
Jackson, Charles Tenney, The Man who Cursed the Lilies (_Short
Stories_, December 10).
Kerr, Sophie, Wild Earth (_Saturday Evening Post_, April 2).
Kniffin, Harry Anable, The Tribute (_Brief Stories_, September).
Lewis, O.F., The Get-A way (_Red Book_, February); The Day of Judgment
(_Red Book_, October).
Mahoney, James, Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse (_Century_,
August).
Marshall, Edison, The Heart of Little Shikara (_Everybody's_,
January).
Morris, Gouverneur, Groot's Macaw (_Cosmopolitan_, November); Just One
Thing More (_Cosmopolitan_, December).
Mumford, Ethel Watts, "Aurore" (_Pictorial Review_, February); The
Crowned Dead (_Short Stories_, July); Funeral Frank (_Detective
Stories_, October 29).
Robbins, L.H., Mr. Downey Sits Down (_Everybody's_, June).
Steele, Wilbur Daniel, 'Toinette of Maissonnoir (_Pictorial Review_,
July); The Marriage in Kairwan (_Harper's_, December).
Street, Julian, A Voice in the Hall (_Harper's_, September).
Stringer, Arthur, A Lion Must Eat (_McClure's_, March).
Tupper, Tristram, Grit (_Metropolitan_, March).
Vorse, Mary Heaton, The Halfway House (_Harper's_, October).
Wolff, William Almon, Thalassa! Thalassa! (_Everybody's_, July).
* * * * *
The following stories rank high with a majority of the Committee:
Anthony, Joseph, A Cask of Ale for Columban (_Century_, March).
Baker, Karle Wilson, The Porch Swing (_Century_, April).
Balmer, Edwin, "Settled Down" (_Everybody's_, February).
Beer, Thomas, Addio (_Saturday Evening Post_, October 29); The Lily
Pond (_Saturday Evening Post_, April 16).
Biggs, John, Jr., Corkran of the Clamstretch (_Scribner's_, December).
Boulton, Agnes, The Snob (_Smart Set_, June).
Boyle, Jack, The Heart of the Lily (_Red Book_, February); The Little
Lord of All the Earth (_Red Book_, March).
Byrne, Donn, The Keeper of the Bridge (_McClure's_, April).
Canfield, Dorothy, Pamela's Shawl (_Century_, August).
Connell, Richard, The Man in the Cape (_Metropolitan_, July).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, The Fiend (_Cosmopolitan_, March); Love (_Red
Book_, June).
Cram, Mildred, Anna (_McCatt's_, March); The Bridge (_Harper's
Bazaar_, April).
Derieux, Samuel A., Figgers Can't Lie (_Delineator_, April); The
Bolter (_American_, November).
Dreiser, Theodore, Phantom Gold (_Live Stories_, March).
Ellerbe, Alma and Paul, When the Ice Went Out (_Everybody's_, May).
England, George Allan, Test Tubes (_Short Stories_, March).
Erickson, Howard, The Debt (_Munsey's_, February).
Fraenkel, H. E., The Yellow Quilt (_Liberator_, December).
Ginger, Bonnie, The Decoy (_Century_, October).
Hart, Frances Noyes, The American (_Pictorial Review_, November).
Hergesheimer, Joseph, Juju (_Saturday Evening Post_, July 30); The
Token (_Saturday Evening Post_, October 22).
Hopper, Elsie Van de Water, The Flight of the Herons (_Scribner's_,
November).
Hughes, Rupert, When Crossroads Cross Again (_Collier's_, January 29).
Hurst, Fannie, She Walks in Beauty (_Cosmopolitan_, August).
Irwin, Inez Haynes, For Value Received (_Cosmopolitan_, November).
Irwin, Wallace, The Old School (_Pictorial Review_, April).
Kabler, Hugh MacNair, Like a Tree (_Saturday Evening Post_) January
22).
Lanier, Henry Wysham, Circumstantial (_Collier's_, October 15).
Lewis, Sinclair, Number Seven (_American_, May).
Mahoney, James, Taxis of Fate (_Century_, November).
Mason, Grace Sartwell, Glory (_Harper's_, April).
Moore, Frederick, The Picture (_Adventure_, September 10).
Mouat, Helen, Aftermath (_Good Housekeeping_, September).
Natteford, J. F., A Glimpse of the Heights (_Photoplay_, April).
Neidig, William F, The Firebug (_Everybody's_, April).
Pitt, Chart, Debt of the Snows (_Sunset_, April).
Post, Melville Davisson, The Mottled Butterfly (_Red Book_, August);
The Great Cipher (_Red Book_, November).
Read, Marion Pugh, Everlasting Grace (_Atlantic Monthly_, March).
Rhodes, Harrison, Night Life and Thomas Robinson (_Saturday Evening
Post_, June 4).
