2,454 words
Jeff Peters as a
Personal Magnet
Jeff Peters has been engaged in as many schemes for making money as there are recipes
for cooking rice in Charleston, S. C.
Best of all I like to hear him tell of his earlier days when he sold liniments and
cough cures on street corners, living hand to mouth, heart to heart with the people,
throwing heads or tails with fortune for his last coin.
"I struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw," said he, "in buckskin suit, moccasins,
long hair and a thirty-carat diamond ring that I got from an actor
in Texarkana. I don't know what he ever did with the pocket knife I swapped him for it.
"I was Dr. Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian medicine man. I carried only one best
bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It was made of life-giving plants and
herbs accidentally discovered by Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choctaw
Nation, while gathering truck to garnish a platter of boiled dog for the annual corn
dance.
Business hadn't been good at the last town, so I only had five dollars. I went to the
Fisher Hill druggist and he credited me for a half gross of eight ounce bottles and corks.
I had the labels and ingredients in my valise, left over from the last town. Life began to
look rosy again after I got in my hotel room with the water running from the tap, and the
Resurrection Bitters lining up on the table by the dozen.
"Fake? No, sir. There was two dollars' worth of fluid extract of cinchona and a
dime's worth of aniline in that half-gross of bitters. I've gone through towns years
afterwards and had folks ask for em again.
"I hired a wagon that night and commenced selling the bitters on Main Street.
Fisher Hill was a low, malarial town; and a compound hypothetical pneumo-cardiac
anti-scorbutic tonic was just what I diagnosed the crowd as needing. The bitters started
off like sweet breads-on-toast at a vegetarian dinner. I had sold two dozen at fifty cents
apiece when I felt somebody pull my coat tail. I knew what that meant; so I climbed down
and sneaked a five-dollar bill into the
nd of a man with a German silver star on his
lapel.
" 'Constable,' says I, 'it's a fine night.'
" 'Have you got a city license,' he asked, 'to sell this illegitimate essence of
spooju that you flatter by the name of medicine?'
" 'I have not,' says I. 'I didn't know you had a city. If I can
find it tomorrow I'll take one out if it's necessary.'
" 'I'll have to close you up till you do,' says the constable.
"I quit selling and went back to the hotel. I was talking to the
landlord about it.
"'Oh, you won't stand no show in Fisher Hill,' says he. 'Dr.
Hoskins, the only doctor here, is a brother-in-law of the Mayor, and they won't allow no
fake doctors to practice in town.'
"'I don't practice medicine,' says I, 'I've got a State peddler's
license, and I take out a city one wherever they demand it.'
"I went to the Mayor's office the next moning and they told me he hadn't showed up
yet. They didn't know when he'd be down. So Doc Waugh-hoo hunches down again in a hotel
chair and lights a jimpson -weed regalia, and we waits.
"By and by a young man in a blue necktie slips into the chair next to me and asks
the time.
" 'Half-past ten' says I, 'and you are Andy Tucker. I've seen you work. Wasn't it
you that put up the Great Cupid Combination package on the Southern States? Let's see, it
was a Chilian diamond engagement ring, a wedding ring, a potato masher, a bottle of
soothing syrup and Dorothy Vernonall for fifty cents.'
"Andy was pleased to hear that I membered him. He was a good street man; and he
was more than thathe respected his profession, and he was satisfied with 300 per
cent profit. He had plenty of offers to go into the illegitimate drug and garden seed
business; but he was never to be tempted off of the straight path.
"I wanted a partner, so Andy and me agreed to go out together. I told him about
the situation on Fisher Hill and how finances was low on account of the local mixture of
politics and jalap. Andy had just got in on the train that morning. He was pretty low
himself, and was going to canvass the town for a few dollars to build a new battleship by
popular subscription at Eureka Springs. So we went out and sat on the porch and talked it
over.
"The next morning at eleven o'clock when I was sitting there alone, an Uncle Tom
shuffles into the hotel and asked for the doctor to come and see Judge Banks, who, it
seems, was the mayor and a mighty sick man.
" 'I'm no doctor,' says I. 'Why don't you go and get the doctor?'
" 'Boss,' says he. 'Doe Hoskin am done gone twenty miles in the
country to see some sick persons. He's de only doctor in de town, and Massa Banks am
powerful bad off. He sent me to ax you to please, Suh, come.'
'As man to man,' says I, 'I'll go and look him over.' So I put a bottle
of Resurrection Bitters in my pocket and goes up on the hill to the mayor's mansion, the
finest house in town, with a mansard roof and two cast-iron dogs on the lawn.
