1862
O. Henry is born
To state in a biography of O. Henry, one of the most amusing writers in the history of the short story, that his life was comedy within itself, would be a mistake.
O. Henry was not only the amusing entertainer we thought he was, just as his life was not just one of misery.
William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862 on a date that, in years to come, would turn out to be fateful: September 11th. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter1 was a South Carolina physician. His mother, Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter2 was a housewife.
There were two other children – David Weir, who died in childhood, and Shirley Worth.
William Sydney was named after his grandfather, his mother’s father – William Swaim, and his father’s father, Sydney Porter3. Will Porter (everyone had always called him Will Porter, except from his paternal grandmother, who sometimes called him Sydney) had never met either of his grandfathers4 and yet, the genetic resemblance and the overlap in their similar lifestyles was natured in the future of their successful grandson: William Swaim5 was the only ancestor who worked as a professional writer. He was appointed as editor of Greensboro Patriot publication in 1827. From the English side, Sidney Porter Will had inherited his inefficiency, his love of children and his wanderlust; Sidney was a travelling salesman, his wares being watches. He always told fascinating stories – not about the watches he sold, but about the people he met, the places he visited and the experiences he had. If William Swaim was the future inspiration for Will’s writing and editing, Sidney was the creative inspiration with his colorful personality and his exciting tales. He even outlined The Rolling Stone, the magazine his grandson was to established years later. It seems that together, though it was not planned or thought of, the two grandfathers had produced the complete makeup of O. Henry, the author.
Will Porter never met his grandmother, Abia Swaim: she had passed away in her fifties, after being confined to her bed for two year due to tuberculosis.
Abia’s daughter – Will’s mother, Mary Jane, was 25 at the time.
Three months later after her mother died, Mary Jane married Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter on April 20, 1858.
Seven years later Mary Jane died of tuberculosis, on September 26, 1865, at the age of thirty two.
William Sydney Porter was only three year old.
Mary Jane was an intelligent and educated young woman. Greensboro had two colleges for women, which were built in proximity to each other (one of them extremely close to Mary Jane’s house after her marriage). Mary Jane attended them both. She was an exceptionally bright student: “… She specialized in French and later in painting and drawing. The fly-leaves of her copy of Alexander’s “Evidences”… are covered with selections from her favorite poets, while dainty sketches of gates, trees, houses, and flowers, filling the inter – spaces, show that she relieved the tedium of classroom lectures exactly as her son was to do thirty years later… She was noted in her school days as a writer of beautiful English and the school girls came to depend upon her for their compositions. She wrote most of the graduating essays for the students.”6
Whether he truly remembered his mother or was only leaning on fragments of recollection, Will Porter cherished and admired Mary Jane’s character with great devotion and pride. He felt enormous gratitude to her, whom he had hardly known, more so than to anyone else in his life, including his family. His mother to him was a divine entity. From her he inherited his quick wit, his artistic temper, his shyness and his physical attributes.
From his father he learned about human understanding, unconditional sympathy for every human being, boundless generosity, indifference to religion and refined behavior: Will’s soft voice and modest demeanor exemplified this.
For several years Dr. Porter was the most beloved physician in Guilford County. He was good hearted, honest, friendly and resourceful. It could have been rainy, or a sunny day, he could have been ill or healthy – it made no difference: he conducted his rounds to the poorest families, many times without charging a fee for his work. Algernon could have been a rich man if he had collected even half of the debts owed to him.
Nevertheless, in spite of his well – known reputation and his extensive medical – scientific knowledge (which exceeded the knowledge of any other physician in the community), Dr. Porter invested much of his time developing inventions of no value. The lack of success in the development led him to increasingly neglect his profession. He became obsessed with the experiments. His mother Ruth, being a practical and realistic woman, learned the secrets of medicine and drugs from her son and put them to good use. Additionally, she appointed herself to be in charge of the payments for her son’s medical visits, something which was not acceptable at the time. Doctors were not used to sending bills for expenses to their patients. Instead they waited, usually a year or so, until the patient thought it was about time to pay his dues, without any reminder.
Ruth ignored the angry responses.
She repeatedly sent the invoices.