Rouse, William Merriam, Arms of Judgment (_Argosy-All-Story Weekly_,
March 12).
Shore, Viola Brothers, The Heritage (_Saturday Evening Post_, February
5).
Singmaster, Elsie, The Magic Mirror (_Pictorial Review_, November).
Springer, Fleta Campbell, The Mountain of Jehovah (_Harper's_, March).
Tarkington, Booth, Jeannette (_Red Book_, May).
Titus, Harold, The Courage of Number Two (_Metropolitan_, June).
Train, Arthur, The Crooked Fairy (_McCall's_, July).
Watson, Marion Elizabeth, Bottle Stoppers (_Pictorial Review_, June).
Wormser, G. Ranger, Gossamer (_Pictorial Review_, March).
The following stories are regarded the best of the year by the judges
whose names are respectively indicated:
1. The Marriage in Kairwan, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper's_,
December). Ethel Watts Mumford.
2. A Life, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Pictorial Review_, August).
Edward J. Wheeler.
3. Wisdom Buildeth Her House, by Donn Byrne (_Century_, December).
Blanche Colton Williams.
4. Waiting, by Helen R. Hull (_Touchstone_, February). Grove E.
Wilson.
5. The Poppies of Wu Fong, by Lee Foster Hartman (_Harper's_,
November). Frances Gilchrist Wood.
Out of the first list sixteen stories were requested for republication
in this volume. The significance of the third list lies in the fact
that only one story was selected from it, the others meeting
objections from the remainder of the Committee.
Since no first choice story won the prize, the Committee resorted, as
in former years, to the point system, according to which the leader is
"The Heart of Little Shikara," by Edison Marshall. To Mr. Marshall,
therefore, goes the first prize of $500. In like manner, the second
prize, of $250, is awarded to "The Man Who Cursed the Lilies," by
Charles Tenney Jackson.
In discussing "A Life," "The Marriage in Kairwan," and "'Toinette of
Maissonnoir," all published by Wilbur Daniel Steele in 1921, in
remarking upon the high merit of his brief fiction in other years, and
in recalling that he alone is represented in the first three volumes
of O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories, the Committee intimated the
wish to express in some tangible fashion its appreciation of this
author's services to American fiction. On the motion of Doctor
Wheeler, therefore, the Committee voted to ask an appropriation from
the Society of Arts and Sciences as a prize to be awarded on account
of general excellence in the short story in 1919, 1920, and 1921. This
sum of $500 was granted by the Society, through the proper
authorities, and is accordingly awarded to Wilbur Daniel Steele.
Two characteristics of stories published in 1921 reveal editorial
policies that cannot but be harmful to the quality of this art. These
ear-marks are complementary and, yet, paradoxically antipodal. In
order to draw out the torso and tail of a story through Procrustean
lengths of advertising pages, some editors place, or seem to place, a
premium upon length. The writer, with an eye to acceptance by these
editors, consciously or unconsciously pads his matter, giving a
semblance of substance where substance is not. Many stories fall below
first rank in the opinion of the Committee through failure to achieve
by artistic economy the desired end. The comment "Overwritten"
appeared again and again on the margins of such stories. The reverse
of this policy, as practised by other editors, is that of chopping the
tail or, worse, of cutting out sections from the body of the
narrative, then roughly piecing together the parts to fit a smaller
space determined by some expediency. Under the observation of the
Committee have fallen a number of stories patently cut for space
accommodation. Too free use of editorial blue pencil and scissors has
furnished occasion for protest among authors and for comment by the
press. For example, in _The Literary Review_ of _The New York Post_,
September 3, the leading article remarks, after granting it is a rare
script that cannot be improved by good editing, and after making
allowance for the physical law of limitation by space: "Surgery,
however, must not become decapitation or such a trimming of long ears
and projecting toes as savage tribes practise. It seems very probable
that by ruthless reshaping and hampering specifications in our
magazines, stories and articles have been seriously affected."
Further, "the passion for editorial cutting" is graphically
illustrated in The _Authors' League Bulletin_ for December (page 8) by
a mutilation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Although, by the terms of the Memorial, the Committee were at liberty
to consider only stories by American authors, they could not but
observe the increasing number of races represented through authorship.
Some of the following names will be recognized from preceding years,
some of them are new: Blasco Ibáñez, W. Somerset Maugham, May
Sinclair, Mrs. Henry Dudeney, Mary Butts, Frank Swinnerton, Georges
Clemenceau, Johan Bojer, H. Söderberg, Seumas Macmanus, R. Sabatini,
Demetra Vaka, Achmed Abdullah, Rabindranath Tagore, A. Remizov, Konrad
Bercovici, Anzia Yezierska, and--daughter of an English mother and
Italian father who met in China, she herself having been born in San
Francisco--Adriana Spadoni. Nor do these represent all the nations
whose sons and daughters practise the one indigenous American art on
its native soil. Let the list stand, without completion, sufficient to
the point.
