[CONTENTS]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]

O. HENRY MEMORIAL
AWARD
PRIZE STORIES
of 1923

O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD
PRIZE STORIES
of 1923

CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF
ARTS AND SCIENCES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS
Author of “A Handbook on Story Writing,”
“Our Short Story Writers,” Etc.
Associate Professor of English, Hunter College of the City of New York
Instructor in Story Writing, Columbia University (Extension Teaching and
Summer Session)

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924

COPYRIGHT, 1923, 1924, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Copyright, 1922, 1923, by The McCall Company and The Pictorial Review Company.

Copyright, 1923, by Harper & Brothers, The Curtis Publishing Company in the United States and Great Britain, McClure Publishing Company, New York; The Century Co., Pearson’s Magazine (The New Pearson’s), The Frank A. Munsey Company, P. F. Collier and Son Company in the United States and Great Britain, International Magazine Company, Consolidated Magazines Corporation (The Red Book Magazine.)

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This collection is that of no single person, whose prejudices conceivably might emphasize one type or another; but of editors, critics, and writers of fiction, whose combined opinion insures catholicity of taste and freedom from bias.

The fifth annual volume presented by the Committee from the Society of Arts and Sciences, it contains in the judgment of the Committee twenty-five or thirty per cent. of the best stories published in 1923.[A]

In previous volumes the Committee have stated the requisites of a good story. Hag-ridden by no formulæ, the Committee believe that every worthy narrative—whether Hebraic tale, Greek myth, or American short story—must yet meet specific tests. For example, characters engage in a struggle or become involved in difficulties out of which they emerge successfully or unsuccessfully. Apply this limitation to the David-Goliath fight, Phaëton’s sun chariot drive, or to Papa Chibou’s rape of Napoleon; it generously includes all.

The Committee apprehend, a posteriori, the writer’s problems of structure, characterization, colour, rhythm; they recognize the skill indispensable to concealing technique; they feel the beauty of the finished work, whose joinings are not discernible but whose exquisite art and pulsing nature—if they may paraphrase O. Henry—take them by the throat like the quinsy. Every short story may appear, and should appear, a mature Pallas, though the sympathetic analyst may deduce, as the author will recall, the slow processes of birth and growth.

Over the value of this year’s fiction compared with that of recent years, the Committee disagree. The pessimist says the level is lower; the optimist declares it higher. “A fair plateau marked by a few peaks,” says another. They agree on the following list as ranking first:

Babcock, Edwina Stanton, Mr. Cardeezer (Harper’s, May).

Beer, Thomas, Dolceda (Saturday Evening Post, November 3).

Benet, Stephen Vincent, The Golden Bessie (Everybody’s, June).

Buckley, F. R., Habit (Adventure, April 30).

Byrne, Donn, A Story Against Women (Collier’s, December 8).

Cobb, Irvin S., Red-Handed (Cosmopolitan, June); The Unbroken Chain (Cosmopolitan, September).

Connell, Richard, A New York Knight (Saturday Evening Post, April 21); A Friend of Napoleon (Saturday Evening Post, June 30); The Unfamiliar (Century, September).

Dell, Floyd, Phantom Adventure (Century, December).

Edholm, Charles Lawrence, The Rotten Board (Century, November).

Edwards, Harry Stilwell, The Blue Hen’s Chicken (Scribner’s October).

Faragoh, Francis Edwards, The Distant Street (The New Pearson’s, March).

Folsom, Elizabeth Irons, Towers of Fame (McClure’s, August).

Glenn, Isa Urquhart, The Wager (Argosy-All Story, September 18).

Hart, Frances Noyes, Long Distance (Pictorial Review, March); His Majesty’s Adviser (McCall’s, June).

Hopper, James, Célestine (Collier’s, June 2).

Hurst, Fannie, 7 Candles (Cosmopolitan, September).

Jackson, Charles Tenney, Water and Fire (Short Stories, April 10).

Johnson, Nunnally, I Owe It All to My Wife (Smart Set, July).

Johnston, Calvin, Clay of Ca’lina (Saturday Evening Post, April 7).

Kahler, Hugh MacNair, Power (Ladies’ Home Journal, January).

Larsson, Genevieve, Witch Mary (Pictorial Review, January).

Lemmon, Robert S., The Bamboo Trap (Short Stories, April 25).

Lincoln, Joseph, The Realist (Ladies’ Home Journal, July).

Mahoney, James, The Hat of Eight Reflections (Century, April).

Mason, Grace Sartwell, Home Brew (Saturday Evening Post, August 18).

Miller, Alice Duer, The Widow’s Might (Saturday Evening Post, July 14).

Montague, Margaret Prescott, The To-day, To-morrow (Atlantic Monthly, August).

Morris, Gouverneur, Derrick’s Return (Cosmopolitan, August).

Rice, Alice Hegan, Phoebe (Atlantic Monthly, April).

Russell, John, The Digger (Everybody’s, February); Gun Metal (Saturday Evening Post, June 30).

Saxby, Charles, The Song in the Desert (McCall’s, September).

Scoville, Samuel, The Sea King (Ladies’ Home Journal, January).

Singmaster, Elsie, The Truth (Saturday Evening Post, March 24).

Smith, Edgar Valentine, Prelude (Harper’s, May); Substance of Things Hoped For (Harper’s, August).

Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Towers of Sand (Pictorial Review, June); Ginger Beer (Pictorial Review, November).

Synon, Mary, Shadowed (Red Book, May); An Unfinished Story (Good Housekeeping, November).

Tarkington, Booth, The One Hundred Dollar Bill (McCall’s, January); The Coincidence (McCall’s, September).

Train, Arthur, Her Crowded Hour (Saturday Evening Post, May 19).

Vorse, Mary Heaton, The Promise (Harper’s, July); The Single Man (Century, July).

Watts, Mary S., Nice Neighbours (Harper’s, December).

Wharton, Edith, False Dawn (Ladies’ Home Journal, November).

Whitehead, Henry S., The Intarsia Box (Adventure, November 10).

Williams, Ben Ames, The Piano (Saturday Evening Post, March 10); A Threefold Cord (Saturday Evening Post, May 19).

Williams, Jesse Lynch, Not Wanted (Saturday Evening Post, November 17).

Wood, Frances Gilchrist, The Courage of a Quitter (Delineator, August); Four o’Clocks (Delineator, February); Shoes (Harper’s, December).

The stories in the following list rank high with a majority of the Committee.

Aldrich, Bess Streeter, Meadows Entertains a Celebrity (American, August).

Arbuckle, Mary, Half a Loaf (Argosy-All Story, May 19).

Bechdolt, Frederick R., The Sureness of MacKenzie (Sea-Stories, January).

Bennett, James W., The Singing Skipper (Short Stories, February 25).