1867
O. Henry – the artistic pupil
Will attended the private school of his aunt, Miss Lina. The school was held in one of the rooms of the family house. He began to paint and write with his aunt’s support. Miss Lina predicted his future interest in literature and art and encouraged him to express himself (she herself taught art, but her nephew’s drawings – almost from the start – were much better than hers).
The fact that his mother, Mary Jane, had painted and written poems herself deeply influenced Will. Professor Alphonso Smith, in his book O. Henry Biography claims that if Mary Jane had not died so young, she would have surely given a home to the Porter’s family, a home they never had after her passing in 1865. She would have enabled her son to express himself much sooner and certainly not by the same obscure, lonely road, in which he had to travel.
Lina had filled the vacuum her sister in law left behind. She even filled in for her brother, who occupied himself more and more with his barren inventions. She did it with absolute dedication and rare insight.
She was an attractive woman, who resembled Ruth with her direct approach and her developed sense of responsibility for each boy and girl who entered the gates of the school. Ruth helped her and for several years, and as the number of pupils increased, the school moved to its new facility – a smaller building, still at the family grounds. Lina taught up to the point when the social educational system was introduced.
Will graduated his aunt’s elementary school and in 1876 enrolled to Lindsey Street High School. Lina continued to tutor him.
Will Porter was a Civil War child; the war had taken its toll from Greensboro, despite the mild damage caused to property. Outside Will’s house the first school for girls was converted into a hospital for the wounded Confederate and Federation soldiers alike. His father and grandmother treated patients around the clock, which inspired many of Will’s stories.
And yet, Will Porter was not a sad or unhappy child: he was one of those kids who had always been engaged in joyous pranks. He never hurt anyone – he always wanted to make people laugh. He was a bright kid with vivid imagination, who participated in all the games, told the most mesmerizing stories, played the guitar, drew funny sketches and mostly read: classics alongside Dime novels, history books, Edward William Lane’s translations to Tales of Arabian Nights and Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy7
When he graduated from school, Will wanted to go to college, but although his early drawings had gained him a scholarship to a college in North Carolina, his aunt could not afford the costs of the books and necessary equipment. Therefore, in 1877, at the age of 15, Will left school and started working as an apprentice in his uncle’s drugstore.
1881
O. Henry’s life of adventure begins
At the age of 19, William Sydney Porter received his license as a pharmacist from the Pharmacists Association of North Carolina. In the pharmacy he demonstrated his artistic talents, as he drew sketches of the city’s residents, in between filling prescriptions. His future seemed set in his new profession, but a year later, at the age of 20, he developed a dry cough and became fearful that he might have the “family” tuberculosis. He jumped at the opportunity to accompany a family friend, Dr. James K. Hall on his trip to Texas, hoping that the change of weather would cure his persistent cough.
In La Salle County, Texas, Will lived on a Richard Hall’s sheep ranch (Richard was Dr. Hall’s son). He worked as a shepherd, farmer, cook and babysitter, while learning Spanish and German from the local workers.
Texas of 1880 was a dream place for every adventure lover. The two years he spent on the farm contributed greatly to Will’s education and character: he wandered around the fields, carrying a dictionary, devouring books from the well – stocked library of the Hall family, wrote stories and tore them in disgust. His letters from that time are filled with amusing illustrations and original insights: “The weather is very good, thermometer rarely rising above 2,500 degrees in the shade and hardly ever below 212. There is a very pleasant little phase in the weather which is called a “norther” by the natives, which endears the country very much to the stranger who experiences it. You are riding along on a boiling day in September, dressed as airily as etiquette will allow, watching the fish trying to climb out of the pools of boiling water along the way and wondering how long it would take to walk home with a pocket compass and 75 cents in Mexican money, when a wind as cold as the icy hand of death swoops down on you from the north and the “norther” is upon you… The lonely cry of the coyote is heard mingling with the noise of a piece of strong Texas bacon trying to get out of the pantry.”8
1884
O. Henry meets his fate
The Farm was Will’s home and it seemed that his cough had disappeared, but two years later two significant changes had occurred:
Richard decided to sell.
Will’s condition deteriorated again.
So Will Porter left Texas and carried on to Austin, where he stayed with the Harrells family, Richard’s friends. He worked in several different jobs, first as a pharmacist and later as a draftsman, bank teller, a journalist and he even began writing to give him an additional income.