The note of democracy is sounded, as a sequence, in the subject
matter. East Side Italian and Jew brush shoulders in Miss Spadoni's
tales; Englishman, Dane, and South Sea Islander shake hands on the
same page of W. Somerset Maugham's "The Trembling of a Leaf";
Norwegian, Frenchman, and Spaniard are among us, as before;
Bercovici's gypsies from the Roumanian Danube, now collected in
"Ghitza," flash colourful and foreign from the Dobrudja Mountains and
the Black Sea. In one remarkable piece of melodrama, "Rra Boloi," by
the Englishman Crosbie Garstin (_Adventure_), and the African witch
doctor of the Chwene Kopjes enters short-story literature.
The Oriental had been exploited to what appeared the ultimate; but
continued interest in the Eastern problem brings tidal waves of
Japanese and Chinese stories. Disarmament Conferences may or may not
effect the ideal envisioned by the Victorian, a time "when the war
drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are furled in the
Parliament of Man"; but the short story follows the gleam, merely by
virtue of authorship and by reflecting the peoples of the earth.
When Lee Foster Hartman created his Chinese hero in "The Poppies of Wu
Fong," dramatized Oriental inscrutability with Occidental suavity and
sureness, and set off the Oriental gentleman in American surroundings,
he brought together the nations in a new vision of the brotherhood of
man. This story was preferred, for the reasons implied, by Frances
Gilchrist Wood, who sees in Wu Fong's garden the subtle urge of acres
of flowers, asleep under the stars, pitted against the greed of
profiteers; who sees in answer to Western fume and fret the wisdom of
Confucius, "Come out and see my poppies." The story was rejected by
other members who, while applauding the author's motivation of
character, his theme, and his general treatment, yet felt a lack of
emotion and a faltering at the dramatic climax.
Wilbur Daniel Steele's "The Marriage in Kairwan" presents an appalling
tragedy which, if it be typical, may befall any Tunisian lady who
elects for herself man's standard of morality--for himself. Such a
story is possible when the seeing eye and the understanding heart of
an American grasps the situation in Kairwan and through the
technician's art develops it, transforms it, and bears it into the
fourth dimension of literature. The thread of narrative runs thinly,
perhaps, through the stiffly embroidered fabric, heavy as cloth of
gold; the end may be discerned too soon. But who can fail of being
shocked at the actual denouement? The story may be, as Ethel Watts
Mumford admits, caviar. "But if so," she adds, "it is Beluga
Imperial."
Donn Bryne's "Wisdom Buildeth Her House," is constructed on a
historic foundation, the visit that Balkis, Queen of Sheba, made to
Solomon, King of the Jews. Mr. Bryne has not only built a cunning
mosaic, plunging into the stream of Scriptural narrative for his
tessellations and drawing gems out of The Song of Solomon, but he has
also recalled by virtue of exercising a vigorous imagination, the
glory of the royalty that was Sheba's and the grandeur of her domain
in pictures as gorgeously splendid as those from an Arabian Night. He
has elaborated the Talmud story with mighty conviction from a novel
point of view and has whetted his theme on the story of a love the
King lacked wisdom to accept. The Chairman of the Committee prefers
this story; but other members assert that it lacks novelty and
vitality, nor can they find that it adds anything new to the Song of
Songs.
These three first choice stories, then, are strong in Oriental
flavour, characters, and setting.
Again, democracy (in the etymological sense of the word, always,
rather than the political) is exemplified in the fiction of 1921, in
that the humblest life as well as the highest offers matter for
romance. More than in former years, writers seek out the romance that
lies in the lives of the average man or woman. Having learned that the
Russian story of realism, with emphasis too frequently placed upon the
naturalistic and the sordid, is not a vehicle easily adapted to
conveying the American product, the American author of sincerity and
belief in the possibility of realistic material has begun to treat it
in romantic fashion, always the approved fashion of the short story in
this country. So Harry Anable Kniffin's "The Tribute" weaves in 1,700
words a legend about the Unknown Soldier and makes emotionally vivid
the burial of Tommy Atkins. Commonplace types regarded in the past as
insufficiently drab, on the one hand, and insufficiently picturesque
on the other are reflected in this new romantic treatment. Sarah
Addington's "Another Cactus Blooms" prophesies colour in that hard and
prickly plant the provincial teacher at Columbia for a term of
graduate work. Humorously and sardonically the college professor is
served up in "The Better Recipe," by George Boas (_Atlantic Monthly_,
March); the doctorate degree method is satirized so bitterly, by
Sinclair Lewis, in "The Post Mortem Murder" (_Century_, May), as to
challenge wonder, though so subtly as to escape all save the
initiated.