Burt, Struthers, Pan of the Pastures (Saturday Evening Post, April 7).

Clausen, Carl, A Year Longer to Live (Metropolitan, June).

Cohen, Octavus Roy, Swampshade (Good Housekeeping, May).

Condon, Frank, A Wolf is a Wolf (Saturday Evening Post, December 1).

Connell, Richard, Fists (Saturday Evening Post, March 10).

Cooper, Courtney Ryley, The Son of Beauty (Elks Magazine, December).

Cross, Ruth, Mary ’Lizabeth’s Folks (Saturday Evening Post, December 22).

Dean, William Harper, Under Battened Hatches (McClure’s, July).

De Bra, Lemuel L., The Strategy of Chun Moy (Short Stories, March 10).

Derfelden, Margharita, The Buddha (Scribner’s, August).

Dodge, Louis, The Breaking Point (Scribner’s, July).

Dreiser, Theodore, Ida Hauchawout (Century, July).

Flanner, Janet, Papa Cæsar’s Wild Oats (Live Stories, December 14).

Frost, Meigs O., Lilies of the Lord (Blue Book, October).

Gilbert, Kenneth, The Last White-Water Birler (Short Stories, September 25).

Greene, Frederick Stuart, Coming Back (Saturday Evening Post, October 20).

Hall, Wilbur, The Screws (Red Book, January).

Hellman, Sam, A Date with Hannibal (McClure’s, February).

Hopper, James, A Fiery Revelation (Collier’s, January 27).

Irwin, Wallace, A Touch of Eternity (Red Book, April).

Jackson, Charles Tenney, Corn (Our World, October).

Johnston, Julia Winifred, The Blue in the Labradorite (Scribner’s, October).

Johnston, Mary, Nemesis (Century, May).

Josselyn, Talbert, Mocking Bird (Short Stories, October 25).

Kahler, Hugh MacNair, The Pinhooker (Saturday Evening Post, July 23).

Kerr, Sophie, Chin-Chin (Saturday Evening Post, May 12); Cherry Blossoms (McCall’s, October).

Larsson, Genevieve, Black Eric’s Son (Pictorial Review, September).

Lindsey, Myra Mason, Miss Tilly’s Yellow Streak (Scribner’s, December).

Marshall, Edison, The Savage Breast (Everybody’s, May).

Morris, Gouverneur, The Knife (Cosmopolitan, September).

Mumford, Ethel Watts, Ether (Munsey’s, September).

Nathan, Robert, The Marriage of the Puppets (Atlantic Monthly, October).

Norris, Kathleen, Christmas Bread (Good Housekeeping, December).

Nygren, Richard, Dead Man’s Hand (Scribner’s, October).

Pulver, Mary Brecht, The Black Pigeon (Saturday Evening Post, November 17).

Rhodes, Harrison, Thomas Robinson, Matrimonial Agent (Saturday Evening Post, April 28).

Sanborn, Ruth Burr, A Born Teacher (Bookman, April).

Sappington, T. L., Spring Tonic (Everybody’s, June).

Shannon, Robert Terry, The Scourge (Short Stories, November 25).

Singmaster, Elsie, The Messenger (Saturday Evening Post, June 2); Brother (Outlook, March 7).

Smith, Gordon Arthur, Triumph (Saturday Evening Post, January 20); Beata (Harper’s, October).

Springer, Fleta Campbell, The Scar (Century, January).

Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Arab Stuff (Harper’s, January).

Stone, Elinore Cowan, The Mama of Manuelito (Century, April).

Synon, Mary, Yucca Bloom (McCall’s, October).

Welles, Harriet, Old Ships (Scribner’s, August).

Wetjen, Albert Richard, The Iron Sea (Collier’s, March 31); Minute Immensities (Holland’s, April).

Willoughby, Barrett, The Law of the Trap Line (American, November).

Wood, Frances Gilchrist, The Pick-Up Job (Pictorial Review, May); “And Hear—the Angels—Sing” (Delineator, December).

From the first list were selected the stories here offered. Again, out of this smaller number three were voted the annual prizes. To “Prelude,” by Edgar Valentine Smith, goes the first award of $500; to “A Friend of Napoleon,” by Richard Connell, the second, of $250; to “Towers of Fame,” by Elizabeth Irons Folsom, the special prize of $100 for the best brief story under 3,000 words. One member wished to record a preference for “The Distant Street” as first winner, and also urged Richard Connell’s “A New York Knight” for second winner. With one exception, and with the result stated, every story on the first list was considered in making the awards. The exception is the work of Frances Gilchrist Wood. The Committee having indicated their appreciation of its high merit, Mrs. Wood, herself a member of the Committee, consented to a place on the lists; but, as a matter of course, she refused to enter any one of her stories as a candidate for the awards.

As magazines increase in number, good stories increase but not in equal ratio. The reason, which will commend itself to all readers, is apparent to any reader who has served a term in the editorial office. A story is rejected on one of several counts: it falls below the standard of the magazine; it is not of the type suited to the purpose and the audience of the magazine; it comes at a time when the vaults are overstocked. If superlatively excellent, it may overthrow both the second and third barriers. But, let us say, it is rejected because it departs from type. It may develop a psychological struggle, an adventure of the soul, whereas the periodical to which it is offered prefers stories of physical adventure. Sent back, the script may be bought subsequently by a magazine of repute superior to the first. But make no mistake: the editor paying most to-day has the pick of the market. He has first chance, though he may not pick the best. He may leave ungathered a peach of a story, because he believes his readers like apples or plums. Editor Number Two may observe the fine fibre, the rare bloom, of the rejected fruit and serve it up to the gustatorially discerning. So the good story is salvaged. Stories below standard fall to publications implicitly serving readers of lighter, cheaper fiction. The inferior story, then, also ultimately finds an audience.[B] To read, to estimate, and to extract the superior stories from the inferior combine in a threefold task of increasing difficulty.

Seventy-five years ago the stream of literature flowed from England and the European continent to America. Examine the first issue of Harper’s Magazine.[C] You will find with few exceptions a collection of reprints. Dickens’s Household Words, the Dublin University Magazine, Bentley’s Miscellany, the Ladies’ Companion and the London Athenæum provide two serials, a long story complete, a brief tale or two, memoirs, comments on authors of the day—Jeffrey, Bowles, Wordsworth, George Sand—and translations from the German, besides other matter of irrelevance to this summary.