As expected, Will Porter led an active social life in Austin: he was a singer and a musician, who played the guitar and the mandolin, a member of theater and singing groups, including Hill City Quarter – an assemble of young men who sang and serenaded to young women from the Presbyterian Church. There he met for the first time the woman who was to become the great love of his life: Athol Estes, the seventeen year old daughter of a rich family, the Roaches.
1887
O. Henry settles down
Will Porter was no stranger to the world of courtship, especially courting beautiful young women, but Ethel was an exceptional challenge.
To him it was love at first sight. She burst into his life like a tornado – a storm of blue eyes. She was musical and witty, but he had to be patient and postpone his courtship until she finished her educational…
In the meantime Ethel’s mother developed reservations about the relationship due to health issues: Ethel’s father had tuberculosis, as did Will’s mother and grandmother. Ethel was also ill and her mother considered her too weak to marry.
However, on July 1st 1887 Will and Ethel eloped to Reverend R. K. Smoot’s house, where they secretly married.
Married life brought Will Porter much joy, but now there was the incentive to become the man to support his new family with honor and dignity.
Richard Hall, Will’s old friend, had become a commissioner in Texas and offered Will a job. Porter started working as a draftsman – cartographer in Texas General Land Office, earning $100 a month, drawing maps from surveys and fields notes. He was able to support his family, but he did not give up writing: he contributed to newspapers and magazines. The editor of Detroit Free Press commented enthusiastically about his stories and repeatedly asked him for additional materials. The editor of the New York Truth magazine chose to publish two of his stories.
The young couple continued to attend the theater and musical groups, and Ethel encouraged her husband to continue his writing.
In 1888 their first son was born. Sadly, he died only a few hours after birth.
In September 1889 Ethel gave birth to their daughter, Margret Worth Porter.
Margret’s birth had weakened Ethel: she could not work and take care of the baby as well. Will’s work as a writer did not bear fruits and it certainly was not enough to support his increased family. The four years in which he worked in the Land Office, four years in which he found time to sketch the colleagues who had became his close friends, came to an end. Will resigned. Despite his lack of professional experience, thanks to the influence of his friends, he found a job as a teller and bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Austin.
1891
O. Henry learns that some mistakes cost heavily
Austin First National Bank was a corporation which believed in the idea of “pay and take”. At Texas’s border, the banking laws were somewhat loose and the audits – few and not very serious. The unofficial policy was “put your hand over the cash and you can carry it until you get caught”. Porter himself once spent two days trying to find 1 $100 shortage in his cashbox, until the bank clerk finally remembered to announce that he had “borrowed” the money without mentioning it.
Porter, who was not particularly fond of the bank business, continued tradition, from his days as a pharmacist, of using the leisure time to write and draw cartoons.
In March 1894 Porter purchased a printing press and founded The Rolling Stone magazine, in which he published his short stories and drawings. He did not hesitate to criticize, sarcastically but also entertainingly, politicians and famous people. He talked about life in his witty, satirical way. The Rolling Stone enjoyed an early success, but Will’s ridicule and exposition of important issues hurt the feelings of its readers and reduced the sales.
In December the bank’s auditor found a shortage in the books.
Whether it was caused by the “unofficial” management of The First National Bank, or rather by lack of responsibility on Porter’s part, or (what is considered to be the most unlikely option) – a deliberate act – William Sydney Porter was accused of embezzlement. He pleaded not guilty and resigned immediately.
It seemed that the unfortunate affair had come to an end.
Will returned to work full time on The Rolling Stone, but in spite of the fact that the magazine had eventually reached a circulation of 1500 readers, it never truly provided an adequate income. When Will lost his position in the bank and after losing advertisers, he had no choice but to shut down the weekly. The paper was officially closed in April of that same year.
While his failure in the bank persuaded him that his true destination in life was not business orientated, the failure of his magazine convinced him that writing was. It was the moment which William Sydney Porter never questioned. He now knew what the right path was.
For the next six months Porter tried earning a living as an author, writing to every newspaper willing to pay immediately for his humorous works.
1895
The year life starts to get better. Almost…
In July Will decided to move with his family to Washington DC. He started selling his household furniture. But on the eve of the scheduled move, his wife became ill. The doctors confirmed Will’s greatest fear: tuberculosis.