Sophie Kerr's "Wild Earth" makes capital in like legitimate manner of
the little shop girl and her farmer husband. Wesley Dean is as far
removed from the Down Easterner of a Mary Wilkins farm as his wife,
Anita, is remote from the Sallies and Nannies of the farmhouse. Of the
soil this story bears the fragrance in a happier manner; its theme of
wild passion belongs to the characters, as it might belong, also, to
the man and woman of another setting. "Here is a romance of the farm,"
the author seems to say; not sordid realistic portrayal of earth
grubbers. So, too, Tristram Tupper's "Grit" reveals the inspiration
that flashed from the life of a junkman. So Cooper and Creagan evoke
the drama of the railroad man's world: glare of headlight, crash of
wreckage and voice of the born leader mingle in unwonted
orchestration. "Martin Gerrity Gets Even" is reprinted as their best
story of this _genre_.
The stories of Ethel Watts Mumford declare her cosmopolitan ability
and her willingness to deal with lives widely diverse. At least three
rank high in the estimation of her fellow-committeemen. "Aurore," by
its terseness and poignant interpretation of the character of the
woman under the Northern Lights touches poetry and is akin to music in
its creative flight. The Committee voted to include it in Volume III,
under the author's protest and under her express stipulation that it
should not be regarded as a candidate for either prize. That another
of her stories might have found place in the collection is indicated
best by the following letter:
The Players
16 Gramercy Park
New York City
November 16th
Re. O. HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZE.
To Dr. B.C. Williams,
605 West 113 Street,
New York City.
My Dear Doctor Williams,
I mailed to you yesterday a copy of a story by Ethel Watts Mumford,
entitled "Funeral Frank," published in the _Detective Story Magazine_
two weeks ago--for your consideration in awarding the O. Henry
Memorial prize.
I think it is the best short story I have read in a long time both for
originality of subject and technical construction.
The choice on the author's part of such an unsuspected (by the reader)
and seemingly insignificant agent for the working of Nemesis, I think
shows great skill. I say _seemingly_ insignificant because a little
dog seems such a small and unlikely thing to act the leading part in a
criminal's judgment and suggested regeneration--and yet all lovers of
animals know what such a tie of affection may mean, especially to one
who has no human friends--and even while it works, the victim of
Nemesis as the author says "is wholly unconscious of the irony of the
situation."
Apart from this I think the tale is exceedingly well told in good
English and with the greatest possible economy of space.
Yours very truly,
Oliver Herford.
"Waiting," by Helen R. Hull, stands first on the list of Grove E.
Wilson, who thinks its handling of everyday characters, its simplicity
of theme and its high artistry most nearly fulfil, among the stories
of the year, his ideal of short story requirements. Though admired as
literature by the Committee, it seemed to one or two members to
present a character study rather than a story. Certainly, in no other
work of the period have relations between a given mother and daughter
been psychologized with greater deftness and skill.
Other members of society reflected in the year are preachers, judges,
criminals, actors, and actresses. For some years, it is true, actor
and actress have been treated increasingly as human beings, less as
puppets who walk about on the stage. This volume contains two stories
illustrating the statement: "The Urge," by Maryland Allen, which
marshalls the grimly ironic reasons for the success of the heroine who
is the most famous comedienne of her day; "Fifty-Two Weeks for
Florette," which touches with a pathos that gave the story instant
recognition the lives of vaudeville Florette and her son. It is not
without significance that these stories are the first their respective
authors have published.
0.F. Lewis brings the judge to his own bar in "The Day of Judgment,"
but had difficulty in finding a denouement commensurate with his
antecedent material. The Committee Preferred his "The Get-Away" and
its criminals, who are Presented objectively, without prejudice, save
as their own acts invoke it. Viciously criminal is Tedge, of "The Man
Who Cursed the Lilies," by Charles Tenney Jackson. The Committee value
this narrative for the power and intensity of its subject matter, for
its novel theme, for its familiar yet seldom-used setting, for its
poetic justice and for its fulfilment of short story structural laws.
"The Victim of His Vision," by Gerald Chittenden, dramatizes the
missionary's reverse, unusual in fiction, and presents a convincing
demonstration of the powers of voodoo. Readers who care for
manifestations of the superstitious and the magical will appreciate
the reality of this story as they will that of "Rra Boloi," mentioned
above. They may also be interested in comparing these with Joseph
Hergesheimer's "Juju." Mr. Hergesheimer's story, however, fails to
maintain in the outcome the high level of the initial concept and the
execution of the earlier stages.
