Part 3

The short story has known better seasons, says a reader who, moved by indigestion and nausea, forswears the magazine tale of to-day as food unfit. The trouble with this reader lies partly in his having the world too much with him, late and soon. He finds no recreation in reading contemporary fictionists, or fiction about the present of which he is integrally a part. He believes he laments the Stockton and Bunner model; rather he laments the day of Stockton and Bunner. This nostalgia for the dear, dead days that are no more demands a superfiction, a glorification of the past. The demand is satisfied best by fictive biography, which has never known a better season. Because the satiated reader has no desire for short stories, he should condemn them all no more than one who has eaten too many clams condemns all clams.

Yet too many stories of to-day are like O. Henry’s clam shells “from which the succulent and vital inhabitants” have forever departed. A critical reader finds himself saying, “This tale was made on order from the editor,” or “So-and-so is writing under too great pressure; he is tired.” A disturbing fact is the absence of humour, for humour is the unfailing index to superabundance of vitality.

Among hopeful signs may be mentioned, first, a number of new writers appearing in the better as well as the humbler magazines; several are represented in this volume. Second, from what has been called the incoherent left side and the technically correct right side, a new form may be emerging; I suggest tentatively “The Mold,” by Clarice Blake (_Century_, May), and “Sooth,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper’s_, August). Third, the war story is slowly developing out of that emotion remembered in tranquillity which, on occasion, is as necessary to prose as to poetry. The period of recollection has produced good results, chiefly in the work of Thomas Beer, Thomas Boyd, Leonard Nason, and James Warner Bellah. Finally, a number of veterans are creating with undiminished vigour: Irvin S. Cobb, tales of the Tennessee River; Harris Dickson, reminiscences of Mississippi River gambling days; Booth Tarkington, adventures in the supernatural.

In the eight years of _O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories_, no reviewer of the annual collection--so far as I have discovered--has ever suggested a better story of a given year than those included between its covers. The fact is either gratifying or amusing; gratifying if the reviewer recognizes the selections as one of the best possible in the premises; amusing if the reviewer damns the whole lot--unless, to be sure, he damns all stories published in the period.

The Committee know what they demand in a story and read hundreds to salvage the comparatively few which best meet the demand. The first desideratum is a narrative constructed about characters in a struggle or complication having a definite outcome expressed or implied. Every story in this book satisfies this first test. In “Child of God” the struggle is Willie’s against the social order; the order crushes him, but by his death he wins; The Killers are out for their man and, though they fail this time, ultimately they will not fail; the Scarlet Woman is at odds with society; Jukes agonizes to escape from the sea--he never will escape; “Fear” is nothing less at bottom than the conflict in Paterson’s soul; on the surface it offers a display of spectacular conflicts between enemy planes; “Night Club” hints at a half-dozen conflicts (see page 84); “Singing Woman” relates the final stages in a lifelong rivalry; “He Man” instances a struggle with the sea and hunger; I have spoken of the struggle in “Done Got Over” as one between superstition and enlightenment; of that in “Shades of George Sand!” as one between the individual and environment; “With Glory and Honour” implies pretty strongly that Hal Levering conquered himself before he changed his ways; “Monkey Motions” reveals awkwardness and genius working to final expression; “Four Dreams” relates four vain efforts of Gram; Bulldog’s fights and his escape lead to his climactic rescue of the judge; “The Little Girl” symbolizes the helplessness of all childhood through the concrete instance of Patricia’s failure.

All writers and all critics are agreed upon other well-known desiderata, which neither the author nor the critic needs consciously to enumerate. Familiarity with the laws and limitations of the art is as necessary to judging fiction as insistence upon them is deplorable if such insistence means undervaluing a narrative that may smash all laws and succeed, it may so happen, because of the fact. He who follows an uncharted way may discover, or he may not discover, new lands.