Will refused to leave Athol or take her on a long and tedious journey. He therefore continued with his writing to various newspapers and in October wrote mainly for Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio while hoping to find a job which was steadier and closer to home.
His perseverance finally paid off.
Colonel R. M. Johnston, the editor of the Houston Daily Post offered him a position as a columnist and a caricaturist. Initially Athol was not healthy enough to join him on his trips to Houston, but when her condition improved she quickly accompanied him. For the first time the future seemed bright and promising. The Houston Daily Post was one of the most influential magazines on public opinion in the southwest and Will’s work was highly acclaimed for its unique creativity. Porter himself became one of the most admired staff members. The editorial dedicated to him after his death mentioned that the impression made by his sketches was as equally valued as the impression made by his stories. They were different expressions of the same genius. However, the fact the Porter was ambivalent with regards to his illustrations: he loathed the messiness of drawing, but thought that they were ruined, when someone else finished them.
Will Porter and his family moved to Houston. His salary was only $25 a week, but it rose steadily as his success increased among the readers. Colonel Johnston encouraged him to move to New York, where his talent would surely be recognized and rewarded more appropriately.
His first column was published on October 18, 1895, the last on June 22, 1896. The first title – Tales of the Town, was quickly changed to Some Postscripts and Pencillings and was finally signed as Some Postscripts.
Porter gathered ideas for his column when he wandered the lobbies of hotels, talking to the guests and passersby. Mostly he just observed. Observation was his working method, all the years he worked.
Unfortunately, while in Houston, the First National Bank of Austin had another audit, this time by federal auditors. They discovered the shortage which led to Porter’s resignation.
As a result William Sydney Porter was indicted and arrested for embezzlement.
1896
The year life began to lose it sense…
Porter was summoned for trial in Austin on a charge of alleged embezzlement for money he received and delivered as a teller in The First National Bank of Austin.
According to the charges on October 10, 1894 – he embezzled $554.48.
By November 12, 1894 the amount had dropped to $299.60.
On July 6, William Sydney Porter boarded a train which left Houston for Austin.
Porter never reached there.
He ran away by changing trains and ended up in New Orleans.
“Had he (Porter) gone (to trial) he would certainly have been acquitted. He protested his innocence to the end. “A victim of circumstance” is the verdict of the people in Austin who followed the trail most closely. Not one of them, so far as I could learn after many interviews, believed or believe him guilty of wrong doing. It was notorious that the bank, long since defunct, was wretchedly managed. Its patrons, following an old custom, used to enter, go behind the counter, take out on hundred or two hundred dollars, any say a week later: “Porter, I took out two hundred dollars last week. See if I left a memorandum of it. I mean to.”… There can be no doubt that O. Henry boarded the train at Houston with the intention of going to Austin. I imagine that he even felt a certain sense of relief that the charge, which had hung as a dead albatross about his neck, was at last to be unwound, and his innocence publicly proclaimed. His friends were confident of his acquittal and are still confident of his innocence. If even one of them had been with O. Henry, all would have been different. But when the train reached Hempstead, about a third of the way to Austin, O. Henry had had time to pass in review the scenes of the trial, to picture himself a prisoner, to look into the future and see himself marked with the stigma of suspicion. His imagination outran his reason, and when the night train passed Hempstead on the way to New Orleans, O. Henry was on it.”[p. C. Alphonso Smith, O. Henry Biography, Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, 1916, p. 136 – 137.]
New Orleans was not Porter’s last stop, but he spent enough time there to absorb the inspiration that later occupied his stories.
From New Orleans Will took the first available cargo streamer and sailed to Honduras’s port. He hid for three months in a hotel in Trujillo. It was there, when he “was standing on the wharf when he saw a man in a tattered dress suit stop from a newly arrived fruit steamer. “Why did you leave so hurriedly?” asked O. Henry.
“Perhaps for the same reason as yourself,” replied the stranger.
“What is your destination?” inquired O. Henry.
“I left America to keep away from my destination,” was the reply; “I’m just drifting. How about yourself?”