A number of 1921 stories centre about a historic character. F. Scott
Fitzgerald's "Tarquin of Cheapside" (_Smart Set_, February) offers in
episode form the motivation of Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrece"; Mary
Raymond Shipman Andrews parallels her "The Perfect Tribute" and eulogy
of Lincoln with "His Soul Goes Marching On" and warm reminiscence of
Roosevelt; Fleta Campbell Springer's "The Role of Madame Ravelles" is
apparently a tapestry in weaving the stately figure of Georgette
LeBlanc. Ranking highest among these personal narratives, however, is
Mildred Cram's "Stranger Things--" Besides calling up, under the name
of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistible figure of Oscar Wilde, the author
has created a supernatural tale of challenging intricacy and
imaginative genius. The only other stories of the supernatural to find
place in the Committee's first list are Maxwell Struthers Burt's
"Buchanan Hears the Wind" and Mary Heaton Vorse's "The Halfway House."
In all of these, suggestion, delicately managed, is the potent element
of success.
Animals figure in vaster numbers and under intensive psychological
study. That a race-horse owner goes nowadays to the astrologer for a
horoscope of his racer is a fact that insinuatingly elevates the beast
to the plane of his master. In the short story of 1921, the monkey,
the tiger, the elephant, the dog and all their kind are treated from
an anthropomorphic point of view. Courtney Ryley Cooper's
titles--"Love" and "Vengeance," for example--covering stories
dominated by the animal character, betray the author's ascription of
human attributes to his hero or villain. "Reynardine," by Donn Byrne,
retails with haunting charm the friendship between the Fitzpauls and
the fox, in an instance that tests the friendship. Foxes, for Morgan
of the story, "took on for him now a strange, sinister entity.... They
had become to him a quasi-human, hypernormal race.... They had tabus
as strict as a Maori's. Strange, mystical laws."--"Corkran of the
Clamstretch" uniquely portrays the ugly and heroic "R.T.C." throughout
as a gentleman, "who met triumph with boredom," and "defeat, as a
great gentleman should, with quiet courtesy and good humour." Samuel
A. Derieux adds "Comet" to his list of superintelligent dogs in a
story the Committee regard as one of his best. It should be compared
with R.G. Kirk's "Gun-Shy" (_Saturday Evening Post_, October 22).
Similar in theme, in sympathy and in the struggle--that of a trainer
to overcome a noble dog's fear of the powder roar--the stories diverge
in the matter of workmanship. Yet "Gun-Shy" is based on a plot
superior to that of "Comet." Oddly enough, the Committee preferred not
one of the humanized-beast stories, but Edison Marshall's "The Heart
of Little Shikara." The preference was because of a number of counts,
however; moreover, the man eater takes second place beside Little
Shikara, whose bravery and loyalty motivate the thrilling climax of
the narrative. And it is just this: a superb story, with underscoring
for "story."
Anthropomorphism is found at its height in "A Life," by Wilbur Daniel
Steele. Dr. Edward J. Wheeler places this story first of the year's
brief fiction, on the score of originality, power, and satisfactory
evolution of the struggle, with its triumphant dramatic reverse. Other
members of the Committee, though sensible of its claim to high
distinction, believe it is a novelette, not to be classed as a short
story, and therefore barred from consideration. Its spirit, one
affirms, lacks something of the vigour which made of "Guiablesse"
(_Harper's_, 1919) so convincing a work of art. Another member finds
its value somewhat decreased in that its theme had been used similarly
in John Masefield's "The Wanderer."
The child's place in the democracy of the short story was assured
years ago. No remarkably outstanding examples have come from the pen
of Booth Tarkington, amusing as are his adolescents and children of
the _Red Book_ tales. The best combinations of humour and childhood
appeared to the Committee to be "Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse,"
by James Mahoney, and "Mr. Downey Sits Down," by L.H. Robbins. For
laughter the reader is recommended to each of these, the latter of
which is reprinted in this volume. For humour plus a trifle more of
excitement, "Mummery," by Thomas Beer, is included. Mr. Beer has
succeeded in handling Mrs. Egg as Miss Addington manages Miss
Titwiler, the "Cactus"; that is, as the equal of author and reader,
but also--and still without condescension--as reason for twinkles and
smiles.
Apart from consideration of impulses dominating the short story of
1921, impulses here summarized under the general idea of democracy,
the story is different in several particulars. First, its method of
referring to drink, strong drink, marks it of the present year. The
setting is frequently that of a foreign country, where prohibition is
not yet known; the date of the action may be prior to 1919; or the
apology for presence of intoxicating liquors is forthcoming in such
statement as "My cellar is not yet exhausted, you see."
Second, the war is no longer tabu; witness "The Tribute," and "His
Soul Goes Marching On." Touched by the patina of time and mellowed
through the mellifluence of age, the war now makes an appeal
dissimilar to that which caused readers two or three years ago to
declare they were "fed up."
Third, Freudian theories have found organic place in the substance of
the story. They have not yet found incorporation in many narratives
that preserve short story structure, however--although it is within
conceivability that the influence may finally burst the mould and
create a new--and the Committee agree in demanding both substance and
structure as short story essentials.