Lay aside Volume I of Harper’s, after observing that the volume continues the practice of the first number, and take down Volume I of Scribner’s. Appearing thirty-seven years later[D] and thirty-six years before 1923, it marks the apex of this three-quarter century period. The Table of Contents is practically all-American. There are Brander Matthews, Joel Chandler Harris, Dean N. S. Shaler, Octave Thanet, Margaret Crosby, Sarah Orne Jewett, Thomas Nelson Page, Harold Frederic, H. C. Bunner, Duncan Campbell Scott, “J. S.” of Dale, Professor Adams Sherman Hill, Arlo Bates. There are “Glimpses at the Diary of Gouverneur Morris,” rather than “Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans” (in the Harper’s of 1850). American periodical literature is established.

Consider, further, the situation to-day. In England you will find leading American periodicals in the English edition; you will find in Hutchinson’s, The Strand, Nash’s (published, all, in London) for instance, reprints of fiction first published in America by American authors, as well as stories by English authors published simultaneously, a little earlier, or a trifle later, in America.

“But,” asks one, “why state the obvious?” Because certain critics refuse to recognize the obvious, insisting on the sciolism, provincialism, poverty, and inadequacy of fiction in America. It is one thing to insist out of deference to dreams of greater achievement; it is quite another thing to insist out of subservience to the fashion which prompts negation and destruction, out of an inherent inability to acknowledge good in anything. The tentative data suggested above at least indicate the cosmopolitan appeal of American fiction.

Turn again to the first volume of Harper’s Magazine. You will find one page bearing the classic, “A Child’s Dream of a Star” (page 73); you will find “My Novel,” by Bulwer Lytton; and “Maurice Tiernay,” by Charles Lever. Will any magazine of June-November, 1923, carry similar survivals to 2000 A.D.? The answer is on the knees of the gods. But against the instances of novels of 1850, known at least to the specialist and perhaps to others, there are anecdotes and tales of matter and manner inferior to stories in the same magazine to-day.

Read the beginning of “Lettice Arnold” (page 13):

“Nay, my child,” said the pale, delicate, nervous woman, thus addressed by a blooming girl whose face beamed with every promise for future happiness, which health and cheerfulness, and eyes filled with warm affection could give, “Nay, my child, don’t talk so. You must not talk so. It is not to be thought of.”

Or read “Andrew Carson’s Money: A Story of Gold,” and mark the following passage:

Mother, I have taken poison. I have sold my body to a doctor for dissection; the money I give you is part of the price. You have upbraided me for never making money; I have sold all I possess—my body—and given you my money. You have told me of the stain on my birth; I can not live and write after that; all the poetical fame in the world would not wash away such a stain. Your bitter words, my bitter fate, I can bear no longer; I go to the other world; God will pardon me. Yes, yes. From the bright moon and stars this night, there came down a voice, saying, God would take me up to happiness amid his own bright worlds. Give my body to the men who are waiting for it, and so let every trace of Andrew Carson vanish from the earth.

Now read any passage in the stories here included from the same magazine. The point to be emphasized is the generally higher standard of present-day fiction, as the high standard of the magazine has been uniform.

Again, the charge finds entertainment that American fiction lacks depth; yet it flows full and deep from the head sources of all the races that make America. Granted that within a thousand years, from some white heat of common interest, fusion may effect a greater national literature. It will be different from this of to-day, but it will look back—if it looks, at all—on the Twentieth Century not as one of childish beginnings. American writers have their origins among Anglo-Saxon scops, Celtic bards, French trouvères, Hebrew psalmists and historians. A patent fact, yes; but too frequently ignored by those who like to regard American literature as infant literatures of old races are regarded. Nationally, America may lack depth of common interest; the soil may be “insufficiently fertilized,” as one critic says; but, racially, America has all that her several races have ever possessed. The short story is the exact vessel for catching and holding the various racial characteristics.

“And because we like to be loved,” says another,[E] “we dare not touch upon the wounds of life—the hunger, the passions, the buffets, the defeats that purge its sordidness, gild its drabness, and actuate us to nobler aspirations.”

By way of reply to this challenge Francis Edwards Faragoh might have written “The Distant Street” had he not already published it. Emanuel’s desire for undiscovered mysteries back of the yellow pools, for life behind the flowers, by him prefigured as unattainable, symbol of the ideal; his buffets at home, his climactic defeat through human passion—these are of the essence of life. Emanuel’s worldly success, built on the supremacy of the practical pull, poignantly concedes to life the insignificance of a single unit amid an infinity of units. His desire, which leads him—in his “unaccountable fits”—to the distant street, maintains his ego triumphant, ultimately inviolate. The lyric strain in this young doctor has the potency of passages in the Song of Solomon; his ideal of duty has the greater potency of the Mosaic tablets.

Growing out of the Swedish settlements in Wisconsin, from another tributary race flowers “Witch Mary.” The men and women of this story, blue-eyed and blond, among whom Black Eric represents the darker strength of Satan, retain the fancy, the poetry, of early Scandinavian peoples. Those peoples, more than a thousand years ago, saw etins and elves and nickers on the sea; their terror was of those monsters, the nipping night, and the northern wind. Of the inland country, in Miss Larsson’s narrative, the river is still the source of fear, as was the sea while Beowulf was growing slowly to epic size. Those children who saw Witch Mary fly, like the wind, from the river, are descended in the fortieth generation or so from those children who followed the flight of Grendel’s mother to her lair under the waters of the haunted mere.

“Prelude” pictures without ruth the dominant Anglo-Saxon in decay. But in Selina Jo, the humble fighter whose perseverance and patience land her in the reformatory of her desire, it hints at resurrection out of dust. Stock of the past, impoverished, dry as Phœnix ashes, yet may renew itself, like the fabled bird, for another thousand years. Heritage of the South, the poor white has been loosely accepted as drift left by flood and ebb of a splendid civilization. Only in recent years have writers come out of the South who treat him in the individual manner he deserves. Mr. Smith has done so with originality, true democracy, and thorough understanding. Selina Jo he has made a living girl, typical of her social stratum, seemingly typical in her departure from it. Hope lies in just this seeming divergence, which is in reality the survival of warrior blood second to none the earth has ever produced.

Though perhaps not apparent to the reader, “The Wager” represents in its authorship one who carries on the traditions of the feudal South. Those who have been longest in these states are first to scatter to other corners of the world in foreign service, in far-flung naval exploits, and in military outposts. If a considerable percentage of American fiction uses foreign settings, the conclusion must not be falsely drawn, “We have nothing at home to write about, it would appear,” but rather “Most at home in America, most at home abroad.” Isa Urquhart Glenn, in employing the scenes she knew while her husband saw service in the Philippines, only makes use of what for her was immediately at hand. Surely there lie in this tale feeling for race and compassion for the weak—hallmarks of noblesse oblige.