"This Mayor Banks was in bed all but his whiskers and feet. He was
making internal noises that would have had everybody in San Francisco hiking for the
parks. A young man was standing by the bed holding a cup of water.
" 'Doc,' says the Mayor. 'I'm awful sick. I'm about to die. Can't you do nothing
for me?'
" 'Mr. Mayor,' says 1, 'I'm not a regular preordained disciple of S. Q. Lapins, I
never took a course in a medical college,' says I. 'I've just come as a fellow man to see
if I could be of any assistance.'
"'I'm deeply obliged,' says he. 'Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, Mr. Biddle. He
has tried to alleviate my distress, but without success. Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow!!' he sings
out.
"I nods at Mr. Biddle and sets down by the bed and feels the mayor's pulse. 'Let
me see your liver your tongue, I mean,' says I. Then I turns up the lids of his eyes
and looks close at the pupils of 'em.
'How long have you been sick?' I asked.
"'I was taken downow-ouchlast night,' says the Mayor. 'Gimme something
for it, Doc, won't you?'
" 'Mr. Fiddle,' says I, 'raise the window shade a bit, will you?'
" 'Biddle,' says the young man. 'Do you feel like you could eat some ham and eggs,
Uncle James?'
" 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade and
listening, 'you've got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the right clavicle of the
harpsichord!'
" 'Good Lord!' says he, with a groan. 'Can't you rub something on it, or set it or
anything?'
"I picks up my hat and starts for the door.
" 'You ain't going, Doc?' says the Mayor with a howl. 'You ain't going away and
leave me to die with thissuperfluity of the clapboards, are you?'
" 'Common humanity, Dr. Whoa-ha,' says Mr. Biddle, 'ought to prevent your
deserting a fellow-human in distress.'
" 'Dr. Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,' says I. And then I walks back to
the bed and throws back my long hair.
" 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do you no good.
But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are high enough,' says I.
" 'And what is that?' says he.
" 'Scientific demonstrations,' says I. 'The triumph of mind over sarsaparilla. The
belief that there is no pain and sickness except what is produced when we ain't feeling
well. Declare yourself in arrears. Demonstrate.'
" 'What is this paraphernalia you speak of, Doc?' says the Mayor. 'You ain't a
Socialist, are you?'
"'I am speaking,' says 1, 'of the great doctrine of psychic
financieringof the enlightened school of long-distance, subconscientious treatment
of fallacies and meningitisof that wonderful in-door sport known as personal
magnetism.'
" 'Can you work it, Doc?' asks the Mayor.
" 'I'm one of the Sole Sanhedrims and Ostensible Hooplas of the Inner Pulpit,'
says I. 'The lame talk and the blind rubber whenever I make a pass at 'em. I am a medium,
a coloratura hypnotist and a spirituous control. It was only through me at the recent
seances at Ann Arbor that the last president of the Vinegar Bitters Company I could
revisit the earth to communicate with his sister Jane. You see me peddling medicine on the
streets,' says I, 'to the poor. I don't practice personal magnetism on them. I do not drag
it in the dust,' says 1, 'because they haven't got the dust.'
" 'Will you treat my case?' asks the Mayor.
" 'Listen,' says 1. 'I've had a good deal of trouble with medical
societies everywhere I've been. I don't practice medicine. But, to save your life, I'll
give you the psychic treatment if you'll agree as mayor not to push the license
question.'"
"'Of course I will,' says he. 'And now get to work, Doc, for them pains are coming
on again.'
" 'My fee will be $250.00, cure guaranteed in two treatments,'
says I.
" 'All right,' says the Mayor. 'I'll pay it. I guess my life's
worth that much.'
"I sat down by the bed and looked him straight in the eye.
" 'Now,' says I, 'get your mind off the disease. You ain't sick.
You haven't got a heart or a clavicle or a funny bone or brains or anything. You haven't
got any pain. Declare error. Now you feel the pain that you didn't have leaving,
don't you?'
" 'I do feel some little better, Doc,' says the Mayor, 'darned if I don't. Now
state a few lines about my not having this swelling in my left side, and I think I could
be propped up and have some sausage and buckwheat cakes.'
"I made a few passes with my hands.
" 'Now,' says I, 'the inflammation's gone. The right lobe of the
perihelion has subsided. You're getting sleepy. You can't hold your eyes open any longer.
For the present the disease is checked. Now, you are asleep.'
"The Mayor shut his eyes slowly and began to snore.
"'You observe, Mr. Tiddle,' says 1, 'the wonder of modern science.'
" 'Biddle,' says he. 'When will you give uncle the rest of the treatment, Dr.
Pooh-pooh?'