Finally, the story reflects the changing ideals of a constantly
changing age. Not only are these ideals changing because of
cross-currents that have their many sources in racial springs far
asunder, not only because of contact or conflict between the ideals
and cosmic forces dimly apprehended; also they are changing because of
the undeniable influence of what Emerson called the Oversoul. The
youth of the time is different, as youth is always different. But now
and then a sharp cleavage separates the succeeding generations and it
separates them now. The youth of England has found interpretation in
Clemence Dane's play, "A Bill of Divorcement." In America, the
interpretation is only half articulate; but when the incoherent sounds
are wholly intelligible, the literature of the short story will have
entered, in definite respects, upon a new era.
The Committee of Award wish once again to thank the authors, editors,
and publishers whose cooperation makes possible this annual volume and
the O. Henry Memorial Prizes.
Blanche Colton Williams.
New York City
January 10, 1922
_O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES of 1921_
THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA
By EDISON MARSHALL
From _Everybody's_
I
If it hadn't been for a purple moon that came peering up above the
dark jungle just at nightfall, it would have been impossible to tell
that Little Shikara was at his watch. He was really just the colour of
the shadows--a rather pleasant brown--he was very little indeed, and
besides, he was standing very, very still. If he was trembling at all,
from anticipation and excitement, it was no more than Nahar the tiger
trembles as he crouches in ambush. But the moon did show him--peering
down through the leaf-clusters of the heavy vines--and shone very
softly in his wide-open dark eyes.
And it was a purple moon--no other colour that man could name. It
looked almost unreal, like a paper moon painted very badly by a clumsy
stage-hand. The jungle-moon quite often has that peculiar purplish
tint, most travellers know, but few of them indeed ever try to tell
what causes it. This particular moon probed down here and there
between the tall bamboos, transformed the jungle--just now
waking--into a mystery and a fairyland, glinted on a hard-packed
elephant trail that wound away into the thickets, and always came back
to shine on the coal-black Oriental eyes of the little boy beside the
village gate. It showed him standing very straight and just as tall as
his small stature would permit, and looked oddly silvery and strange
on his long, dark hair. Little Shikara, son of Khoda Dunnoo, was
waiting for the return of a certain idol and demigod who was even now
riding home in his _howdah_ from the tiger hunt.
Other of the villagers would be down to meet Warwick Sahib as soon as
they heard the shouts of his beaters--but Little Shikara had been
waiting almost an hour. Likely, if they had known about it, they would
have commented on his badness, because he was notoriously bad, if
indeed--as the villagers told each other--he was not actually cursed
with evil spirits.
In the first place, he was almost valueless as a herder of buffalo.
Three times, when he had been sent with the other boys to watch the
herds in their wallows, he had left his post and crept away into the
fringe of jungle on what was unquestionably some mission of
witchcraft. For small naked brown boys, as a rule, do not go alone and
unarmed into the thick bamboos. Too many things can happen to prevent
them ever coming out again; too many brown silent ribbons crawl in the
grass, or too many yellow, striped creatures, no less lithe, lurk in
the thickets. But the strangest thing of all--and the surest sign of
witchcraft--was that he had always come safely out again, yet with
never any satisfactory explanations as to why he had gone. He had
always looked some way very joyful and tremulous--and perhaps even
pale if from the nature of things a brown boy ever can look pale. But
it was the kind of paleness that one has after a particularly
exquisite experience. It was not the dumb, teeth-chattering paleness
of fear.
"I saw the sergeant of the jungle," Little Shikara said after one of
these excursions. And this made no sense at all.
"There are none of the King's soldiers here," the brown village folk
replied to him. "Either thou liest to us, or thine eyes lied to thee.
And didst thou also see the chevron that told his rank?"
"That was the way I knew him. It was the black bear, and he wore the
pale chevron low on his throat."
This was Little Shikara all over. Of course he referred to the black
Himalayan bear which all men know wears a yellowish patch, of chevron
shape, just in front of his fore legs; but why he should call him a
jungle-sergeant was quite beyond the wit of the village folk to say.
Their imagination did not run in that direction. It never even
occurred to them that Little Shikara might be a born jungle creature,
expatriated by the accident of birth--one of that free, strange breed
that can never find peace in the villages of men.
"But remember the name we gave him," his mother would say. "Perhaps he
is only living up to his name."
For there are certain native hunters in India that are known, far and
wide, as the Shikaris; and possibly she meant in her tolerance that
her little son was merely a born huntsman. But in reality Little
Shikara was not named for these men at all. Rather it was for a
certain fleet-winged little hawk, a hunter of sparrows, that is one of
the most free spirits in all the jungle.
And it was almost like taking part in some great hunt himself--to be
waiting at the gate for the return of Warwick Sahib. Even now, the
elephant came striding out of the shadows; and Little Shikara could
see the trophy. The hunt had indeed been successful, and the boy's
glowing eyes beheld--even in the shadows--the largest, most beautiful
tiger-skin he had ever seen. It was the great Nahar, the royal tiger,
who had killed one hundred cattle from near-by fields.
