Through the Shadows with O'Henry

CHAPTER XXVI. O. Henry's silence; a letter at last; the proposed story; Mark Hanna visits the prison; pardon; double-crossed; freedom.

Egotism is the bridge whereon men have crawled upward from the jungle. There is no limit to its reaches. It spans even the heavens, paving the way to gods and angels, whose sole delight is to minister to men. It is not stopped even at the grave, but flings a tight rope beyond, and on this hair line Man marches to Immortality. Without Egotism, the human animal never would have developed.

Across one chasm it does not stretch—the chasm between the World and Prison. And in this exile the convict becomes spiritless and hopeless. He expects nothing, for he has lost the self-esteem that buoys trust.

When Bill Porter went down the walk to the Open Road in his squeaky shoes and the arrogant yellow gloves Steve Bussel had given him, neither Billy Raidler nor I ever expected to catch again an echo from those familiar footsteps. He had sauntered out of our lives. We were glad for the sunny companionship he had given us when he was one with ourselves.

We talked about him now and then, Billy always brought up the conversation.

"I need some tobacco a special brand think I'll drop a line to Bill Porter and ask him to send it on." Or again, it was his hair that worried him. "Fool that

I was I forgot to get that remedy from Bill. I'm like to be bald before he sends his address. Say, Al, didn't he promise to give you a lift on the story what about it?"

But the weeks went by and no word came. A month and a half to the day Billy sent a runner to the warden's office with a letter postmarked "Pittsburgh." The runner brought a note from Raidler: "Al, send me back that letter. My locomotor ataxia is itchin' to see what Bill's got to say. Yours in great peril, Billy."

Here is the first letter Bill Porter—he had already taken the name of O. Henry—had sent to me at the Ohio penitentiary. He had not forgotten us and he had already made good :

"Dear Jennings: I have intended to write to you and Billy every week since I left, but kept postponing it because I expected to move on to Washington (sounds like Stonewall Jackson talk, doesn't it?) almost any time. I am very comfortably situated here, but expect to leave in a couple of weeks, anyhow.

"I have been doing quite a deal of business with the editors since I got down to work and have made more than I could at any other business. I want to say that Pittsburgh is the 'low-downedest' hole on the surface of the earth. The people here are the most ignorant, ill-bred, contemptible, boorish, degraded, insulting, sordid, vile, foul-mouthed, indecent, profane, drunken, dirty, mean, depraved curs that I ever imagined could exist. Columbus people are models of chivalry compared with them. I shall linger here no longer than necessary.

"Besides, on general principles, I have a special object in writing to you just now. I have struck up quite a correspondence with the editor of Everybody's Magazine. I have sold him two articles in August and have orders for others. In writing to him some time ago I suggested an article with a title something like 'The Art and Humor of Holding Up a Train,' telling him that I thought I could get it written by an expert in the business.

"Of course, I mentioned no names or localities. He seemed very much struck with the idea and has written twice asking about it. The only fear he had, he said, was that the expert would not put it in a shape suitable for publication in Everybody's as John Wanamaker was very observant of the proprieties.

"Now, if you would care to turn yourself loose on the subject there may be something in it and a start on future work besides. Of course, you needn't dis- close your identity in the slightest degree. What he wants (as I thought he would) is a view of the subject from the operator's standpoint.

"My idea would be a chatty sort of article just about the way you usually talk, treating it descriptively and trying out the little points and details, just as a man would talk of his chicken farm or his hog ranch.

"If you want to tackle it, let me know and I'll send you my idea of the article, with all the points that should be touched upon. I will either go over it and arrange it according to my conception of the magazine requirements, or will forward your original MS., whichever you prefer. Let me know soon, as I want to answer his letter.

"Well how is the P. O. and vice versa? It's an awful job for me to write a letter. I believe my pencil handwriting is nearly as bad as yours.