" 'Waugh-hoo,'says I. 'I'll come back at eleven to-morrow. When he wakes up give
him eight drops of turpentine and three pounds of steak. Good morning.'
"The next morning I went back on time. 'Well, Mr. Riddle,' says I, when he opened
the bedroom door, 'and how is uncle this morning;'
He seems much better,' says the young man.
"The Mayor's color and pulse was fine. I gave him another treatment, and he said
the last of the pain left him
" 'Now,' says I, 'you'd better stay in bed for a day or two, and you'll be all
right. It's a good thing I happened to be in Fisher Hill, Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'for all the
remedies in the cornucopia that the regular schools of medicine use couldn't have saved
you. And now that error has flew and pain proved a perjurer, let's allude to a cheerfuller
subjectsay the fee of $250. No checks, please, I hate to write name on the back of a
check almost as bad as I do on the front.'
" 'I've got the cash here,' says the Mayor, pulling a pocket book from under his
pillow.
"He counts out five fifty-dollar notes and holds 'em in his hand.
" 'Bring the receipt,' he says to Biddle.
"I signed the receipt and the Mayor handed me the money. I put it in my inside
pocket careful.
'Now do your duty, officer,' says the Mayor, grinning much unlike a sick man.
"Mr. Biddle lays his hand on my arm.
'You're under arrest, Dr. Waugh-hoo, alias Peters,' says he, 'for practicing medicine
without authority under the State law.'
" 'Who are you?' I asks.
" 'I'll tell you who he is,' says the Mayor, sitting up in bed. 'He's a detective
employed by the State Medical Society. He's been following you over five counties. He came
to me yesterday and we fixed up this scheme to catch you. I guess you won't do any more
doctoring around these parts, Mr. Fakir. What was it you said I had, Doc?' the Mayor
laughs, 'compoundwell it wasn't softening of the brain, I guess, anyway.'
" 'A detective,' says I
'Correct,' says Biddle. 'I'll have to turn you over to the sheriff.'
" 'Let's see you do it,' says I, and I grabs Biddle by the throat and half throws
him out the window, but he pulls a gun and sticks it under my chin, and I stand still.
Then he puts handcuffs on me, and takes the money out of my pocket.
"I witness," says he, 'that they're the same bills that you and I
marked, Judge Banks. I'll turn them over to the sheriff when we get to his office,
and he'll send you a receipt. They'll have to be used as evidence in the case.'
"'All right, Mr. Biddle,' says the Mayor. 'And now, Doc Waugh-hoo,' he goes on,
'why don't you demonstrate? Can't you pull the cork out of your magnetism with your teeth
and hocus-pocus them handcuffs off?'
"'Come on, officer,' says I, dignified. 'I may as well make the best of it.' And
then I turns to old Banks and rattles my chains.
" 'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'the time will come soon when you'll believe that personal
magnetism is a success. And you'll be sure that it succeeded in this case, too.'
"And I guess it did.
"When we got nearly to the gate, I says: 'We might meet somebody now, Andy. I
reckon you better take 'em off, and --------' Hey? Why, of course it was Andy Tucker. That
was his scheme; and that's how we got the capital to go into business together." :
-------- E N D --------
|
|
Commentary
The Unevenness" in O.Henrys Writing
The most serious charge leveled at O.Henry,
especially by his latter-day critics and evaluators, is the lack of creative consistency
in his writings. A favorite and oft-repeated descriptive phrase, one way or another,
complains of the uneven craftsmanship between both genres and individual
stories. And, while the criticism is obviously justified, the discerning reader will
quickly come to understand that it could hardly be otherwise.
It should never be forgotten that Bill Porters primary occupation was that of a
newspaper reporter. In turn, newspaper reporters are not the diamond-cutters of linguistic
care and caution. They don't have time, but they do the best they can between a six
o'clock "bulldog" edition and a seven-thirty "extra".
Throughout much of his brief professional life, his essential work was fulfilling the
rigorous demands of a General Assignment reporter. For people with even the
most limited appreciation for the demands of big-city news reporting, it will not be
necessary to underscore the fact that this is a full-time occupation. Worse, it is
characterized by irregular hours, emergencies, unscheduled interruptions, breaking stories
that must be covered immediately, during which time everything else must wait;
at times seemingly including the functions of life itself.
In view of this fact, Bill Porters short-stories were largely extra-curricular;
moonlighting at the end of long and, we may safely assume, arduously demanding
days (or nights) chasing metropolitan news assignments. Needless to say, this is not an
arrangement that is likely to produce the most consistently careful narrative structuring
and optimally, painstakingly, polished prose.