Warwick Sahib rode in his _howdah_, and he did not seem to see the
village people that came out to meet him. In truth, he seemed half
asleep, his muscles limp, his gray eyes full of thoughts. He made no
answer to the triumphant shouts of the village folk. Little Shikara
glanced once at the lean, bronzed face, the limp, white, thin hands,
and something like a shiver of ecstasy went clear to his ten toes. For
like many other small boys, all over the broad world, he was a
hero-worshipper to the last hair of his head; and this quiet man on
the elephant was to him beyond all measure the most wonderful living
creature on the earth.
He didn't cry out, as the others did. He simply stood in mute worship,
his little body tingling with glory. Warwick Sahib had looked up now,
and his slow eyes were sweeping the line of brown faces. But still he
did not seem to see them. And then--wonder of wonders--his eyes rested
full on the eyes of his little worshipper beside the gate.
But it was quite the way of Warwick Sahib to sweep his gray, tired-out
eyes over a scene and seemingly perceive nothing; yet in reality
absorbing every detail with the accuracy of a photographic plate. And
his seeming indifference was not a pose with him, either. He was just
a great sportsman who was also an English gentleman, and he had
learned certain lessons of impassiveness from the wild. Only one of
the brown faces he beheld was worth a lingering glance. And when he
met that one his eyes halted in their sweeping survey--and Warwick
Sahib smiled.
That face was the brown, eager visage of Little Shikara. And the blood
of the boy flowed to the skin, and he glowed red all over through the
brown.
It was only the faintest of quiet, tolerant smiles; but it meant more
to him than almost any kind of an honour could have meant to the
prematurely gray man in the _howdah_. The latter passed on to his
estate, and some of the villagers went back to their women and their
thatch huts. But still Little Shikara stood motionless--and it wasn't
until the thought suddenly came to him that possibly the beaters had
already gathered and were telling the story of the kill that with
startling suddenness he raced back through the gates to the village.
Yes, the beaters had assembled in a circle under a tree, and most of
the villagers had gathered to hear the story. He slipped in among
them, and listened with both outstanding little ears. Warwick Sahib
had dismounted from his elephant as usual, the beaters said, and with
but one attendant had advanced up the bed of a dry creek. This was
quite like Warwick Sahib, and Little Shikara felt himself tingling
again. Other hunters, particularly many of the rich sahibs from across
the sea, shot their tigers from the security of the _howdah_; but this
wasn't Warwick's way of doing. The male tiger had risen snarling from
his lair, and had been felled at the first shot.
Most of the villagers had supposed that the story would end at this
point. Warwick Sahib's tiger hunts were usually just such simple and
expeditious affairs. The gun would lift to his shoulder, the quiet
eyes would glance along the barrel--and the tiger, whether charging or
standing still--would speedily die. But to-day there had been a
curious epilogue. Just as the beaters had started toward the fallen
animal, and the white Heaven-born's cigarette-case was open in his
hand, Nahara, Nahar's great, tawny mate, had suddenly sprung forth
from the bamboo thickets.
She drove straight to the nearest of the beaters. There was no time
whatever for Warwick to take aim. His rifle leaped, like a live thing,
in his arms, but not one of the horrified beaters had seen his eyes
lower to the sights. Yet the bullet went home--they could tell by the
way the tiger flashed to her breast in the grass.
Yet she was only wounded. One of the beaters, starting, had permitted
a bough of a tree to whip Warwick in the face, and the blow had
disturbed what little aim he had. It was almost a miracle that he had
hit the great cat at all. At once the thickets had closed around her,
and the beaters had been unable to drive her forth again.
The circle was silent thereafter. They seemed to be waiting for
Khusru, one of the head men of the village, to give his opinion. He
knew more about the wild animals than any mature native in the
assembly, and his comments on the hunting stories were usually worth
hearing.
"We will not be in the honoured service of the Protector of the Poor
at this time a year from now," he said.
They all waited tensely. Shikara shivered. "Speak, Khusru," they urged
him.
"Warwick Sahib will go again to the jungles--and Nahara will be
waiting. She owes two debts. One is the killing of her mate--and ye
know that these two tigers have been long and faithful mates. Do ye
think she will let that debt go unpaid? She will also avenge her own
wound."
"Perhaps she will die of bleeding," one of the others suggested.
"Nay, or ye would have found her this afternoon. Ye know that it is
the wounded tiger that is most to be feared. One day, and he will go
forth in pursuit of her again; and then ye will not see him riding
back so grandly on his elephant. Perhaps she will come here, to carry
away _our_ children."