"One letter to Harris is the best I've accomplished in the way of correspondence since I left. I haven't written to Louisa in two months. I hope she don't feel grieved. I am going to write her pretty soon.

"If I could get 30 days in the O. P. I believe I'd crack one of the statues that much to get a change of society from the hounds here. I'd rather sit in the dumphouse there and listen to the bucket lids rattle than to hear these varmints talk, as far as entertainment is concerned.

"Pard, they don't get no lowdowneder than the air here. If I could just have that black coon that comes in the P. O. every night with a tin bucket to run with here instead of Pittsburglars, I'd be much better satisfied.

"Give Billy R. my profoundest respects. Tell him he's more pumpkins than the whole population of Pennsylvania rolled into one man, not excluding John

Wanamaker's Sunday school class. May the smoke of his cigarettes ascend forever.

"Write me as soon as you feel like it and I assure you I will be glad to hear from you. I am surrounded by wolves and fried onions, and a word from one of the salt of the earth will come like a clap of manna from a clear roof garden. Remember me to Messrs. Ira Maralatt and Star (D. J.).

"Sincerely yours, W. S. P."

In less than two months the road from prison forked into the road to fame for Bill Porter. The plans he had made matured. He set resolutely to his work.

"Behold me, the lazy man Louisa used to guy," he said in a second letter, "averaging $150 a month. I always knew they didn't know laziness from dignified repose."

That letter from Porter did more than restore trust in a friend. It gave me a foothold on the great bridge. Self-confidence and hope leaped into quivering vitality. Bill Porter believed I could make good. He was holding out a hand to me.

I set to work that night. Billy held the pens. We were the kind who "dash off stories" that editors dash back. It was nearly morning when the first draft of the "holdup" was ready for mail.

Our Fate drives onward like a snowball—gathering momentum with every act. Some deed that is but a flake drops across the current of our lives and before we are aware of it the flake has doubled, tripled its size. A thousand kindred flakes flutter down to meet it until the tremendous force gathers itself together and rushes us to our Destiny.

It seemed to be this way with me, Porter's letter was the first incident—another and another came precipitately. A new outlook was before me. We sent the outline of the story to Porter. In two days we had an answer.

"Dear Pard—Your prompt reply was received this morning and read with pleasure. I assure you it is always a joyful thing for a man in Pittsburgh to be reminded of the O. P. It is like Lazarus in H—looking up and seeing the rich men order a schooner.

"Am I then so much in love with the O. P.? No, my son, I am speaking comparatively. I am only trying to put the royal skibunk onto Pittsburgh. The only difference between P. and O. P. is that they are allowed to talk at dinner here. . . ."

With the most illuminating detail, Porter went on to give me the directions for writing the story. I used my first experience in train-robbery—the stickup of the M. K. T. That letter was a lesson in short-story writing. It showed the unlimited pains O. Henry took to make his work the living reality it is.

He neglected nothing—character, setting, atmosphere, traits, slang—all were considered; all must be in harmony with the theme. I spoke of this letter in connection with the chapter on my first expedition with the outlaws. It served as a model outline for me in my future attempts.

When the story was finished Billy and I went over it. Billy demanded that real blood be shed just to give it color, but I stuck to the facts. The genuine outlaw kills only when his own life is at stake.

"It's a wonder, anyway, Al—gee whiz—you and Bill will be no end famous."

Porter revised the narrative, slashed it, added to it, put the kick in—it made it a story. We waited a month for an answer. And in the mean time, Fate was busy.

For three years my father and my brother John had worked persistently for the commutation of my sentence. They had many influential friends. Frank was still in Leavenworth. His term was but five years. I had worked up a following with the wealthy contractors. Some of them took a liking to me. They promised to pull the wires to win my release. All at once, our combined efforts seemed to have produced a result.

I was filling out requisitions in the warden's office. A big, corpulent man, bluff, hardy, but likable, walked into the room. He seemed to fill up the entire space. I don't believe the Lord Himself would have given out such an all-pervading impression. The man was Mark Hanna.