That standards of reviewers differ may be illustrated by the following quotations drawn from reviewers of _O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories_, 1926:

“Miss Williams’s introduction | “The introduction is, it is of great interest, as it | must be said, an unpleasant takes us behind the scenes | piece of work ... in a style with the judges ... but still | whose lack of distinction is in the collection itself remains | marked contrast to the stories disappointing.”--Hartford | that follow.”--New York _Courant_, January 23, 1927. | _Sun_, January 18, 1927. | “Miss Williams in her introduction | “It is at least refreshing considers each | after the monotones of praise story with critical seriousness, | to which introducing editors and analyzes, and | have almost invariably praises, and compares, till | treated us; and even though one can’t help wondering | one may not always agree what she would say of a | with the specific comment Chekhov or a Maupassant.”--The | ... that fact need not detract _Saturday Review of | from one’s approval of this Literature_, May 28, 1927. | tempered, tentative editorial | attitude as constituting a | salutary and genuinely respectable | criticism.”--New | York _Herald-Tribune_, January | 30, 1927. | “If Wilbur Daniel Steele | “All competent readers had never written a better | will agree with the official story than ‘Bubbles’ he | judges as to the wisdom of would never have achieved | their first choice. ‘Bubbles’ the fame and popularity | is a profound, subtle, and which he not unjustly | highly finished piece of enjoys.”--Richmond (Va.) | work.”--New York _Sun_, January _News Leader_, January 17, | 18, 1927. 1927. | | “To me the story [Bubbles] | “Mr. Steele’s really stupendous is not convincing enough to | story, ‘Bubbles’--it be really successful. Despite | is difficult not to overdo deft craftsmanship the story | superlatives in writing of this fails to become important, | appalling little masterpiece and even its pattern is beautiful | ... is one of Mr. Steele’s artifice rather than art.”--The | supreme achievements.”--Hartford _Saturday Review of | _Courant_, January Literature_, May 28, 1927. | 23, 1927. | “Sherwood Anderson wins | “Of the stories in this the second prize with a story | book, that by Sherwood Anderson called ‘Death in the Woods’ | [Death in the Woods] in which he is at his | is the most important.”--New worst.”--Richmond _News | York _World_, January Leader_, January 17, 1927. | 19, 1927. | “‘Death in the Woods’ has | “Mr. Anderson’s story the curious distinction no | strikes the authentic Anderson story of Mr. Anderson’s could | note. He has seldom done lack, but would have hardly | anything more powerful made him the reputation he | within its limits and never so magnificently deserves.” | anything more characteristic.” --New York _Post_, February 5, | --New York _Sun_, January 1927. | 18, 1927. | The New York _Times_ reviewer | The order of the stories (January 23, 1927) remarks, | (see the table of contents for “The relegation of | the 1926 collection) is, after Mary Heaton Vorse’s story | the three prize stories, [The Madelaine] to the back | alphabetical by authors. of the book makes the reader | wonder if these authorities | on the short story ... really | know a story when they see | it.” |

CHILD OF GOD

BY ROARK BRADFORD

From _Harper’s_

When Willie told the preacher that morning that “ev’ything is all O.K., Revund,” he meant it from the bottom of his heart. The hawking of the rain crow from the limb of the dead cottonwood, sounded like the song of a mocking bird. The monotonous patter of rain on the tin roof lulled him into gentle restfulness. The damp, dirty stench that floated up from the dark closeness of the cells below him was like a sedative. Even the lyelike coffee served to remind him that the jailer was his friend.

“Cap’m Archie tole me I could have ev’ything I wanted fer brekfus,” he explained as he caught the minister sniffing and eyeing the scant remains of the meal. “An’ I tole him I b’lieve I’d take some po’k chops an’ cawfee, ef’n hit wuz all right. An’ hyar it is.”

“You mean dar hit wuz,” admonished the preacher. “Now yo’ flesh is fed, Willie, whut ’bout yo’ soul?”

Willie beamed a broad, knowing smile. “My soul,” he said tolerantly, “is all O.K. An’ Revund,” he continued jubilantly, “Cap’m Archie say he gonter bring me a ten-cent cigar to go walkin’ up de gallows wid in my mouf.” The minister’s face was a study in expression. “An’ I makes me a speech up yonder”--jerking his arm toward the gallows high in the roof of the jail--“an’ den----”

“Den which, son?” Preacher Moore was eager to find a point of contact at which he could begin his prepared message of consolation.

