Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

O. Henry (1862–1910)
From O. Henry for the Holidays

Interesting Links

“Telling Stories: an interview with Ben Yagoda, author of Alias O. Henry” (Pennsylvania Gazette)

“Presenting an O. Henry for the 21st Century” (Ben Yagoda, Library of America)

Previous Story of the Week selections
• “Tommy’s Burglar,” O. Henry
• “Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs,” Herman Melville
• “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims,” Mark Twain
• “Our City Charities,” Margaret Fuller

Buy the book
O. Henry for the Holidays: Seven Classic Thanksgiving and Christmas Stories
118 pages
List price: $15.00
Web Store price: $12.00

Union Square, New York City, looking north from the southeast corner of the park, 1905. Hand-colored photo by American photographer Irving Underhill (1872–1960) for the Souvenir Post Card Co. (eBay)

The Washington monument on the right, a bronze sculpture by Henry Kirke Brown, was relocated from the street to inside the park in 1930. The park’s large fountain and reservoir, mentioned in O. Henry’s story, was removed during the construction of the subway in the 1920s; it was a common meeting spot and can be seen in the center of the park in this photo.

---

William Sydney Porter was released from the Ohio State Penitentiary after three years and three months, in July 1901, his five-year sentence for embezzlement at a Texas bank having been reduced for good behavior. While he was in prison, he submitted numerous stories for publication, and three of them appeared in print under the name “O. Henry”—the pseudonym he would use for virtually all of his future stories and poems. After Porter left the prison, he traveled to Pittsburgh to be reunited with his mother-in-law and his twelve-year-old daughter Margaret. (His wife had died of tuberculosis the year before he began serving his sentence.) Nine months later, in April 1902, Margaret stayed in Pittsburgh with her grandparents and Porter went to New York to make a living as a full-time writer. During the remaining eight years of his life, most of which was spent in Manhattan, he wrote more than two hundred stories and concealed his time in prison from his friends and associates.

Throughout his decade in New York, O. Henry was constantly in debt. He owed money to friends and in-laws from his Texas days; he had borrowed heavily against advances for stories not yet written or conceived. He would fulfill some debts, with either stories or cash, only to borrow some more. After he died, those who knew him, even those to whom he owed money, would dismiss those obligations and instead regale reporters and biographers with stories about the extraordinary amounts he gave away to the neediest cases he met on the street. One bartender told a New York Times reporter, “If he had $10 he’d give it to you, and then perhaps come over and borrow a half dollar from me. He was always helping some of the boys out, and never a come-back. I’ve heard that from lots of people.”

Some of the anecdotes might have been apocryphal or embellished; there’s a famous tale about the tramp who chased O. Henry down the street because he thought the author had mistakenly given him a twenty-dollar bill (or gold piece, in some versions) instead of a dollar. O. Henry is supposed to have said, “I know it is, but it’s all I have.” Or maybe, embarrassed his generosity was exposed in front of a companion, he replied testily, “Don’t you think I know what a dollar is? Move along.” The contradictions and variations in no way undercut the abundance of recollections indicating that, while O. Henry may have made thousands of dollars from his writing, he gave much of it to the down-and-out New Yorkers who populated his stories.

O. Henry’s desire to provide companionship and comfort to the destitute dates to his days in Austin in the 1890s. Two years after his death, Dixie Daniels, one of his partners on The Rolling Stone, a short-lived local humor paper, recalled in a Dallas Morning News article:

He was one of the genuine democrats that you hear about more often than you meet. Night after night, after we would shut up shop, he would call to me to come along and “go bumming.” That was his favorite expression for the night-time prowling in which we indulged. We would wander through streets and alleys, meeting with some of the worst specimens of down-and-outers it has ever been my privilege to see at close range. I’ve seen the most ragged specimen of a bum hold up Porter, who would always do anything he could for the man. His one great failing was his inability to say “No” to a man.

Three of the seven holiday stories published by O. Henry have homeless men as their protagonists. “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” differs from the others because the gift of a luxurious Thanksgiving dinner is not a reward for some heroic or generous act on the part of the tramp. Instead, Stuffy Pete’s annual meal is given without the expectation of reciprocity by a “gentle man” who can hardly afford it—and who might as well be a stand-in for O. Henry himself.

Notes: Each year, the American president issues a proclamation officially confirming the date for Thanksgiving; on November 2, 1905, three weeks before the story was published, Theodore Roosevelt issued his annual message that “set apart Thursday, the 30th day of this November, as a day of thanksgiving for the past and of prayer for the future.” Saleratus biscuits are made from baking soda. Kind Salvation fingers refers to the volunteers of the Salvation Army. Alberto Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian inventor who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, made several of the first powered manned flights in Europe, including the first recorded on film. A crown of imperishable bay symbolizes eternal reward, as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:25 (“Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible”); bay is another word for the evergreen laurel shrub used in ancient Greece to crown the victors in the Pythian games.

*   *   *

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits. . . . . If you don't see the full selection below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

This selection may be photocopied and distributed for classroom or educational use.