Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

convey his bulk to the cantina at the corner of the plaza in order to assuage his matutinal thirst. The first plunge of his unshod foot into the cool grass struck a concealed mine. Don Ildefonso fell like a crumbled cathedral, crying out that he had been fatally bitten by a deadly scorpion. Everywhere were the shoeless citizens hopping, stumbling, limping, and picking from their feet the venemous insects that had come in a single night to harass them.

The first to perceive the remedy was Simon Benavides, the barber, a man of travel and education. Sitting upon a stone, he plucked burrs from his toes, and made oration:

“Behold, my friends, these bugs of the devil! I know them well. They soar through the skies in swarms like pigeons. These are dead ones that fell during the night. In Yucatan I have seen them as large as oranges. No! There they hiss like serpents, and have wings like bats. It is the shoes⁠—the shoes that one needs! Zapatos⁠—zapatos por mi!”

Simon hobbled to Mr. Hemstetter’s store and bought shoes. Coming out, he swaggered with impunity down the street. Men, women, and children took up the cry, “Zapatos!” That day Mr. Hemstetter sold 300 pairs of shoes.

Each night Johnny and Keogh sowed the crop that grew dollars by day. At the end of ten days, two-thirds of the stock of shoes were sold, and the store of cockleburrs were exhausted. Johnny cabled to Pink Dawson for another 500 pounds, paying twenty cents, as before.

One night Johnny took Rosine under a mango-tree and confessed everything. Then he repeated a question he had asked her once before, and wound up with a masterly “Now, what are you going to do about it?”

Rosine looked him in the eye and said: “You are a very wicked man. What am I going to do about it? How can I do anything? I have always understood that it took a minister to attend to the matter properly.”

Johnny bolted down the street, and routed out Keogh and a malarial Methodist minister who had a chapel in a lemon-grove. They all went to Henschel’s, and Johnny and Rosine were married, while Mrs. Henschel wept miserably with joy. Then Johnny went down to the store and addressed Mr. Hemstetter as “father-in-law,” and also confessed to him. Mr. Hemstetter put on his spectacles and said: “You strike me as being a most extraordinary young scamp. Now, what about the rest of the stock of shoes?”

When the second invoice of cockleburrs came in Johnny loaded them and the remainder of the shoes into a sloop and sailed down to Carrizo, a town twelve miles below. There he repeated the Vibora success, and came back with a bag of money and not so much as a shoestring.

As soon as Johnny could get the department to accept his resignation he left for the States with his happy bride and Mr. Hemstetter, who was inclined to attribute the success of the shoe enterprise to his own business sagacity. Keogh was appointed consul pro tempore.

Four days after Johnny’s departure a three-masted schooner tacked into the harbor, and a sunburnt young man with a shrewd eye was rowed ashore. He inquired the way to the consul’s office, and got him thither at a nervous gait.

Keogh was drawing a caricature of Uncle Sam on a pad of official letterheads. He looked up at his visitor.

“Where’s Johnny Atwood?” asked the sunburnt young man, in a business tone of voice.

“Gone,” said Keogh, working carefully at Uncle Sam’s goatee.

“Just like him,” said the nut-brown one. “Always gallivanting around instead of ’tending to business.”

“I’m looking after the business, just now,” remarked Keogh, making large stars on his Uncle’s vest.

“Are you⁠—then, say!⁠—I’ve got a whole load of them things in the basement of that ship out in that pond. I’ve got four tons and a half! Where’s the factory?”

“What things? What factory?” asked the new consul, with mild interest.

“Why, them cockleburrs,” said the visitor. “You know. Where’s the factory where you use ’em? I’ll give you a bargain in this lot. I’ve had everybody for ten miles around picking ’em for a month. I hired this ship to bring ’em over in. Fifteen cents a pound takes the load. Shall I drive the ship in and hitch?”

A look of supreme, almost incredulous delight dawned in Keogh’s ruddy countenance. He dropped his pencil. His eyes gloated upon his visitor. He trembled lest this great joy he felt was approaching should turn into a dream.

“For God’s sake, tell me,” said Keogh, earnestly, “are you Dink Pawson?”

“My name is Pink Dawson,” said the cornerer of the burr market.

Billy Keogh slid gently from his chair to his favorite strip of matting on the floor.

There were not many sounds in Vibora on that sultry afternoon. Of such that were may be mentioned a noise of unrighteous laughter from an Irish-American, while a sunburnt young man with a shrewd eye looked upon him with amazement. Also the “tramp, tramp” of many well-shod feet in the main street outside. Also the lonesome wash of the waves that beat along the shores of the Spanish Main.

The Proem By the Carpenter

They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he carried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered.

For a real, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Someone has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:

Ramon Angel de las Cruzes

Y miraflores

Presidente de la Republica

de Anchuria

Que Sea su Juez Dios

It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man