pioneer village a hundred miles from a railroad. My father came to
Emporia in 1859 and my mother in 1855. She was a pioneer school teacher
and he a pioneer doctor. She was pure bred Irish, and he of Yankee
lineage since 1639. When I was a year old, Emporia became too effete for
my parents, and they moved to El Dorado, Kansas. There I grew up. El
Dorado was a town of a dozen houses, located on the banks of the Walnut,
a sluggish, but a clear and beautiful prairie stream, rock bottom, and
spring fed. I grew up in El Dorado, a prairie village boy; went to the
large stone school house that "reared its awful form" on the hill above
the town before there were any two-story buildings in the place.
In 1884, I was graduated from the town high school, and went to the
College of Emporia for a year; worked a year as a printer's devil;
learned something of the printer's trade; went to school for another
year, working in the afternoons and Saturdays at the printer's case;
became a reporter on the _Emporia News_; later went to the State
University for three years. After more or less studying and working on
the Lawrence papers, I went back to El Dorado as manager of the _El
Dorado Republican_ for State Senator T. B. Murdock.
From the _El Dorado Republican_, I went to Kansas City to work for the
_Kansas City Journal_, and at 24 became an editorial writer on the
_Kansas City Star_. For three years I worked on the _Star_, during which
time I married Miss Sallie Lindsay, a Kansas City, Kansas, school
teacher. In 1895 I bought the _Emporia Gazette_ on credit, without a
cent in money, and chiefly with the audacity and impudence of youth. It
was then a little paper; I paid three thousand dollars for it, and I
have lived in Emporia ever since.
In 1896, I published a book of short stories called _The Real Issue_; in
1899, another book of short stories called _The Court of Boyville_. In
1901, I published a third book of short stories called _Stratagems and
Spoils_; in 1906, _In Our Town_. In 1909, I published my first novel, _A
Certain Rich Man_. In 1910, I published a book of political essays
called _The Old Order Changeth_; in 1916, a volume of short stories
entitled _God's Puppets_. A volume half novel and half travel sketches
called _The Martial Adventures of Henry & Me_ filled the gap between my
two novels; and the second novel, _In the Heart of a Fool_ was published
in 1918.
I am a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters; the Short
Ballot Association; the International Peace Society; National Civic
Federation; National Academy of Political Science; have honorary degrees
from the College of Emporia, Baker University, and Columbia University
of the City of New York; was regent of the Kansas State University from
1905 to 1913. Politically I am a Republican and was elected National
Republican Committeeman from Kansas in 1912, but resigned to be
Progressive National Committeeman from Kansas that year. I am now a
member of the Republican National Committee on Platforms and Policies
appointed by the National Chairman, Will S. Hays. I am a trustee of the
College of Emporia; a member of the Congregational Church, and of the
Elks Lodge, and of no other organization.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.
To the above biography a few items about Mr. White's literary work may
be added. It was through an editorial that he first became famous. This
appeared in the _Emporia Gazette_ in 1896, with the title, "What's the
matter with Kansas?" It contained so much good sense, and was written
in such vigorous English that it was copied in newspapers all over the
country. Perhaps no other editorial ever brought such sudden recognition
to its author. In the same year he published his first book, _The Real
Issue_, a volume of short stories. Some of them pictured the life of a
small town, some centered about politics, and some were stories of small
boys. These three subjects were the themes of most of Mr. White's later
books.
_Stratagems and Spoils_, a volume of short stories, dealt chiefly with
politics, as seen from the inside. _In Our Town_, from which "The
Passing of Priscilla Winthrop" is taken, belongs to the studies of
small-town life. His first novel, _A Certain Rich Man_, was published in
1909. Its theme is the development of an American multi-millionaire,
from his beginning as a small business man with a reputation for close
dealing, his success, his reaching out to greater schemes, growing more
and more unscrupulous in his methods, until at last he achieves the
great wealth he had sought, but in winning it he loses his soul.
This book was written during a vacation in the Colorado mountains. His
family were established in a log cabin, and he set up a tent near by for
a workshop. This is his account of his method of writing:
My working day was supposed to begin at nine o'clock in the
morning, but the truth is I seldom reached the tent before ten.
Then it took me some time to get down to work. From then on until
late in the afternoon I would sit at my typewriter, chew my tongue,
and pound away. Each night I read to my wife what I had written
that day, and Mrs. White would criticise it. While my work was
redhot I couldn't get any perspective on it--each day's installment
seemed to me the finest literature I had ever read. She didn't
always agree with me. When she disapproved of anything I threw it
away--after a row--and re-wrote it.