“Shadowed,” by Mary Synon, climactically presents the few hours which mark the climax of a political career. At the moment Stroude is about to be nominated for the presidency of the United States, he receives a letter from a dying woman. The significance of this letter lies in the facts that he loved her, that she had released him to climb a mountain higher than Pisgah, and that he had promised to return to her if she ever needed him. His struggle must be brief, since he must either accept the nomination without seeing the woman or must see her at the cost of losing the highest honour in the land. His code of honour has never faltered in the years he has smiled at the devious ways of politicians and kept his integrity, nor does it falter now. He goes back to Pisgah. If this eventuality is criticized as the one less likely to occur in real life, yet it has the merit of seeming true in the life of fiction. And every reader will admit the essential truth of the ideal. The author, herself of the Middle West, has paid tribute to the Southern mountaineer.

“The Bamboo Trap” illustrates the struggle of the American scientist far afield. John Mather’s adventure in the Andes, wherein his problem is to escape from a hole in the mountain side is enlivened by spiders. He escapes through a gallant physical fight. It is impossible to resist reference to a suggestion made by a reader of this story, a reader who is avowedly of the camp preferring Russian to American fiction. This tale would be more life-like, he said, if it ended on the unfinished struggle. “Why have that flood tear down the remaining barrier? Accident, wasn’t it?” But if Mather had not very nearly destroyed the barrier, accident would have availed him nothing. An Oriental in that trap doubtless would have concluded, “If I am fated to die I shall die.” Therein is exemplified the difference between the philosophy in literature of the negative and philosophy in literature of the positive. Life in America is not torpid, sick, neurasthenic, if one agrees with Theodore Dreiser, as he expressed himself in a recent interview.[F] “What I am driving at is the fact that the portrayal of American life does not lend itself to Russian atmosphere, to a Dostoyefsky plot, to Gorki treatment.” Mather’s escape is not so much the ingenious end to a clever plot as it is the logical end of just such a situation in real life, provided the chief actor be American and not Russian. The fighter may escape, the weakling dies. If the ideal of a people be annihilation, death the easy surrender either to indifference or to a divine nostalgia, just so surely literature will reflect that ideal. Not before America as a nation embraces pessimism will its literature be affected seriously by the literature of pessimism. And, incidentally, it will be worth while watching the literature of New Russia for a change of ideals.

According to recent statistics, Paris has replaced Chicago as literary centre of the United States, perhaps the first important result, to letters, of the World War. Richard Connell humorously records an instance of the days when “Ichabod” appeared on the lintel of waxworks palaces. Where is now the Eden Musée? Who goes to Madame Tussaud’s? They had their day, those creations of horror; melodramatically, they held their puppet moments on the stage. But those moments are fled, and what is out of date serves the humourist. Papa Chibou’s affection for the cauliflower-eared dummy and his ignorance of the real Napoleon combine incongruously enough, and with the love theme, to a high hilarity. Yet the story is beyond farce. More than one will feel his eyes moist at the end, and nobody drops a tear over farce unless from extravagance of laughter. Mr. Connell’s ability in creating characters over whom and with whom one laughs happily associates itself with acumen in searching out ridiculous situations. His humour recommends itself further as of that highly human order bordering pathos. Read, for example, “The Unfamiliar,” listed above, and receive proof of this statement.

The author of “Célestine,” born in France, has balanced Mr. Connell’s study of Papa Chibou by his interpretation of the peasant girl. Like Bertha, of Fannie Hurst’s “Lummox,” Célestine feels beauty but remains inexpressive; she is dull and speechless. Like Bertha, she is vaguely aware of harmonies; the majesty of war shakes her soul. Inarticulate love merges into dumb renunciation; the mute expression of her adoration lies in cleaning boots; of her sorrow, in unspoken prayer by the semblance of a tomb.

Around Paris of the Boul’ Miche’ many stories have centred. In a bubble of mirth James Mahoney adds another to the list: “The Hat of Eight Reflections.” The reflections are no less the highlights of the story than of the hat. Max Beerbohm once concluded, after ample proof by illustration, that the public finds humour either in delight over suffering or in contempt of the unfamiliar.[G] Such a public would hardly find humour in “The Hat,” which the Committee recommend for laughter prompted by the high-handed proceedings of Ventrillon, his wit, his ability to paint like the Devil, his catastrophic destruction of Hat Number Two. If he seems funny in walking hungry from his lunch, yet we well know he has been stuffing himself on Belletaille’s little cakes. And if Belletaille is subject for laughter, well, her personality stands the strain and exonerates the reader from the charge of cruelty in enjoyment at her expense. That enjoyment is modified by admiration.

Typical of the American scene and of American life are “Nice Neighbours,” “The One Hundred Dollar Bill,” “Towers of Fame,” “Not Wanted.” To these should be added Mrs. Wharton’s “False Dawn,” of the first list. Though in length outside the short story limit, nevertheless, it should receive mention as a notable piece of brief fiction. Failure to record appreciation of its exquisite charm would argue the Committee dull to beauty of theme and workmanship.

“Nice Neighbours,” a vigorous story dramatically presented, conveys a pleasantly satiric theme which every reader may state for himself. Mary S. Watts has accomplished her satire the more admirably in that she does so without the aid of caricature. Her characters, from the imps of Satan who killed their pets for the gruesome pleasure of it, to the nice old maid who rented her house—all walk out of life, distorted by not even so much as the temperament of the author which, justifiably, might have exaggerated lines and heightened colour.

Mr. Tarkington’s “The One Hundred Dollar Bill” so skilfully conceals its idea as to betray the unwary into seeing merely a light story, whereas it epitomizes the American character. Behold the American: Caution and thrift refuse the purchase of a toy yet retreat before the gambler’s spirit. Loss at the gaming table retrieves itself through that adaptability which leads on alike to failure or fortune. In the opinion of many readers who have enjoyed all this author’s stories, from “In the Arena” to the present, nothing he has written is stronger and at once more subtle than “The One Hundred Dollar Bill.” If there is such a thing as a composite American, he is represented by Collinson.

Eric Hall, of Mrs. Folsom’s “Towers of Fame,” is the counterpart of Emanuel in “The Distant Street.” Eric meets the one woman, who might have remained lost. So great is this possibility as to form the basis for surprise. We finish the story: Eric left the girl. Add a final hundred words or so and demolish the first dénouement. The new ending is as just as the old. The adherent of the negative and the incomplete says, “Eric went away, of course. And he never came back.” Quite right, if Eric was that sort of man. But the partisan of the positive may reply, “Why didn’t he go back? It was just that return which reveals his character.” He is the older American; Emanuel is the newcomer.

“Not Wanted” exemplifies the age-old struggle of the generations to understand each other. Of all the fathers who have enjoyed it, either in the Post or in the little volume published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, not one but has admired Mr. Williams’s skill in erecting barriers between father and son, then with equal skill removing them. Over this story perhaps more enthusiasm has been expressed to the Committee than over any other selected. If critics who see in it only another instance of the machine-made story will take a hint from general approval they will conclude that emotion, though intolerant of formula, yet makes universal appeal through perfection of form. “Not Wanted” will live in younger companionship with this author’s famous “The Stolen Story.”

