The Complete Works. O. Henry

when the bugles are ranting

      It is to be iron and fire;

      Good to be oak in the foray,

      Ice to a guilty desire.

      But when the battle is over

      (Marvel and wonder the while)

      Give to a woman a woman’s

      Heart, and a child’s to a child.

A Lunar Episode

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      The scene was one of supernatural weirdness. Tall, fantastic mountains reared their seamed peaks over a dreary waste of igneous rock and burned-out lava beds. Deep lakes of black water stood motionless as glass under frowning, honey-combed crags, from which ever and anon dropped crumbled masses with a sullen plunge. Vegetation there was none. Bitter cold reigned and ridges of black and shapeless rocks cut the horizon on all sides. An extinct volcano loomed against a purple sky, black as night and old as the world.

      The firmament was studded with immense stars that shone with a wan and spectral light. Orion’s belt hung high above.

      Aldebaran faintly shone millions of miles away, and the earth gleamed like a new-risen moon with a lurid, blood-like glow.

      On a lofty mountain that hung toppling above an ink-black sea stood a dwelling built of stone. From its solitary window came a bright light that gleamed upon the misshapen rocks. The door opened and two men emerged locked in a deadly struggle.

      They swayed and twisted upon the edge of the precipice, now one gaining the advantage, now the other.

      Strong men they were, and stone rolled from their feet into the valley as each strove to overcome the other.

      At length one prevailed. He seized his opponent, and raising him high above his head, hurled him into space.

      The vanquished combatant shot through the air like a stone from a catapult in the direction of the luminous earth.

      “That’s three of ’em this week,” said the Man in the Moon as he lit a cigarette and turned back into the house. “Those New York interviewers are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer.”

Three Paragraphs

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      “COPY,” yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the bed began to move her fingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpane. Her eyes were bright with fever; her face, once beautiful, was thin and pain drawn. She was dying, but neither she nor the man who held her hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near.

      Three paragraphs were lacking to fill the column of humorous matter that the foreman had sent for. The small pay it brought them barely furnished shelter and food. Medicine was lacking but the need for that was nearly over.

      The woman’s mind was wandering; she spoke quickly and unceasingly, and the man bit his pencil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her slim, hot hand.

      “Oh, Jack; Jack, papa says no, I cannot go with you. Not love you! Jack, do you want to break my heart? Oh, look, look! the fields are like heaven, so filled with flowers. Why have you no ice? I had ice when I was at home. Can’t you give me just a little piece, my throat is burning?”

      The humourist wrote: “When a man puts a piece of ice down a girl’s back at a picnic, does he give her the cold shoulder?”

      The woman feverishly put back the loose masses of brown hair from her burning face.

      “Jack, Jack, I don’t want to die! Who is that climbing in the window?

      Oh, it’s only Jack, and here is Jack holding my hand, too. How funny! We are going to the river tonight. The quiet, broad, dark, whispering river. Hold my hand tight, Jack, I can feel the water coming in. It is so cold. How queer it seems to be dead, dead, and see the trees above you.

      The humourist wrote: “On the dead square — a cemetery lot.”

      “Copy, sir,” yelled the small boy again. “Forms locked in half an hour.”

      The man bit his pencil into splinters. The hand he held was growing cooler; surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now, a little crooning song she might have learned at her mother’s knee, and her fingers had ceased moving.

      “They told me,” she said weakly and sadly, “that hardships and suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can’t think. No, no, the white dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing, sailing, sailing, where does this river go? You are not Jack, you are too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister, let’s make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great black cloud above us — I’ll be better in the morning, Jack, if you’ll hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel as light as a feather — I’m just floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can’t feel your hand. Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her face. I must go to her, Jack. Mother, mother!

      The man wrote quickly:

      “A woman generally likes her husband’s motherin-law the best of all his relatives.”

      Then he sprang to the door, dashed the column of copy into the boy’s hand, and moved swiftly to the bed.

      He put his arm softly under the brown head that had suffered so much, but it turned heavily aside.

      The fever was gone. The humourist was alone.

Bulger’s Friend

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      It was rare sport for a certain element in the town when old Bulger joined the Salvation Army. Bulger was the town’s odd “character,” a shiftless, eccentric old man, and a natural foe to social conventions. He lived on the bank of a brook that bisected the town, in a wonderful hut of his own contriving, made of scrap lumber, clapboards, pieces of tin, canvas and corrugated iron.

      The most adventurous boys circled Bulger’s residence at a respectful distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with belligerent and gruff inhospitality.

      In return, the report was current that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.

      One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the peaceful militants of his order.

      Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus prominently-displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from the burning, at least a well-charred and sap-dried chunk.

      So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played “Sweet By and By” and “Only an Armor-Bearer” in unison upon their cornets. And never before in that town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always wofully unrhythmic.