Writers of books, essays, fiction, poetry and other presumably scholarly
materials, almost invariably enjoy a luxury that was hardly ever available to Bill Porter.
That crucial element in the creative process was - and is - time.
Time to plan the story-line, refine the plot, define the characters, fine-tune
narration, setting and - especially - arrange the ultimate denouement, which in the case
of Porter, has long been labeled his trade-mark surprise endings.
Writing a short-story, arguably the most difficult and technically complex assignment
in letters, is not to be compared with turning out a matter-of-fact narrative account of a
hotel fire, a natural disaster, or a bank robbery. Each news happening offers its own
chain of events, leaving it up to the reporter to catch hold of this story
string and set forth the sequence of events for basic edification of the
reader, with a minimum of gratuitous editorial embellishment.
As Sergeant Friday regularly put it, "Just the facts, Maam!"
On the other hand, a work of fiction is pure invention. Plot, physical setting,
characters, story-line progression, conflicts ebbing and flowing, confrontations and
crisis resolution, leading to what some literary analysts prefer calling the
climax, must all be created in the writers mind. Then meticulously
structured and sequentially arranged within the lean narrative framework. And finally put
down on paper.
Moreover, and this is where the rub comes, as anyone who has tried his hand
at the short-story format already knows. A short story in the O.Henry genre must
meet the Aristotlean requirements of a beginning, a middle and an end within
the space of some three- to four-thousand words. Such a space stricture leaves little
latitude for either lazy narrative inexactitudes or indulgently excessive verbosity.
Accomplishing this kind of literary trick is somewhat comparable to engraving the
Lords Prayer on the head of the proverbial pin.
That some of O.Henrys output failed to measure up to the full expectations of
nit-picking literary critics who are clearly inexperienced in, and unmindful of the
demanding professional requirements he had to live with day after day, should come as no
surprise to anyone. Rather, the most remarkable fact of O.Henrys story writing is
that, even under the cudgels of daily deadlines and too few hours in those days, so much
of his output is so very, very good!
Once Porters publishers at the "World" newspaper learned that his
stories were attracting a large and loyal claque of readers, it was a short step to making
a story from the agile mind of "The Caliph of Baghdad by the Subway" a regular
feature. Easier said than done! To bring this feat off, Bill Porter still had to work
against the same unyielding dead-lines that proscribed the time limitations of the
beat reporters who were covering fires, political news and high-societys
endless succession of debuts, weddings, and garden parties.
His demonstrated ability to sustain his prodigious level of creativity, professional
quality, and semantic skill under such pressures has to have taken almost superhuman
efforts during his spurts of protean creativity.
The unadorned numbers speak for themselves: Over a period of some eight years, by hook
or by crook, 282 of the approximately 300 lifetime total O.Henry stories, appeared in
print. Reduced to plain arithmetic averages, this would indicate a new story about every
ten days. Think about that!
Any writer I know would cringe at such a prospect. But Porter didnt "get up
each morning and bite the nail", as Ernest Hemingway so eloquently put it. Bill
Porter spent periods working like a man possessed, interspersed by what he called
dry spells, during which he wrote little or nothing.
In retrospect, even the least charitable among us must credit this constant stress and
pressure for an endless stream of stories with playing an important role in William Sydney
Porters tragic and untimely death. Most self-anointed authorities on the O.Henry
topic charge his early death to a simplistic combination of alcoholism and pneumonia.
Without doubt those notorious executioners played leading roles in his demise. However,
this observer will make bold to add overwork to the fatal mix - and for
evidence, allow the Bill lPorter production numbers to stand alone in underpinning the
contention.
The only other novelist who (in this writers opinion) was forced to carry a
somewhat comparable production burden, was Honore de Balzac. Like O.Henry, Balzacs
articles, some of which later became elements in his much celebrated "Human
Comedy" became an almost unparalleled circulation "bait" in French
newspapers.
The very popularity of Balzacs output 'in the Paris streets', like
O.Henrys short-stories, that captivated New York, ultimately played a large role in
breaking Balzacs health and then killing him. Without doubt, it was the demands of
meeting impossibly overwhelming work-loads that sent Balzac to an early grave
at age 51, and dropped a 30-dash to end the life of William Sydney Porter, at a relatively
youthful 48.
Its a sad reality that the insatiable appetites for new materials on the part of
newspapers, television, radio, magazines and book publishers, often foreclose the
opportunity to write quality work, in favor of turning out mere quantity.
In a milieu in which the deadline rules supreme, and the closing
date is immutable, the writing art - perforce - must conform to the unyielding
commercial timetable.
-- And the world of Belles Lettres suffers accordingly.
Lorenzo Dee Belveal
|