At once a criticism and a half dozen stories rolled up in one parcel, “Home Brew” doubly succeeds and gives double measure. Grandmother’s selfishness, Father and Walter’s extraordinary friendship, Mother’s home-making gift, Aunt Jude’s quiet struggle—quiet as volcanic fires beneath the crust—Eddie’s love for the sea, and Mildred’s fluttering toward the flame: in all these lies potential drama. Three themes actually achieve the outline of drama and reach climax on the evening Alyse spends with her mother. Alyse, blind to all these potentialities, becomes the target for Miss Mason’s arrow-thrusts which, in piercing her, pierce the average would-be writer. The dilettante sees neither the humour nor the tragedy of real life, whose repressions mean to her only absence of thought and emotion. No other country owns to so many thousands of those who, mistaking desire for ability, and possessing the minimum requirements of the fictionist, waste themselves in “trying to write.” Miss Mason’s Alyse should be set before these thousands, and the Committee are grateful for the opportunity of passing her along.

If “Home Brew” is a criticism, no less is “Phantom Adventure” a revelation. Like Kipling’s “The Brushwood Boy” and “They,” it evokes from the realm of fancy a beautiful dream. Floyd Dell has educed an ectopolasm which, emerging from the material banker, magically forms an exquisite spirit picture. Plangently sombre the rhythmic cadences of this verbal harmony fall on the ear, drowning alien sounds, luring into unexplored recesses of the mystic and the subconscious. Restraint and reserve potently influence the reader to guess at tracts of the spirit still to be explored. The art of suggestion is here at its height; for though the expressed story is clear and whole, that which is unexpressed permits individual interpretation and so intensifies the clarity and unity for different minds in different ways.

“Derrick’s Return,” an adventure of the spirit unhampered by the body, illustrates in rollicking yet serious vein a philosophy of heaven and hell. The author’s concept of dimensions in time and place after death should be compared with that of May Sinclair in the final one of her “Uncanny Stories.” It was to be expected that Einstein’s theories of relativity would find ultimate translation into fiction, but hardly that resultant or similar theories would so instantly express themselves. Mr. Morris, as is true of Miss Sinclair, has so long since become master of telling a story in the large as to insure free play for finer thought processes, processes which distinguish the result as that of a unique personality. So in “Derrick’s Return” these thought radiations penetrate the confines of infinity and, charged with messages of the absolute, return to electrify and to entertain.

In this Introduction, the Chairman has indicated, without attempt at discussion, the wide range of present-day American short stories and the consequent labour in reading them all; their cosmopolitan characteristics, and their superiority in the average over stories of a generation ago. Further, the current of American fiction bears on its bosom the heritage of all the racial streams which have united to form it. Again, the American concept of life demands a completeness of struggle and sense of form associated with an underlying philosophy, not negative and pessimistic, but positive and optimistic.

To you who read, aware of the significant contribution American brief fiction adds to world entertainment and world literature, yet have not time to acquaint yourselves with the yearly thousands of short stories: gathering these covers full of the representative best is one reward of the Committee. Another reward is that of insuring comparatively permanent form to the group. Still a third reward lies in the bestowal of the annual prizes. These awards, the Treasurer of the Society, Mr. Melvin C. Hascall, states in a letter to the Chairman of this Committee, the Society expects to increase for the year 1924.

For 1923, the Committee of Award consisted of:

Blanche Colton Williams, Chairman
Ethel Watts Mumford
Frances Gilchrist Wood, Litt. D.
Grove Wilson
William Griffith

The Committee of Administration:

Melvin C. Hascall, Treasurer Society Arts and Sciences
George C. Howard, Attorney
Glenn Frank, Editor of the Century.

As before, the Committee are grateful to editors, readers and authors without whose coöperation this annual volume would be impossible.

Blanche Colton Williams.

New York City,
January, 1924.

O. HENRY MEMORIAL
AWARD
PRIZE STORIES
of 1923

PRELUDE
By EDGAR VALENTINE SMITH
From Harper’s

WHEN she was fifteen years old Selina Jo was doing a man’s work in Pruitt’s turpentine orchard; properly, though, her story begins earlier than this.

It was shortly before his daughter was born that Shug Hudsill brought his young wife, Marthy, to a sandy land homestead—twenty-five miles from the nearest railroad—in that section of the country which borders the Gulf of Mexico. There followed shortly the inevitable log-rolling, at which the neighbours—mostly Hudsills themselves—contributed their labour. Shug furnished refreshments in the form of “shinny,” an unpalatable, but unusually potent, native rum. Otherwise, his part in the erection of his future home was largely advisory. Despite this, though, the house, a two-room cabin of the “saddle-bag” type, was soon erected. Hand-split pine boards covered the roof and gave fair promise of keeping out the rain. An unglazed window and a door in each room, which would be closed with rough wooden shutters during inclement weather, served for ventilation and lighting. A stick-and-clay chimney at one end of the cabin gave outlet to the single fireplace which was to answer the dual purpose of cooking and heating.

By devious methods Shug accumulated two or three runty, tick-infested cows and a few razorback hogs. These were left, in the main, to shift for themselves. There were tough native grasses available and the canebrakes in Shoalwater River were close by. During severe weather such of the cows as chanced to be giving a few pints of thin, watery milk daily were fed a little home-grown fodder and corn on the ear. With proboscides inordinately sharpened for the purpose, the hogs probed for succulent roots in the rank undergrowth of the nearby swamp. When hog-killing season arrived Shug would shoulder his gun and slouch away for his winter’s supply of meat. Neighbours charged it against him that he was not always careful to see to it that they were his own shotes which he killed. Since it was a simple matter, though, to snip off the telltale ear markings of a dead pig, his pilferings, if a fact, were never proved.

Corn sprouted slowly in the thin soil; it grew up dispiritedly and came to maturity stunted as to blade, stalk, and ear. Sweet potatoes yielded generously in new ground; each year a fresh plot was cleared, broken, and planted to these. A patch of sugar cane was always grown for molasses; a portion of this, it was generally conceded, was finally made into “shinny,” since Shug was known to be an adept at its manufacture. Certain it is that he made frequent extended trips away from home with his wagon and yoke of oxen, never troubling to explain the reason for his absence.

It was amid these surroundings, sufficient in themselves, one would have said, to hinder physical, mental, and moral growth, that the girl Selina Jo was born. The occasion was in no sense of the word an event with Shug and Marthy. Since all married people of their acquaintance had children, the baby simply represented, to them, the inevitable. With the birth of the child, though, Marthy became barren.