"Where is the warden?" he asked. "Out," I answered.

"I'm looking for a man by the name of Jennings."

"I presume I'm the man," I answered with great dignity. "That's my name."

Hanna sent an appraising glance from the top of my fiery head to my well-shined boots. He brushed out his hand as though flecking me out of his mind as a man might a fly from his wrist.

"Well, you're not the Jennings, I'm looking for. This fellow was a train-robbing s--------- in the Indian Territory."

"I'm all of that except the s---------."

The heavy fellow laughed until his jowls shook.

"Why, you're no bigger than a shrimp and just about that red."

Even from a Senator this raillery was a bit insolent.

I didn't exactly like it. "Senator, a Colt's forty-five makes all men equal." Hanna seemed greatly amused. The warden came in.

"Who is this atom?" he asked. Darby entered at once into Hanna's merriment.

"The gentleman was a train-robber by profession. His name is Jennings. His career met with a sad interruption and now he is detained here by the gov- ernment for life."

Hanna evidently had the school boy's idea of the bandit. He was prepared to see a six-footer with a tough mug where a human face should be and the mark of all damnation in his mouth and eye. He couldn't reconcile my five-foot four with the picture. But he sat down and we began to talk. I became voluble. I told him a hundred odd escapades of the outlaw days. It seemed to entertain him.

"You're a likable microbe. I've heard of you from very reliable sources. I believe you are straight, I'll speak to Mr. McKinley about you. He is the kindest man in the world. We'll get you out."

The promise raised me to almost hysterical hilarity. I could think of nothing but freedom. I imagined I would be turned loose perhaps the next day—surely within a week. I wrote to Porter telling him I would see him within the fortnight. We could collaborate on another story. (For Porter had been generous enough to call me a collaborator for the "dope" on the holdup.) He wrote back.

"Great news," he said. "Hanna can do it. He made the President and he has a chattel mortgage on the United States."

The fortnight came. Porter sent an urgent query. "Why didn't you show up, colonel ? I had the school ers chartered." In the same letter he told me that the story as he had revised it had been accepted by Everybody's. The check would be sent on publication.

"As soon as the check comes, I'll send you your 'sheer of the boodle.' By the way, please keep my nom de plume strictly to yourself. I don't want anyone to know just yet.

"P. S. —Did you get a little book on short story writing? The reason I ask, I had a store order it and they were to send it direct to you. You have to watch these damn hellions here or they'll do you for 5 cents."

The story-writing kept my mind occupied in the months of waiting for the promised commutation. At last a telegram came! I would be free.

They were anxious, straining days—in that week before my discharge. Hopes, ambitions, old ideals—they went like tireless phantoms before my eyes. Waking or sleeping, I had but one thought---"I must make good—I've got to get back—I'll show them all."

It was the morning of my release. Warden Darby met me in the corridor.

"Walk over to the hospital with me, Al." Darby's face was mottled grey—it got that way whenever he was laboring under excitement or anger.

"By God, Al, I hate to tell you!"

I stood still—the hot blood pounding into my throat, my ears. I felt as though the flesh were dropping from my bones in a kind of throbbing terror. Was my father dead ? Was John dead ?

"They've done you a damn' scurvy trick, Al. The United States marshal is waiting for you. They're going to take you to Leavenworth for five years more."

Five years more in prison! It might as well have been fifty. A blighting tornado of rage overswept me, whipping out every new hope, every honest thought. I felt lashed and tormented as though the blood in my veins were suddenly turned into a million scorpions, stinging me to a hot fury of blinding madness.

I rushed into the post-office, dashed the neat bundle of treasures I had gathered to the ground. Photographs of some of the "cons"---a steel watch fob a "lifer" in the contract shop made for me, an old wooden box fashioned by a "stir-bug" in the lumber mills—these and a few other things I had wrapped together. I wanted these mementoes. Billy looked at me and the trinkets strewn to the floor.