“I can’t drift,” said O. Henry; “I’m anchored.” “9
The stranger was Al Jennings, a lawyer and a train robber10, the leader of one of the most notorious gangs of train robbers which ever worked the southwest United State. Will Porter joined Al and his brother Frank and together the three travelled the entire strip of the South American coast.
Porter perpetuated the image of his friend in the story – A Retrieved Reformation, which was adapted to a play – Alias Jimmy Valentine, by Paul Armstrong. Although Porter himself concealed his duration in prison from the world – and even from his own daughter – the play had become a great success and even generated the fashion of “Hustle Plays” and gangster movies.
Honduras was, according to Will, an unimportant city in an unimportant republic, along the country roads across a second best ocean. Later he wrote an entire novel – Cabbages and Kings – of revolutionary rebels, passionate suitors who courted local girls whilst trying to forget their loved ones. In Cabbages and Kings, Porter coined the phrase – banana republic – to describe the country.
The time he spent in Honduras was not easy. Sometime he and his friends had very little to eat – only one banana a day, but his letters were always cheerful and hopeful, filled with love; after he had escaped, he sent Athol and Margaret back to Austin to live with Athol’s parents. He wrote his wife many letters, which came regularly after the first three weeks, in envelopes addressed to Mr. Louis Kreisle in Austin. Mr. Kreisle handed them to Mrs. Porter. The letters told Athol about Will’s plans to bring her and Margaret to him as soon as possible. His knowledge of Spanish and his innocence of Honduras’s way of life made the small Republic of Central Latin America to be the most appropriate sanctuary. Here Porter was able to drop anchor. His letters indicated that he was determined: not only he wished to save himself and his family from public humiliation – he also intended to start a new life. Will Porter did everything he could to create a home for his wife and daughter. Even the school for Margaret had been chosen.
Back home Athol refused to depend on the mercy of her friends. Since she did not know how long she and her husband would be apart, she decided to find a way to make a living for herself and started taking business courses in college. Her failing health kept her from persevering. During Christmas she embroidered lace handkerchiefs, sold them for twenty – five dollars and send her husband a parcel with his coat, toiletries and delicacies.
Will did not know that the parcel was packed while Athol was feverish with 40.5 degrees C.
He found out only a month later. When he did, all his hopes to establish a new home in Latin America immediately evaporated. He hurried back to Austin, determinate to devote himself to his wife’s care and to accept any judgment.
Again he drove through New Orleans, and according to the court reports reached Austin on February 5, 1897. His bail was doubled and he was freed until his trial.
All his time and thoughts were concentrated on Athol; when she was too weak to walk, Will carried her to and from the carriage, in which they spent most of their time. Their neighbors told that on the last spring and summer Sundays of Athol’s life, it was a common sight to see her and Will passing slowly under the Presbyterian Church’s windows (Athol was very religious). There they stayed without been spotted by the congregants until the end of the ceremony, when they slowly walked back.
It seems that Porter’s passion for travels was finally quieted. The days of dedicated care and staying at home were a blissful time for them both.
Yet, they both knew that the end was near.
Athol died on July 25th.
1898
When one door closes…
After many delays, William Sydney Porter’s trial opened in February. He denied the charges but seemed indifferent and lethargic, as if he were only a spectator. When the bank representative testified that at least two checks had disappeared under his hands, he refused to defend himself. He just sat with his chair tilted back, his hands crosses behind his head, watching what happened in a bored manner, allowing the lawyers fight his battles.
One of the lawyers “complained” that he never had such an uncommunicative client: Will did not tell him a thing.
Porter did plead – almost begged – his friends, not to attend the trial. The majority of them respected his wish.
It seems that the most solid evidence of the foolishness of the court is embodied in one tiny but extremely significant mistake:
The indictment claimed that William Sydney Porter had embezzled $229.6 on November 12, 1895.
On November 12, 1895 William Sydney Porter was living with his family in Houston, after he had resigned his work at the bank in December 1894.
William Sydney Porter lost his trial in Hempstead. The jury considered him to be a deserter, a fugitive, since the day before he had to stand trial – July 6, 1896, up until February 5, 1897. His escape to New Orleans and Honduras, which did not have extradition agreement with the United States, was regarded as an attempt to avoid the indictment for the offenses of which he was charged. His fleeing, quite simply, was an admission of guilt.
The jury gave its verdict on February 17th.