For the first eighteen months of her existence the baby crawled about the cabin unnamed. Then it occurred to Marthy that their offspring ought to be christened.

“Shug,” she suggested casually, “seems to me we ort to be namin’ that air young ’un.”

Shug, lolling in the shade of a water oak, shifted his quid and spat disinterestedly. “I ain’t objectin’ none,” he replied.

“How ’bout callin’ her ‘S’liny Jo’?” Marthy asked.

“Fittin’ enough name fer her, I reckin,” Shug yawned.

As the child grew up she came to accept her parents as they had long since accepted her—merely as a bald fact. There was never the slightest evidence of parental affection upon the one side or of filial attachment upon the other.

Once Marthy came upon Shug whipping the girl with a switch.

“What you whippin’ her fer?” she asked. Her tone was one of simple curiosity, nothing else.

“All young ’uns needs it,” Shug replied virtuously, as he tossed the switch aside. “Hadn’t been my daddy usetah whale me powerful, I wouldn’t a been nigh the man I am now; not nigh.”

It was a matter for remark between the parents that, even at a tender age, Selina Jo rarely emitted any outcry under punishment. There burned in her sloe-black eyes, though, the flame of an emotion which she checked upon the surface.

One would have expected the girl to respond to the influence of heredity. Her parents, the cattle, the hogs, even the crops about her were stunted, half-starved in appearance. By contrast, Selina Jo, upon a daily ration made up almost exclusively of corn pone, molasses, and home-cured pork as salt as ocean brine, defied all known dietary laws, and flourished amazingly. She was precocious, too. When she was only seven years old she could swear just as well—rather, just as wickedly—as could Shug himself. She learned early, though, that, as a source of information, her parents were practically nil. Thenceforth, the questions that had rushed to her lips were succeeded by a look of eternal interrogation in her sombre eyes.

It was shortly after her twelfth birthday that a young school-teacher—the only one the community ever knew—came into the Hudsill settlement. Selina Jo was grudgingly allowed to attend the school. For six months the young man’s enthusiasm held out. Then it waned and died. Few of the older people could either read or write, and the opinion among them seemed to be universal that what was good enough for them was good enough for their offspring. But before the school closed Selina Jo had learned the alphabet and a portion of the old-fashioned first reader.

She missed the school, and she always kept, close at hand, her thumbed and dog-eared book, the only one that she possessed. The school-teacher had lighted the fires of ambition within her. She came to be troubled by the realization that her mental development was lagging behind her physical growth.

“S’liny Jo,” she informed herself one day in a fit of musing, “you air as p’izen strong as a gallon o’ green shinny, but you don’t know skercely nothin’.” A moment later she added dejectedly: “Ner ain’t got no chanchet o’ learnin’, neether; not nary par-tick-le of a chancet!”

Shoalwater River afforded her chief means of diversion. She never remembered when or how she learned to swim. Every day that the weather permitted she enjoyed a plunge in the river. Soon she noticed that no less pleasant than the contact of the water with her naked body was the comfortable after-feeling of cleanliness. Following this, came a feeling of repugnance toward her shiftless and slovenly parents.

She had long since begun to assist with the crops. With the manure scraped from the cow lot she made the beds for the potatoes. At planting time she pulled the slips and set them out. She hoed the sugar cane and thinned the corn. During harvest she did almost as much work as Shug and Marthy combined.

Before she was fourteen she had broken a pair of young steers to the yoke. She split the rails and laid the fence for a new potato patch. Using for the purpose the young oxen which she had broken, she prepared the ground for planting. She was as tall as her father now, a slender, wiry creature, her symmetrical young body as free from blemish as the trunk of a healthy pine tree.

A vague unrest troubled her at times, though. Something occurred one day which intensified this. In a corner of the cabin she found a dust-covered photograph. Brushing it off, she gazed upon a face that was unfamiliar. She took the picture to Marthy.

“Maw,” she asked, “who is this?”

Her mother glanced at it indifferently. “Me,” she answered listlessly.

“You?” Selina Jo gasped.

“Yeah. Ruther, it usetah be. Tuck when I married yore paw.”

Selina Jo scanned the comely pictured face for some likeness to the slatternly creature who had given her birth. Wild resentment against something—she scarcely knew what—flamed in her heart. Suddenly she dashed the photograph to the floor and hurried from the cabin. As one reads the chronicle of her words, it must be remembered that her vocabulary was patterned after that of her father.

“Oh, Goddlemighty!” she burst out tempestuously, “I don’t want to be like her! I ain’t goin’ to, neither!”

Her acquaintances were limited to the score of families, most of them relatives, and all of them mental and moral replicas of her own, who lived near by. There was an almost abandoned church in the neighbourhood where, at rare intervals, some itinerant preacher held services. Upon one occasion, though, Shug took the family to preaching in what was known as the Briggs settlement which was ten miles nearer the railroad. It was here that Selina Jo had it impressed upon her young mind just how people of her stripe were looked upon by those cast in another mould.

Shortly after they had seated themselves in the church, Shug, uncouth and unshaven on the men’s side, and she and her mother on that reserved for her sex, Selina Jo heard one of the women whisper to her neighbour:

“Some o’ that Hudsill tribe!”

As the girl caught the slur in the words her face flushed darkly. She began to notice the unfavourable looks with which the men of the congregation were regarding her father. Even the children stared superciliously toward her mother and herself. Puzzled, vaguely hurt, at first she wondered why.

Lingering just outside the church at the close of services, she waited, shyly hopeful that some one would speak to her. No one paid her the slightest heed. In a land where a lack of hospitality was the one unpardonable sin, this alone was enough to convince her that something was terribly wrong somewhere. But she held her peace until they had completed the tedious homeward journey.

“Maw,” she demanded abruptly, as soon as they were alone, “how come we ain’t like other folks?”

“What air you talkin’ about?” Marthy intoned querulously.

“Them folks in that air Briggs settlement.”

“Wa’l?”

“They looked slanchwise at Paw when we went in an’ set down.” Selina Jo waited a moment, her face clouding at the thought. “An’ them li’l’ old gals looked slanchwise at me, too. Durn ’em!”

“How kin I he’p the way they looked at us?” Marthy whined. “Treatin’ us thatta way just ’cause we air pore.”

“’Tweren’t that, neither,” the girl insisted stubbornly. “Them men—most of ’em—was wearin’ overhalls. The school-teacher said rich folks don’t wear them kind o’ clo’es to meetin’.”

“Tryin’ to git better ’n yore raisin’, air you?” Marthy suddenly showed unwonted spirit. “Wa’l, gal, you kin just make up yore mind to be like yore pore maw an’——”

“I ain’t goin’ to be like you!” The words shot out with sudden passion. “I ain’t!”