Again Shikara tingled--hoping that Nahara would at least come close
enough to cause excitement. And that night, too happy to keep silent,
he told his mother of Warwick Sahib's smile. "And some time I--I,
thine own son," he said as sleepiness came upon him, "will be a killer
of tigers, even as Warwick Sahib."
"Little sparrow-hawk," his mother laughed at him. "Little one of
mighty words, only the great sahibs that come from afar, and Warwick
Sahib himself, may hunt the tiger, so how canst thou, little
worthless?"
"I will soon be grown," he persisted, "and I--I, too--will some time
return with such a tiger-skin as the great Heaven-born brought this
afternoon." Little Shikara was very sleepy, and he was telling his
dreams much more frankly than was his wont. "And the village folk will
come out to meet me with shoutings, and I will tell them of the
shot--in the circle under the tree."
"And where, little hawk, wilt thou procure thine elephants, and such
rupees as are needed?"
"Warwick Sahib shoots from the ground--and so will I. And sometimes he
goes forth with only one attendant--and I will not need even one. And
who can say--perhaps he will find me even a bolder man than Gunga
Singhai; and he will take me in his place on the hunts in the
jungles."
For Gunga Singhai was Warwick Sahib's own personal attendant and
gun-carrier--the native that the Protector of the Poor could trust in
the tightest places. So it was only to be expected that Little
Shikara's mother should laugh at him. The idea of her son being an
attendant of Warwick Sahib, not to mention a hunter of tigers, was
only a tale to tell her husband when the boy's bright eyes were closed
in sleep.
"Nay, little man," she told him. "Would I want thee torn to pieces in
Nahara's claws? Would I want thee smelling of the jungle again, as
thou didst after chasing the water-buck through the bamboos? Nay--thou
wilt be a herdsman, like thy father--and perhaps gather many rupees."
But Little Shikara did not want to think of rupees. Even now, as sleep
came to him, his childish spirit had left the circle of thatch roofs,
and had gone on tremulous expeditions into the jungle. Far away, the
trumpet-call of a wild tusker trembled through the moist, hot night;
and great bell-shaped flowers made the air pungent and heavy with
perfume. A tigress skulked somewhere in a thicket licking an injured
leg with her rough tongue, pausing to listen to every sound the night
gave forth. Little Shikara whispered in his sleep.
A half mile distant, in his richly furnished bungalow, Warwick Sahib
dozed over his after-dinner cigar. He was in evening clothes, and
crystal and silver glittered on his board. But his gray eyes were half
closed; and the gleam from his plate could not pass the long, dark
lashes. For his spirit was far distant, too--on the jungle trails with
that of Little Shikara.
II
One sunlit morning, perhaps a month after the skin of Nahar was
brought in from the jungle, Warwick Sahib's mail was late. It was an
unheard-of thing. Always before, just as the clock struck eight, he
would hear the cheerful tinkle of the postman's bells. At first he
considered complaining; but as morning drew to early afternoon he
began to believe that investigation would be the wiser course.
The postman's route carried him along an old elephant trail through a
patch of thick jungle beside one of the tributaries of the Manipur.
When natives went out to look, he was neither on the path nor drowned
in the creek, nor yet in his thatched hut at the other end of his
route. The truth was that this particular postman's bells would never
be heard by human ears again. And there was enough evidence in the wet
mould of the trail to know what had occurred.
That night the circle under the tree was silent and shivering. "Who is
next?" they asked of one another. The jungle night came down,
breathless and mysterious, and now and then a twig was cracked by a
heavy foot at the edge of the thickets. In Warwick's house, the great
Protector of the Poor took his rifles from their cases and fitted them
together.
"To-morrow," he told Gunga Singhai, "we will settle for that postman's
death." Singhai breathed deeply, but said nothing. Perhaps his dark
eyes brightened. The tiger-hunts were nearly as great a delight to him
as they were to Warwick himself.
But while Nahara, lame from Warwick's bullet, could no longer overtake
cattle, she did with great skilfulness avoid the onrush of the
beaters. Again Little Shikara waited at the village gate for his hero
to return; but the beaters walked silently to-night. Nor were there
any tales to be told under the tree.
Nahara, a fairly respectable cattle-killer before, had become in a
single night one of the worst terrors of India. Of course she was
still a coward, but she had learned, by virtue of a chance meeting
with a postman on a trail after a week of heart-devouring starvation,
two or three extremely portentous lessons. One of them was that not
even the little deer, drinking beside the Manipur, died half so easily
as these tall, forked forms of which she had previously been so
afraid. She found out also that they could neither run swiftly nor
walk silently, and they could be approached easily even by a tiger
that cracked a twig with every step. It simplified the problem of
living immensely; and just as any other feline would have done, she
took the line of least resistance. If there had been plenty of carrion
in the jungle, Nahara might never have hunted men. But the kites and
the jackals looked after the carrion; and they were much swifter and
keener-eyed than a lame tiger.