On March 25, William Sydney Porter was sentence to Columbus, Ohio Penitentiary or five years.
Soon after he sent the following letter to his mother in law:
“Dear Mrs. Roach:
I feel very deeply the forbearance and long suffering kindness shown by your note, and thank you much for sending the things. Right here I want to state solemnly to you that in spite of the jury’s verdict I am absolutely innocent of wrong doing in that bank matter, except so far as foolishly keeping a position that I could not successfully fill. Any intelligent person who heard the evidence presented knows that I should have been acquitted. After I saw the jury I had very little hopes of their understanding enough of the technical matters presented to be fair. I naturally am crushed by the result, but it is not on my own account. I care not so much for the opinion of the general public, but I would have a few of my friends still believe that there is some good in me.”11
On April 25, the day The Spanish–American War broke out, William Sydney Porter began his sentence as federal prisoner number 30664 in Ohio Columbus prison.
He, broken and humiliated, was cast among criminals, but served his sentence without complaint. Guards, inmates and prison guards – all agreed that prisoner number 30664 was an exemplary inmate. Embezzlement was a crime from which one should be punished, but Porter just did not seem the type: he was a respectable man, neat, trim, modest with a slight slow ongoing southern speech.
He spent hours listening to stories of the prisoners’ stories.
“When O. Henry passed within the walls of the Ohio prison he was asked: “What is your occupation?”
“I am a newspaper reporter,” he replied. There was little opportunity for that profession in that place, but the next question may be said to have saved this life: “What else can you do?”
“I am a registered pharmacist,” was the reply, almost as an afterthought. The profession which he loathed in Greensboro because it meant confinement was now, strangely enough, to prove the stepping stone to comparative freedom.”12: he was given his own room in the hospital and in fact it is quite possible that he never spent time inside a prison cell. During the day he slept over a cot in the hospital. He worked evening till morning. Porter was free from prison life, like any other citizen. He received all the newspapers he wanted and read endlessly.
Dr. John M. Thomas was the chief physician of the hospital. Later, after Will’s release, Dr. Thomas stated that Will Porter refused to intervene in the affairs of other prisoners and did not socialize with them at all, except for the Western Outlaws from Arizona, Texas and Indiana Territory. He listed to all their stories and later retold them in the pharmacist’s office. In prison Porter met again with his longtime companion Al Jennings, and the two renewed their friendship. Al Jennings was also considered to be a reliable inmate and the two were allowed to meet in the office during the afternoons, engaging in their storytelling.
Very few officers or prison supervisors ever saw Will, but the most important or perhaps the most touching impression belong to Dr. Thomas:
“Most convicts would tell me frankly how they got into jail. They did not seem to suffer much from mortification. O. Henry’ on the other hand, was very much weighted down by his imprisonment. In my experience of handling over ten thousand prisoners in the eight years I was physician at the prison, I have never known a man who was so deeply humiliated by his prison experience as O. Henry. He was a model prisoner, willing, obedient, faithful. His record is clear in every respect.
It was very seldom that he mentioned his imprisonment or in any way discussed the subject. One time we had a little misunderstanding about some alcohol which was disappearing too rapidly for the ordinary uses to which it was put. I requested that he wait for me one morning so that I could find out how much alcohol he was using in his night rounds, and after asking him a few questions he became excited when he thought I might be suspicioning him. “I am not a thief,” he said, “and I never stole a thing in my life. I was sent here for embezzling bank funds, not one cent of which I ever got. Someone else got it all, and I am doing time for it.”13
The night physician, Dr. George W. Williard, also became friends with Will and showed respect and admiration for his honorable character. In his opinion, Will Porter was the last person in the world who could be suspected of being a criminal. He was always quiet and reserved, practically dumb. He rarely spoke, unless asked. Dr. Williard admitted that Porter never told him his life story nor talked to him about his hopes, goals, his family, his views on life or his writing. He hardly ever spoken about his alleged crime and about the biggest mistake he had made, when he fled to Central America. In general, he spoke very little, except for the mandatory reporting derived from his work as a pharmacist, in which he was cautious, conscientious and extraordinarily efficient, as if the prison’s drug store was his private property.
Will Porter’s role was to recognize the hundreds of drugs according to their names and numbers and, of course, be ready and able to hand them over quickly and without errors at the doctor’s request.