“God ha’ mercy!” Marthy’s usually expressionless face showed a trace of surprise at this outburst. “But I’ve allus said seein’ lots o’ things gits notions inta young ’uns’ heads what ain’t good fer ’em.”

“Ner that ain’t all I seed, neither,” Selina Jo retorted. “They didn’t none o’ them folks—not nary one o’ ’em—ast us home to eat a Sunday dinner with ’em.”

At the conclusion of the church service she had seen invitations to the noonday meal being extended and accepted right and left by the Briggs settlement householders. Since it was the custom to include the veriest stranger in these, the fact that none had been offered her people left room for only one conclusion: the Hudsills were looked upon by their neighbours as being unworthy to receive one. Slowly the impression fastened itself upon her brain that her family was hopelessly low in the social scale—“poison low-down,” she would have phrased it. This conviction gripped her. It stung—and it stayed with her.

Fortunately, something occurred about this time to divert her thoughts temporarily. Three miles from Shug’s home, Pruitt Brothers, turpentine operators, established a woods commissary. Selina Jo’s first visit to the store left her gasping with pleasure. Filled with the usual gaudy assortment carried in stock by the general country store, to the half-starved eyes and soul of the woods-bred girl, the place was a wonderland. Dress goods in loud patterns dazzled her sight; vari-colored ribbons flaunted themselves tantalizingly before her gaze. But the one thing that charmed her, that held her spellbound, was a cheap, ready-made gingham dress. She made frequent unnecessary trips to the store merely to feast her eyes upon it. She would look from it to the faded homespun that she wore and sigh enviously. Once she even mustered the courage to ask the price. It was an insignificant sum, but the thought struck her with sickening force that it might just as well have been a thousand dollars. She had never owned a piece of money.

Slowly, as her yearning for the dress became almost unbearable, a plan formed in her mind. Coming in from her tasks one day, she found Shug, just returned from one of his mysterious periodical trips.

“Paw,” she began timidly, “I—I got a hankerin’.”

“S’pose you have?” Shug’s manner was more surly than usual. “A hankerin’ never hurt nobody, yet.”

“But, but I shore ’nough want sump’m.”

“Wantin’ an’ gitten’ is diffe’ent things. What is it?”

“They’s the purtiest dress over to Pruitt’s store,” Selina Jo began eagerly, “an’ it’s made outen real gingham.”

“Gingham?” Shug whirled about with a snarl. “What air you talkin’ about, gal?”

Selina Jo’s heart sank. “I ain’t never had nary one,” she offered placatingly. “An’——”

“Ner ain’t never li’ble to, neether. Homespun’s good enough fer yore pore maw an’ it’ll hatter be good enough fer you. I ain’t goin’ to be workin’ myse’f to skin an’ bone to be fittin’ out no young ’un in fancy riggin’s.”

“But, Paw, it don’t cost much.”

“It costes just that much more ’n you’re goin’ to git. Shet up!”

It was then that Selina Jo unfolded her plan. “I’m goin’ to git me that air dress,” she announced dispassionately. “I’m aimin’ to pay fer it myse’f, too.”

“How?”

“Yearnin’ the money at public work.”

“You?” Shug snorted derisively. “Whare’ll you git any public work?”

“In Pruitt’s turkentime orchard. They’s a heap o’ the work I kin do. I could do scrapin’ er dippin’; reckin I could even do hackin’.”

Shug had slumped into the one comfortable chair in the room. Turning his head, he glared at his daughter.

“You air not goin’ to work in no turkentime orchard,” he rasped. “You air goin’ to stay right here an’ he’p yore pore maw an’ me. I told you oncet to shet up!”

It struck Selina Jo suddenly that life was, somehow, terribly one-sided and unfair. Other girls in the community, who didn’t work as hard as she did, were beginning to wear gingham dresses for Sunday. She thought bitterly that in return for her slaving she had received bed and board—nothing more. By everything that was right, she reasoned, she had earned at least one store-bought dress. Yet it was roughly denied her. Some of the thoughts which had been haunting her for months struggled for expression. Her soul cried out against what was a patent injustice. But she managed to speak calmly.

“Fer as I kin figger it out, Paw,” she said, “I been doin’ my sheer o’ keepin’ this here fambly up. I broke them last yoke o’ steers, an’ one of ’em you was afeared to tech. I’ve split rails an’ laid fences; I’ve broke new ground. An’ the fu’st time I ast fer anything you say I cain’t have it.”

She ceased speaking for a moment, but her steady gaze never left Shug’s face.

“Now, I’m goin’ to work fer Pruitt,” she continued slowly, “till I git me the money I need.”

Something must have occurred during Shug’s recent trip—probably a hurried flight from officers—to increase his normal perverseness. He had risen from his chair. Taking a heavy leather strap from the wall, he started toward Selina Jo.

“You air, huh?” Advancing, he fondled the strap suggestively. “You’ll git a larrupin’, that’s what!”

With the first evidence of her father’s intention, Selina Jo’s face had flushed a brick-red. Now it paled suddenly. She had not even been threatened with corporal punishment for years. Wild rebellion surged within her. A carving knife lay upon the rude deal table beside which she was standing. One slim, brown hand dropped down beside the knife. Her emotion visible only in the tumultuous heaving of her breast and the white, set expression of her face, she waited, motionless, her dark, sombre eyes gazing unwaveringly into Shug’s face.

“Paw,” she said evenly, “just you tech me oncet with that strop an’, as shore as God gives me stren’th, I’ll cut yore heart out.”

An innate coward, Shug recognized a danger sign when he saw it. The hand which held the strap dropped to his side. He backed slowly away.

“You ... you ...” he sputtered and stopped.

“You an’ Maw been sayin’,” Selina Jo continued, “that I’m tryin’ to be better ’n my raisin.’ But I ain’t forgot how them Briggs settlement folks looked at us slanchwise. ’Tweren’t ’cause we was p’izen pore, neither. They knowed, somehow, we was plumb low-down an’ ornery. That’s why they didn’t none of ’em ast us to a Sunday dinner. They seed we was trash. Course I’m honin’ to be better ’n that kind o’ raisin’—an’ I’m goin’ to, too!”

Shug had retreated to the doorway, where he stood watching this new daughter of his with furtive, fearful eyes. The meanest of petty tyrants, when he held the whip hand, doubtless he expected that Selina Jo would exhibit the same trait. There was nothing of the bully in the girl, though. Threatened with what she considered to be undeserved punishment, she had simply acted upon the dictates of her immature mind and had seized upon the only means at hand to escape it.

It was several moments before Shug mustered courage to speak. “Sence you air goin’ to do public work,” he whined presently, “’tain’t nothin’ but right you ort to pay fer yore bed an’ board.”