“I’se Glory bound!” Willie declared with enthusiasm.

* * * * *

While the condemned man talked and the preacher listened, the Great State of Louisiana prepared to exact its penalty in the form of the life of Willie Malone because “he did feloniously, wilfully, and of his deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, make an assault on one Thurston Gibbs, and a certain gun which then and there was loaded with gunpowder and buckshot and was by him, the said Willie Malone, had and held in both hands, he, the said Willie Malone, did then and there feloniously and of malice aforethought shoot off and discharge at and upon the said Thurston Gibbs thereby, and by thus striking the said Thurston Gibbs with the buckshots inflicting on and in the body one mortal wound of which said mortal wound the said Thurston Gibbs then and there instantly died. And so the said Willie Malone did in the manner and form aforesaid, feloniously and of deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, kill and murder the said Thurston Gibbs in the Parish of Wilton aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of the Great State of Louisiana.”

It all came out at the trial. Hogs had been running in Willie’s cornfield. The hogs belonged to Mr. Gibbs. And when Willie asked him to keep them home Mr. Gibbs had cursed him. Willie then bought a shotgun and some buckshot. Everybody agreed upon that much of it. Willie said he aimed to shoot the hogs and that when he heard something rustling the long blades he fired, thinking it was a hog. The district attorney pointed out that it was impossible to get a witness who could say what was in a man’s mind and, therefore, he’d leave it to the jury as to whether Willie was hog hunting or man hunting.

The jury was divided upon the point, but all agreed that no nigger had any right to shoot a white man’s hogs, anyway, much less shoot a white man. So they found him guilty as charged.

Willie had rather enjoyed his stay in jail. Two or three times his lawyer came and talked to him in a low voice and had him make his cross mark on many important-looking pieces of paper. It all gave him a feeling of importance hitherto not experienced.

He liked “Cap’m Archie,” too--Cap’m Archie was always making jokes, and didn’t make him do any work around the jail except a little sweeping. And during the long cool spring evenings, when the stars twinkled in the sky and the fiddling of the katydids out in the weed patch back of the jail floated in between the long iron-barred windows, Cap’m Archie would have one of the short-time prisoners drag his chair back to Willie’s own private cage and Willie would sing for him.

Willie did like to sing--church songs, mostly. But sometimes when he felt sad and lonesome he’d sing the one that began:

“Thirty days in jail, Baby, don’t soun’ so long, But de las’ frien’ I got in dis worl’, Done shuck her laig an’ gone.”

There were many verses, and to these Willie had added a hundred others. He was good at that. When they locked up that Caldonie for cutting her husband because he stole one of her hens and a chicken brood and gave it to another woman, Willie celebrated the occasion by adding:

“He might er stole yo’ chickens, He might er stole yo’ cow, Hit don’t make no diffunce what he stole, You’s in de jail-house now.”

Cap’m Archie had laughed at that one and it made Willie happy.

Not long after that Cap’m Archie sent for him to come to the office. Cap’m Archie looked sad that day, and it made Willie feel sad. So when Cap’m Archie told him the Supreme Court had turned him down and that he would have to hang Willie was much relieved.

“Shuh! Cap’m Archie,” Willie consoled, “dat ain’ nothin’ to go worryin’ ’bout. I thought hit mought er been somethin’ wrong, de way you had yo’ face strung out. Shuh! Ain’ dat de same as de jedge done tole me?”

That afternoon Reverend Moore, Negro preacher, was ushered into Willie’s cell, and under his exhortations Willie was converted. He had been converted annually ever since he could remember but he always had been too busy to follow it up. This time he had ample leisure in which to contemplate Christianity and draw mental pictures of it. Willie was keenly interested.

The preacher had spared no detail his imagination could supply as to the glories of heaven, and these Willie supplemented with the colourful pigments of his own imagination. Heaven was a wonderful place. Willie wanted to go there.

“Hyar dey comes, son,” the preacher said kindly. “Git up off’n yo’ knees.”