Because he excelled as a pharmacist, he was allowed to monitor the patient among the prisoners during the night. He would visit them for two to three hours every night and knew most of the inmates and their life stories.
His letters from prison convey his ill feeling: life was unbearable at first, bur Porter learned to live in constant hope of being pardoned. When that hope failed, he turned all his energies to writing stories. Alone, after midnight, buried in the silence of the prison pharmacy, he devoted himself to his writing. He used pen and ink and often wrote for two straight hours without getting up from his chair. He seemed unaware of the world of sleeping inmates around him, or the patrolling guards. Afterwards he got up, did his rounds, and then returned to his writing.
He often wrote stories – engaging tales about nomads, sheriffs and villains. Prison was the purgatory which turned William Sydney Porter into O. Henry and passed him through a literary apprenticeship during which his style changed from journalism to true literature. The confinement had actually turned Porter into an author: without a job, without plans and without saloons do dilute his talent, his creativity was at its best.
Sometime he wrote to his little girl.
“Dear Margaret:
Don’t you remember me? I’m a Brownie, and my name is Aldibirontiphostiphornikophokos. If you see a star shoot and say my name seventeen times before it goes out, you will find a diamond ring in the track of the first blue cow’s foot you see go down the road in a snowstorm while the red roses are blooming on the tomato vines. Try it sometime…”14
He wrote a dozen stories based on his experiences in South, West and Central America and send them to publishers, assisting the sister of a mediator and using diverse pseudonyms such as Oliver Henry and S. E. Peters. The most known pen name, O. Henry, first appeared in the story Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking which was published in McClure‘s magazine in 1899. None of the editors, or even his closest friends in New York, knew that the famous writer was a convicted prisoner.
Why O. Henry? Was he inspired by the social columns of New Orleans newspapers or by the name of a French pharmacist – Etienne Ossian Henry – in the drug guide in which he used? Porter never revealed the secret.
Fred Abrams15 argues that Porter’s desire to embrace a pen name was undoubtedly motivated by his desire to eliminate the stain of his imprisonment. His vague explanations were yet another evasion of the truth.
1901
Life starts all over again
On July 24, William Sydney Porter left the gates of Ohio Columbus prison.
His sentence was reduced to three years and three months for good behavior.
On that very day Will was reunited with his daughter Margaret, who was then 11 year old. They met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Athol parents lived after the trial. Margaret was never told that her father was in prison – only that he travelled on business. As it been said before, Will Porter did not want his secret to be revealed to anyone. He did not write to his old friends while he was in the penitentiary and he hoped they would never know about his sentence he served.
The man who walked out of Columbus jail was not the man who entered it. Something of Will’s old cheerfulness was lost, never to be seen again. He could no longer settle for literary sketches. His outlook had become more reflective, more moderate. He moved from journalism to literature.
Will Porter learned to know the other side of the world and the hand which held the pen could not forget it. He learned to live in the shadows, under the disguise of his pen name. He concealed himself from everyone.
From Pittsburgh he began sending stories to newspaper’s editors and worked briefly for Pittsburgh Dispatch, until one of New York editors, who was greatly impressed by his work, send him $100 for his fare.
In April 1902, O. Henry, almost forty year old, a former prisoner, a widower and the unknown writer of dozens of stories, walked for the first time among New Yorkers, whom he is destined to call “The Four Million”. He will not be Will Porter again, until the name is engraved on his tombstone.
He responded to the city with love and awe, spent hours talking with its colorful characters – gangsters, shop girls, drifters, prostitutes, actors and poured them into literature. He sold rapidly to magazines and newspapers. At the beginning of the century New York was an urban fairytale book, filled with heroes and scoundrels. Its streets were filled with vendors and their carts. Its tenements were occupied with secretaries, seamstresses and homeless waifs. Its voices were the voices of poor salesgirls and wealthy buyers.
It was his Bagdad near the subway.
It was the perfect scenery for his work.
He once said he wanted to live a whole life in every street of New York, because every house entailed a drama.
He resided in a small hotel, wandered the streets and began to write. He was shy only when he was sober. When he went to one of his bars, his timidity was washed away with bottles of whiskey.