Selina Jo was glad to agree to this arrangement. When informed of it later, Marthy sullenly acquiesced. She would have to do the housework now, which was no more to her liking than the realization that Shug would permanently pocket the money for their daughter’s board.

It was the next day that Selina Jo sought out Lige Tuttle, woods foreman for Pruitt Brothers.

“I’m lookin’ fer a job,” she announced bluntly.

“Sorry,” Tuttle answered brusquely, “but all our cooks are niggers.”

“Cook?” was the scornful answer. “I ain’t astin’ to be no cook. I want shore ’nough work.”

Tuttle smiled patronizingly. “What can you do?’

“Scrapin’, dippin’, er hackin’,” was the confident answer.

“You?” Tuttle laughed softly. “Why, that’s a man’s work. It’s hard.”

“Any harder ’n breakin’ bull yearlin’s to the yoke? Er splittin’ rails an’ breakin’ new ground?”

“Mean to say you’ve done all that?”

“I most bardaceously have!”

Labour was scarce at the time. Tuttle considered the girl’s request carefully, asked a few more questions, and decided to take a chance.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“S’liny Jo.”

“What else?”

It was the first time Selina Jo had ever been asked her surname; she felt the blood rush to her face.

“What’s your last name?” Tuttle repeated.

The answer came almost inaudibly: “Hudsill.”

“Shug Hudsill’s young ’un?”

“How kin I he’p it?” the girl burst out passionately. “If you’d a been borned a Hudsill, you’d hatter be one, too!”

“Don’t get mad, child.” There was something in the spirit of this strange creature that Tuttle could not understand; but he respected it. “I wasn’t aimin’ to low-rate you none just because of your daddy. Come here to-morrow mornin’, an’ I’ll try you out.”

Selina Jo found that the work was hard. The dry, slippery pine needles underfoot made walking itself a task. She carried a heavy bucket into which she dipped the raw gum, emptying the bucket, when filled, into barrels scattered about the orchard. From sun-up till sunset, and later, she toiled; not once, though, did she grumble. She was too foolishly happy. What she was undergoing was the prelude to real existence, as she saw it. What better, she asked herself, could any strong, healthy girl desire than a steady job dipping turpentine for which she was paid real money?

Occasional passersby, strangers to the vicinity, amazed at seeing a girl engaged in such unusual work, would pause to ask friendly questions. The first flush of pleasure that this gave Selina Jo was quickly erased by the bitter after-tang of reflection: these people were kind because they did not know she was a Hudsill.

While with practice she developed skill, it was three months before she had saved the money she needed. The gingham dress had been laid aside for her. But her ambition had soared. A beautiful dress above a pair of bare legs and feet would never do. Then, too, since her only item of headgear was the sunbonnet which she wore every day, she would need, besides shoes and stockings, a hat.

The day came at last, though, when she could make her purchases. With her arms filled with bundles, she started out joyously on her three-mile walk home.

A half mile from the commissary she paused indecisively at a crossroads. The right-hand road, leading to Shoalwater River, meant the lengthening of her journey a full mile; but the river, with its promise of a cooling plunge, enticed her. As she stood hesitant, trying to decide, she observed a stranger approaching on horseback. She drew aside to let him pass, but he reined in his horse and hailed her.

“Evenin’, little sister! Live hereabouts?”

“Down the left-hand fork a piece.” Selina Jo bent her steady glance upon the stranger. “Who air you?”

“I’m Holmes—sheriff of the county.”

Instinctively the girl drew back. “What air you wantin’ o’ me? I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Lord bless you, little sister,” the sheriff laughed, “I’m not after you. Thought maybe as you live round here you might tell me something I want to know.”

It seemed that a murder had recently been committed in the bay-shore country ten miles distant. Circumstances pointed to the guilt of two men who had been arrested. Assuming that the murderers had passed through the Hudsill section en route to or from the scene of the crime, the sheriff was seeking evidence to prove this.

Strangers were enough of a rarity in the neighbourhood to be remembered easily. Selina Jo recalled two men who had passed that way whose description fitted those charged with the murder.

Sheriff Holmes was elated. “Would you like a trip to Eastview?” he asked.

“Eastview?” Selina Jo’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s town, ain’t it—whare the railroad trains is at?”

“Yes. We’ll want you there a week from to-day.” The sheriff filled in a blank subpœna and extended it to the girl. “Look me up in the courthouse soon as you get to town.”

Selina Jo’s breathless announcement that she was going to court created a flurry at home until Shug learned why she had been summoned. Then he breathed easily.

It was decided that she could use the oxen and wagon for the trip, as Eastview was twenty-five miles distant. This method of travel, being slow, would necessitate an early start on the day before the trial. When that day dawned, though, one of the oxen was found to be indisposed. Selina Jo assembled a lunch of corn pone and side meat, filled a small bottle with molasses, and, dressed in her new finery, set out on foot.

Within an hour the new shoes began to pinch. She took them off, tied them together by their strings and slung them over her shoulder. The stockings were rolled into balls and stuffed into her pockets.

Late in the afternoon she bathed her feet and legs in a brook just outside Eastview and donned shoes and stockings again.

It was dusk when she arrived at the sheriff’s office. An overflow crowd at the single hotel necessitated her staying with Sheriff Holmes’s family that night.

With the inborn timidity of the woods-bred girl, she remained there until summoned to court in the late forenoon of the following day. By the time her evidence was concluded, though, she had partially overcome her shyness, and was ready for sightseeing.

Wandering about the interior of the courthouse, she marvelled at the white plaster walls. Then she watched several people using the sanitary drinking fountain. Presently she found courage to try it herself. The technic she found to be rather difficult, but after she had mastered it she became a frequent patron.

Later, she ventured outside the courthouse.

Sheriff Holmes found her during the noon recess. She had commandeered a small goods box which she was using as a seat. Her enraptured gaze was fastened upon a scene across the street. Three large, two-story frame buildings, painted a dazzling white, stood upon a lot which occupied an entire block. Beneath the branches of huge water oaks, were scores of girls, dressed in white blouses and dark-blue skirts.

Sheriff Holmes smiled understandingly. “Like it?”

Selina Jo did not even turn her head. “Whose is them air li’l gals?” she asked breathlessly.

“The state’s—for the present,” was the answer.

“Who?”

“The state. That’s the reformatory for girls.”

It was plain that the remark conveyed no information to Selina Jo. “Do which?” she asked.

“When girls—young ones, like you—break the law,” the sheriff explained, “they bring them here to be reformed.”

“What’s re-formed?”

“Well ... it’s like this: before they let a girl go again, she has to prove that she’s been changed for the better.”

“Changed?” Selina Jo looked up with a quick indrawn breath. “They make ’em diffe’ent f’um what they was?”