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Page 6
The page from the Patriot is presented with an array of perfectly
confused type, of artistic errors in setting up, and when an occasional
line gets shifted (intentionally, of course) the effect is alarming.
Anybody who knows the advertising of a small country weekly can, as he
reads, pick out, in the following, the advertisement from the
"personal."
Miss Hattie Green of Paris, Ill., is
Steel-riveted seam or water power
automatic oiling thoroughly tested
visiting her sister Mrs. G. W. Grubes
Little Giant Engines at Adams & Co.
Also Sachet powders Mc. Cormick Reapers and
oysters.
All of this was a part of The Rolling Stone, which flourished, or at
least wavered, in Austin during the years 1894 and 1895. Years before,
Porter's strong instinct to write had been gratified in letters. He
wrote, in his twenties, long imaginative letters, occasionally stuffed
with execrable puns, but more than often buoyant, truly humorous, keenly
incisive into the unreal, especially in fiction. I have included a
number of these letters to Doctor Beall of Greensboro, N. C., and to his
early friend in Texas, Mr. David Harrell.
In 1895-1896 Porter went to Houston, Texas, to work on the Houston POST.
There he "conducted" a column which he called "Postscripts." Some of the
contents of the pages that follow have been taken from these old files
in the fair hope that admirers of the matured O. Henry will find in them
pleasurable marks of the later genius.
Before the days of THE ROLLING STONE there are eleven years in Texas
over which, with the exception of the letters mentioned, there are few
"traces" of literary performance; but there are some very interesting
drawings, some of which are reproduced in this volume. A story is back
of them. They were the illustrations to a book. "Joe" Dixon, prospector
and inveterate fortune-seeker, came to Austin from the Rockies in 1883,
at the constant urging of his old pal, Mr. John Maddox, "Joe," kept
writing Mr. Maddox, "your fortune's in your pen, not your pick. Come to
Austin and write an account of your adventures." It was hard to woo
Dixon from the gold that wasn't there, but finally Maddox wrote him he
must come and try the scheme. "There's a boy here from North Carolina,"
wrote Maddox. "His name is Will Porter and he can make the pictures.
He's all right." Dixon came. The plan was that, after Author and Artist
had done their work, Patron would step in, carry the manuscript to New
York, bestow it on a deserving publisher and then return to await, with
the other two, the avalanche of royalties. This version of the story
comes from Mr. Maddox. There were forty pictures in all and they were
very true to the life of the Rockies in the seventies. Of course, the
young artist had no "technique"--no anything except what was native. But
wait! As the months went by Dixon worked hard, but he began to have
doubts. Perhaps the book was no good. Perhaps John would only lose his
money. He was a miner, not a writer, and he ought not to let John go to
any expense. The result of this line of thought was the Colorado River
for the manuscript and the high road for the author. The pictures,
fortunately, were saved. Most of them Porter gave later to Mrs.
Hagelstein of San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Maddox, by the way, finding a note
from Joe that "explained all," hastened to the river and recovered a few
scraps of the great book that had lodged against a sandbar. But there
was no putting them together again.
So much for the title. It is a real O. Henry title. Contents of this
last volume are drawn not only from letters, old newspaper files, and
The Rolling Stone, but from magazines and unpublished manuscripts. Of
the short stories, several were written at the very height of his powers
and popularity and were lost, inexplicably, but lost. Of the poems,
there are a few whose authorship might have been in doubt if the
compiler of this collection had not secured external evidence that made
them certainly the work of O. Henry. Without this very strong evidence,
they might have been rejected because they were not entirely the kind of
poems the readers of O. Henry would expect from him. Most of them
however, were found in his own indubitable manuscript or over his own
signature.
There is extant a mass of O. Henry correspondence that has not been
included in this collection. During the better part of a decade in New
York City he wrote constantly to editors, and in many instances
intimately. This is very important material, and permission has been
secured to use nearly all of it in a biographical volume that will be
issued within the next two or three years. The letters in this volume
have been chosen as an "exihibit," as early specimens of his writing and
for their particularly characteristic turns of thought and phrase. The
collection is not "complete" in any historical sense.
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