He usually called foreigners by the name “Colonel” and often bought them drinks, in order to listen to their stories.
Some said that he continued with his quiet approach: he never spoke but preferred to sit in the corner of the restaurant and learn from the faces of the diners.
Others claimed he spoke freely and told stories with great delight.
Everyone agreed he never spoke about himself.
He had a kind of aura hovering over him. An inexplicable air for something restrained, as if he was severely hurt by some tragic disaster.
New York was his most productive period: overall he published 381 short stories.
In the early years he published 17 stories but was constantly broke.
A few years later he published 66 stories in 12 months and was still constantly broke.
At the height of his career he earned $500 a story, but still constantly broke.
He wrote to make a living: “Writing stories is my business, my way to get money to pay rent, buy clothes, food and beer. I do not write for any other reason” he said, always asking his editors for an advance – but to no avail: the money slipped through his fingers. Often he handed beggars $20 bills and even paid for their medical fees.
1904
The writer gains success
In December 1903 he agreed to provide one story a week for an entire year to the New York World Sunday Magazine. This arrangement continued until 1906.
His wit, his sarcastic streetwise and narrative twists were highly admired by his readers. His timing was sharp and accurate. The newspapers published his stories alongside “exposures” of municipal corruption.
O. Henry, without preaching or explicitly referring to any contemporary event, had given the city a human face.
And still, no one knew his true identity.
In spite of his crazy work pace, Porter found time to publish his first – and in fact his only – book: Cabbages and Kings. The book was a development of a short story he had published earlier – Money Maze. O. Henry kept the story line, adding other early stories, most of which take place in Honduras but changed the names of the characters. Cabbages and Kings was favorably received by the critics and was praised for its realistic descriptions. However, commercially, the book was a failure.
In 1906 O. Henry published The Four Million – a collection of stories with satirical reference to Ward McAllister’s famous saying, according to which there are only 400 people in New York worth knowing. Ward meant of course the rich social elite of the city. By calling his book The Four Million, O. Henry insinuated that every man among the four million inhabitants who populated New York had a story worth telling, no matter of their social status.
He wanted to educated people through his stories.
He wanted to make them to be more sympathetic and caring.
He wanted to break down prejudice with humor and understanding.
He wanted to make the 400 wealthy to walk in the shoes of the four million.
1907
End of story
In the spring of 1905 Sara Coleman, a Greensboro girl, went for a visit to New York City. To her great surprise she found out that her long time friend, Will Porter, was actually the famous writer, who went by the name O. Henry. This discovery not only caused great joy to her, but also rekindled their mutual memories and their lost relationship. On November 27th, 1907 the two were married in Asheville. Their marriage, however, was not successful, partly due to his heavy drinking.
The same year O. Henry published The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West.
In 1908 he had published The Gentle Grafter and in 1909 – Roads of Destiny and Options. He had also collaborated with Franklin P. Adams in the musical comedy Lo! The play, which was based on O. Henry’s stories A Retrieved Reformation was a tremendous success in five countries and earning high yields for the playwright, Paul Armstrong, but very little for Porter, who had sold the rights for $500.
In 1910 Will Porter was suffering from nervous exhaustion and poor health, as well from economic despair, resulting from his over charitable heart. He published another collection – Strictly Business – and started planning to write his autobiography, only his situation became worse due to his drinking habits.
He passed away in a hospital on June 5.
At the time of his death he was the most famous short stories writer in the world.
This is William Sydney Porter speaking, better known to you, no doubt, as O. Henry. I’m going to let you in on a few of my secrets to writing a short story. The most important thing, at least in my humble opinion, is to use characters and plots that are life like. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. All of my stories are actual experiences that I have come across during my travels. My characters are facsimiles of actual people I have known. Most authors spend hours, I’m told even days, laboring over outlines of stories they have in their minds. But not I. In my way of thinking, that’s a waste of good time. I just sit down and let my pencil to the rest. Many people ask me how I manage to get that fine little twist in my stories. I always tell them that the unusual is the ordinary, rather than the unexpected. Now, if you people that are listening to me now start thinking about your own lives, I’m sure you’ll discover just as many odd experiences as I’ve had. Parts of this little talk will be heard long after I’m gone, and I want you all to continue reading my stories then too. Goodbye folks.