In his next book, _The Old Order Changeth_, Mr. White turned aside from
fiction to write a series of papers dealing with various reform
movements in our national life. He shows how through these much has been
done to regain for the people the control of municipal and state
affairs. The material for this book was drawn largely from Mr. White's
participation in political affairs.
In 1917 he was sent to France as an observer by the American Red Cross.
The lighter side of what he saw there was told in _The Martial
Adventures of Henry and Me_. His latest book is a long novel, _In the
Heart of a Fool_, another study of American life of to-day.
All in all, he stands as one of the chief interpreters in fiction of the
spirit of the Middle West,--a section of our country which some
observers say is the most truly American part of America.
A PAIR OF LOVERS
_The typical love story begins by telling us how two young people fall
in love, allows us to eavesdrop at a proposal, with soft moonlight
effects, and then requests our presence at a wedding. Or perhaps an
elopement precedes the wedding, which gives us an added thrill. The
scene may be laid anywhere, the period may be the present or any time
back to the Middle Ages, (apparently people did not fall in love at any
earlier periods), but the formula remains the same. O. Henry wrote a
love story that does not follow the formula. He called it "The Gift of
the Magi."_
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
BY
O. HENRY
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the
grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned
with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the
next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch
and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that
life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles
predominating.
While the mistress of the house is gradually subsiding from the first
stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per
week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that
word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go,
and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.
Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James
Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of
prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the
income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as
though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and
reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs.
James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all
very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a
gray fence in a gray backyard. To-morrow would be Christmas Day, and she
had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving
every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a
week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated.
They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something
fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being
worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have
seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may,
by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips,
obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender,
had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her
eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within
twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its
full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which
they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been
his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the
Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have
let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her
Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all
his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his
watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from
envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like
a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself
almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and
quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or
two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of
skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered
out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All
Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame,
large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at
the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed
metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.
There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all
of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in
design, properly proclaiming its value by substance and not by
meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even
worthy of The Watch.
As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him.
Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars
they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With
that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in
any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the
sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a
chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence
and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went
to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is
always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls
that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at
her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second
look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what
could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"
At seven o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back
of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on
the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she
heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight and she turned
white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers
about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered:
"Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and
very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened
with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of
quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in
them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger,
nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments
that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with
that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went to him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut
off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without
giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I
just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!'
Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice--what a beautiful,
nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not
arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well,
anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and
gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you.
Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden
serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I
put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to awake. He enfolded his Della.
For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some
inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a
million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would
give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was
not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think
there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that
could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package
you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an
ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to
hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of
all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise
shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful
vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had
simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of
possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have
adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up
with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him
eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with
reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have
to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I
want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands
under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a
while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get
the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought
gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving
Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones,
possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And
here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two
foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other
the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of
these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the
wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.
Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
O. HENRY
He came to New York in 1902 almost unknown. At his death eight years
later he was the best known writer of short stories in America. His life
was as full of ups and downs, and of strange turns of fortune, as one of
his own stories. William Sidney Porter, who always signed his stories as
O. Henry, was born in Greenboro, North Carolina, September 11, 1862. His
mother died when he was but three years old; and an aunt, Miss Evelina
Porter, cared for him and gave him nearly all his education. Books, too,
were his teachers. He says that between his thirteenth and nineteenth
years he did more reading than in all the years since. His favorite
books were _The Arabian Nights_, in Lane's translation, and Burton's
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, an old English book in which bits of science,
superstition and reflections upon life were strangely mingled. Other
books that he enjoyed were the works of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray,
Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. He early showed ability as a
cartoonist, and was noted among his friends as a good story teller.
After school days he became a clerk in his uncle's drug store, and here
acquired that knowledge which he used to such good effect in stories
like "Makes the Whole World Kin" and "The Love Philtre of Ikey
Schoenstein."
His health was not robust, and confinement in a drug store did not
improve it. A friend who was going to Texas invited him to go along, and
from 1882 to 1884 he lived on a ranch, acting as cowboy, and at odd
moments studying French, German and Spanish. Then he went to Austin,
where at various times he was clerk, editor, bookkeeper, draftsman, bank
teller, actor and cartoonist. In 1887 he married Miss Athol Roach. He
began contributing short stories and humorous sketches to newspapers,
and finally purchased a paper of his own, which he called _Rolling
Stones_, a humorous weekly. After a year the paper failed, and the
editor went to Houston to become a reporter on the _Daily Post_. A year
later, it was discovered that there were serious irregularities in the
bank in which he had worked in Austin. Several arrests were made, and O.
