Chapter 1

_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.