Cap’m Archie unlocked the cage door with keys that rattled nervously in his hand. Behind the jailer were half a dozen others--the doctor, two brothers of the man he had killed, the editor of the _Wilton Parish Gazette_, and a short, stubby, mean-looking man that Willie disliked instinctively. He had never seen him before, and the pale-green, watery eyes that squinted out at him through shaggy eyelashes made Willie feel bad. “I loves him too,” Willie insisted under his breath. “Got ter love him. ‘Makes me love ev’ybody--hit’s good ernuff fer me’”--Willie recalled the words from the old song. “An’ I guess he is somebody. But I be dog ef’n he looks like much, Ole Green Eyes.”

“Ready to go, Willie?” It was Cap’m Archie. His voice was kind and filled with sorrow. Willie hated to see Cap’m Archie like that. But when the jailer’s teeth clicked together and he said briskly, “Here, slip your hands into these,” it did not sound so sad, and Willie obeyed with alacrity.

“I bet you fergits my cigar, Cap’m Archie,” Willie countered as his arms were being pinioned behind him.

“Cut out that damned foolishness! Come on here, nigger. I ain’t got all day to fool.” It was the stubby little man who assumed charge.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie hummed desperately under his breath. “Hit’s good ernuff for me.”

“Good ernuff fer anybody,” seconded the preacher loudly, happy that he had found some place to enter into the ceremony with the dignity of his calling. “Hit’s de ole time religion, and hit’s good ernuff fer me!”

As the party marched up the narrow steps to the gallows, the Negro prisoners on the lower tier of cells caught up the refrain and the brick walls of the little jail reverberated with:

“Gimme dat ole time religion, Gimme dat ole time religion, Gimme dat ole time religion, Lawd, Hit’s good ernuff fer me.

“Hit will take you home to Glory, Hit will take you home to Glory, Hit will take you home to Glory, Lawd, Hit’s good ernuff fer me.”

The climb to the gallows took a remarkably short time and Willie noticed that as soon as they arrived there “Ole Green Eyes” rushed to the rope that was lying handy and began making a loop in the end of it.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie insisted.

Everybody seemed nervous. Cap’m Archie couldn’t look at him. The editor was talking with big words to the elder of the Gibbses and said something about “dancing on the air.” Willie didn’t understand it but he knew he wasn’t going to dance on anything. Dancing would send him straight to hell. He had the preacher’s word for it.

He edged over toward Cap’m Archie.

“When does I make my speech, Cap’m Archie?” he asked.

The jailer did not look up. “In a minute,” he replied. “When you are ready to--when they stand you over there.” He pointed to the trapdoor with his foot.

“Come over here, nigger.” It was “Ole Green Eyes” again. Willie stood on the trapdoor.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” he kept repeating as the knot was being drawn close to his ear. “Makes me love ev’ybody.”

When the knot was finished the little stubby man slipped a black hood over Willie’s head and stepped back. A jaybird on a dead limb of the cottonwood broke out in a scathing chatter of malediction at the crow. A dog howled mournfully in the jail yard below. The katydids in the weed patch opened with a wild symphony of fiddling. “Somethin’ ’bout to happen,” Willie concluded. “I guess I better make my speech.”

He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin as though about to address a large congregation.

“Folkses,” he began in a clear, strong voice, “I has a few words I wants to say to y’all----”

“Too late now, nigger.” It was that stubby little man. And even as the trap gave way under his feet Willie began:

“Makes me love ev’ybody.”

* * * * *

Willie did not finish that line, however. He was interrupted in the midst of it by a long blast on a horn. It was a loud, thundering blast and it startled him. He looked into the direction from which it came and there, charging down the road, he saw four prancing horses drawing a snow-white chariot. It was a beautiful sight. He had seen some such rig the time when he went to the circus at Baton Rouge. But this rig was even prettier than the circus carriages. Big white plumes bobbed from the crown-pieces of the bridles, and the horses pranced and danced along, raising a terrible dust.

“Great day!” he exclaimed. “Class sho’ is comin’ down de road to-day.”