"Don't seem to be too chipper, Al. Ain't sorry to kick the dust of the O. P. off your boots, be ye?"

I was kneeling on the floor, dumping the treasure into a big handkerchief and dumping them out again, scarcely conscious of the repetition. I was afraid to talk, afraid even to look at Billy. A murderous hatred was rearing like an angry snake in my mind.

Before I was aware of it Billy had shuffled over to me, helping himself along with the chair. He sat down, grabbed the bundle out of my hands and tied it up.

"What hit you, Al?"

"Double-crossed. 'Tain't New York, 'tain't Oklahoma, it's Leavenworth for me—five years."

I spat the words out in a vicious gust. Billy dropped the bundle, his mouth sagged open. Amazed and unbelieving, he stared at me.

"Can't be true, Al. They're kiddin' you."

I took the bundle from him. "The marshal is waiting for me!" I started running from the room.

"Al, you ain't going without sayin' goodby?" Billy's crippled spine kept him from reaching me. I turned back. He stretched out his slender hand. He was crying. "It's a damn' shame, Al."

I went outside into a warm flood of sunshine. There was a zip and a dash in the air and the flowers seemed to flaunt their jaunty spring colors. If I had been free I would have gulped in that buoyant gladness in the air.

I was doomed, and the slap in the soft breezes put only an added tang to the bitterness in my heart. The marshal's long, black figure leaned against a stone column just outside the gates. He was twirling something that glittered in his hands.

As I came near him he took a step toward me, dangling the handcuffs. Something insane, unreasoning as a tiger, possessed me. I made a leap. The marshal drew back. We faced each other, both ready to spring. And then Darby, breathless and flurried, was between us.

"Don't handcuff him! He's straight as a die." The marshal, already weak with fear, dropped the steel rings into his pocket. "He won't try to escape."

For the entire trip he made no attempt to guard me. I made no effort to escape. At Leavenworth he turned me over to the warden. The shame and the ignominy of going again through the measurements, the mugging, the head-shaving, of standing again in the fourth-grade criminal class, humiliated me with a mean, paltry, slap-in-the-face kind of feeling.

I had no interest left in life. Not even the thought of seeing Frank buoyed me.

I felt too degraded to wish for the meeting. It was a silent, mournful reunion two pals had. Frank looked at me and I at him, and we didn't say a word until the guard beckoned for me to leave.

Something had died in me. After that I saw very little of my brother. I didn't even try to see him. Six months of weary, sordid stagnation wheeled along.

And then one morning, with but a breath of warning, the light broke for me. I walked out of the pen.

John and my father had pressed my case. The United Circuit Court of Appeals released me on a writ of habeas corpus. The court ruled that my imprisonment in Leavenworth was illegal and that the verdict which sentenced me to five years was worthless, as I had received this term on top of a sentence to life.

I had been convicted in one county and given life for the Rock Island train-robbery. I had been immediately whisked to another district and given five years for assault on Marshal Bud Ledbetter. The court ruled that this district had no jurisdiction over me at the time the sentence was imposed.

When they told me I was free it was as immaterial to me as though they had ordered me to carry a message from one cell block to another.

Six months before Billy Raidler and I had sat far into the night discussing my future. Should I go to New York and try to write, make a fortune and return to the home folks?

Should I dash back to them dead broke and trust to luck for success?

These problems did not exist for me now. I had fallen into a kind of lethargy. I had written to no one. I had put far away every ambition and plan for the "come back." I was a sort of animated corpse.

Not until I stood at the door of Frank's cell and he put out his hand and looked down at me did a tremor of emotion seize me. My brother started to speak. His words were muffled and indistinct. He held my hand.

"For God's sake, Al, let her be on the square from now on!" It came out blurting, anxious, pleading. An overpowering tide of remorse swept over me. I'd have given the soul out of my body to have changed places with him.