Henry was called to stand trial with others. He had not been guilty of
wrong doing, but the affairs of the bank had been so loosely managed
that he was afraid that he would be convicted, so he fled to Central
America. After a year there, he heard that his wife's health was
failing, and returned to Austin to give himself up. He was found guilty,
and sentenced to five years in the Ohio penitentiary. His wife died
before the trial. His time in prison was shortened by good behavior to a
little more than three years, ending in 1901. He wrote a number of
stories during this time, sending them to friends who in turn mailed
them to publishers. The editor of _Ainslie's Magazine_ had printed
several of them and in 1902 he wrote to O. Henry urging him to come to
New York, and offering him a hundred dollars apiece for a dozen stories.
He came, and from that time made New York his home, becoming very fond
of Little Old-Bagdad-on-the-Subway as he called it.
He had found the work which he wished to do, and he turned out stories
very rapidly. These were first published in newspapers and magazines,
then collected in book form. The first of these volumes, _Cabbages and
Kings_, had Central America as its setting. He said that while there he
had knocked around chiefly with refugees and consuls. _The Four Million_
was a group of stories of New York; it contained some of his best tales,
such as "The Gift of the Magi," and "An Unfinished Story." _The Trimmed
Lamp_ and _The Voice of the City_ also dealt with New York. _The Gentle
Grafter_ was a collection of stories about confidence men and "crooks."
The material for these narratives he had gathered from his companions in
his prison days. _Heart of the West_ reflects his days on a Texas
ranch. Other books, more or less miscellaneous in their locality, are
_Roads of Destiny_, _Options_, _Strictly Business_, _Whirligigs_; and
_Sixes and Sevens_. He died in New York, June 5, 1910. After his death a
volume containing some of his earliest work was published under the
title _Rolling Stones_.
His choice of subjects is thus indicated in the preface to _The Four
Million_:
"Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only
'Four Hundred' people in New York who were really worth noticing. But a
wiser man has arisen--the census taker--and his larger estimate of human
interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little
stories of the 'Four Million.'"
It was the common man,--the clerk, the bartender, the policeman, the
waiter, the tramp, that O. Henry chose for his characters. He loved to
talk to chance acquaintances on park benches or in cheap lodging houses,
to see life from their point of view. His stories are often of the
picaresque type; a name given to a kind of story in which the hero is an
adventurer, sometimes a rogue. He sees the common humanity, and the
redeeming traits even in these. His plots usually have a turn of
surprise at the end; sometimes the very last sentence suddenly
illuminates the whole story. His style is quick, nervous, often slangy;
he is wonderfully dextrous in hitting just the right word or phrase. His
descriptions are notable for telling much in a few words. He has almost
established a definite type of short story writing, and in many of the
stories now written one may clearly see the influence of O. Henry.
IN POLITICS
_Politics is democracy in action. If we believe in democracy, we must
recognize in politics the instrument, however imperfect, through which
democracy works. Brand Whitlock knew politics, first as a political
reporter, then as candidate for mayor in four campaigns, in each of
which he was successful. Under his administration the city of Toledo
became a better place to live in. In_ THE GOLD BRICK _he describes a
municipal campaign, as seen from the point of view of the newspaper
office._
THE GOLD BRICK
BY
BRAND WHITLOCK
Ten thousand dollars a year! Neil Kittrell left the office of the
_Morning Telegraph_ in a daze. He was insensible of the raw February
air, heedless of sloppy pavements, the gray day had suddenly turned
gold. He could not realize it all at once; ten thousand a year--for him
and Edith! His heart swelled with love of Edith, she had sacrificed so
much to become the wife of a man who had tried to make an artist of
himself, and of whom fate, or economic determinism, or something, had
made a cartoonist. What a surprise for her! He must hurry home.
In this swelling of his heart he felt a love not only of Edith but of
the whole world. The people he met seemed dear to him; he felt friendly
with every one, and beamed on perfect strangers with broad, cheerful
smiles. He stopped to buy some flowers for Edith--daffodils, or tulips,
which promised spring, and he took the daffodils, because the girl said:
"I think yellow is such a spirituelle color, don't you?" and inclined
her head in a most artistic manner.