In a minute the carriage was in front of him, and with much suddenness it came to a halt, the horses falling back on their haunches to check the momentum.

“Git up hyar, boy, an’ le’s git goin’,” the driver called down. “Us is late, as it is or--else you is early.”

Willie scrambled to the seat beside the driver. As the horses raced onward he enjoyed the thrill of the speedy ride, the wind rushing by his ears, the sparkle of the gold and silver harness, the dexterity with which the driver held the horses in the road with one hand and cracked the whip over their heads with the other.

“You drives right well, boy,” he observed. “What’s yo’ name?”

“Jehu,” replied the driver.

“Jehu-which?”

“Jest Jehu,” replied the driver.

“Who dat boy wid de hawn in his han’?”

“Gab’l.”

The monosyllabic replies of his companion irritated Willie. He wanted conversation and he intended to have it.

“How long you been----” he began, but suddenly Gabriel raised his trumpet to his lips and blew a deafening blast which almost lifted Willie from his seat.

“Hol’ tight,” cautioned Jehu, and the chariot stopped suddenly.

Willie saw an old man in a black slouch hat and cutaway coat, walking very alertly toward the carriage. His face was cleanly shaven except for a moustache and goatee which gave him a distinguished appearance. Willie instinctively knew that this quality-gentleman was going to ride on the plush seats inside, so he leaped down and opened the door of the carriage. The old man halted a few paces from him and cast a surveying glance at the horses.

“That checkrein is too tight on that off-lead horse,” he said. “It is a pity that I have to ’tend to these trifles, but damn it all, I can’t stand to see fine horseflesh suffer on account of triflin’ niggers.”

Willie quickly ran and lowered the checkrein and climbed back to his seat.

“You oughter know better’n to check up dat hoss so high,” he admonished Jehu with a proprietary air. “Us likes our hosses to have a heap er room.”

Jehu did not reply. He held steadily to the reins, and the carriage fairly flew through the misty haze. Willie wanted to ask for the reins himself. He felt he could drive much more to his own satisfaction but, withal, he admitted, Jehu was doing very well. A minute later, however, when the lead horse bolted just as they approached a long bridge, and Jehu prevented a crash by expert manœuvring of the reins, Willie was glad he was not driving.

“Does dat ev’y time at the bridge,” Jehu volunteered as the team settled down to a long gallop across the structure. “Lots er times us misses an’ de folks in de chariot gits drownded tryin’ to cross Jurdan.”

“Dat de Jurdan, huh?” asked Willie. “I be dog,” and he gripped tightly to the seat.

The chariot rolled off the bridge and up to the front of a white pearly gate where it stopped. Willie dropped confidently to the ground, opened the chariot door, and assisted the distinguished old passenger to alight. St. Peter swung the big gate open.

“Welcome, Colonel,” he said. “It gives me great pleasure to greet you personally after having known you indirectly for these many years. She’s waiting for you under the crêpe myrtles. Cherub, escort the Colonel to Miss Julia.”

Willie thought that was great, and he was thrilled almost to ecstasy when the old gentleman gave him a curt nod in recognition of his service.

As soon as the old man had disappeared behind the cherub, St. Peter dropped his air of formality.

“Well, well,” he said, “if it ain’t that worthless Willie Malone. Willie, how’d you git here, son?”

That was language Willie could understand and appreciate.

“St. Peter,” he replied, “I jes’ got on de chariot an’ rid up hyar.”

“Well,” said St. Peter, “I guess you better try on a pair of wings, then. Here, Cherub. Bring out a pair of wings for old Willie Malone.”

St. Peter helped the cherub adjust the wings.

“Now you’re fixed, son,” he announced. “Fly away!”

And Willie flew. He flew among the golden clouds and down long narrow golden streets. He flew over mansions of gold and sparkling rivers. High into the air and close to the ground he flew. He tried a few fancy turns, such as he had seen birds perform among the chinaberry trees. He dived at the surface of the water and grabbed at the golden fish and then climbed again by lusty flaps of his wings, as pelicans do. And he did it perfectly.

“Doggone my hide,” he exclaimed, “dis is somethin’ like!”