Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

her. I gave it to her, she read it, flushed and was inclined to be angry.

“ ‘Try it, madam,’ I said.

“She agreed to do so, and only yesterday I saw her on the street, walking as gracefully and easily as any lady in the city.”

“What was your prescription?” asked the reporter.

“It was simply to wear a pair of bloomers,” said the young physician. “You see by separating the opposing factions harmony was restored. The Adams and the Redmond divisions no longer clashed, and the cure of the patient was complete. Let me see,” continued the physician, “it is nearly half past seven, and I have an engagement to call upon her at eight. In confidence, I may say that she has consented to change her name to mine at an early date. I would not have you repeat what I have told you, of course.”

“To be sure, I will not,” said the reporter. “But won’t you take another lemo⁠—”

“No, no, thank you,” said the doctor, rising hurriedly, “I must go. Good evening. I will see you again in a few days.”

How Willie Saved Father

Willie Flint was a little Houston boy, six years of age. He was a beautiful child, with long golden curls and wondering, innocent blue eyes. His father was a respectable, sober citizen, who owned four or five large business buildings on Main Street. All day long Mr. Flint toiled among his renters, collecting what was due him, patching up broken window panes, nailing down loose boards and repairing places where the plastering had fallen off. At noon he would sit down upon the stairs of one of his buildings and eat the frugal dinner he had brought, wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and think about the hard times. Gay and elegantly attired clerks and business men would pass up and down the stairs, but Mr. Flint did not envy them. He lived in a little cottage near the large trash pile known as “Tomato Can Heights,” on one of the principal residence streets of Houston. He was perfectly contented to live there with his wife and little boy Willie, and eat his frugal but wholesome fare and draw his $1,400 per month rent for his buildings. He was industrious and temperate, and hardly a day passed that he did not raise the rent of some of his offices, and lay by a few more dollars for a rainy day.

One night Mr. Flint came home ill. He had been pasting up some cheap green wall paper on an empty stomach, or rather on the wall of one of his stores without eating, and it had not agreed with him. He went to bed flushed with fever, muttering: “God help my poor wife and child! What will become of them now?”

Mr. Flint sent Willie to the other side of the room and drew a roll of greenbacks from under his pillow.

“Take this,” he said to his wife, “to the bank and deposit it. There is only $900 there. Some of my renters have not paid me yet, and five of them want awnings put up at the windows. He who sent the ravens to feed Elijah will provide for us. Come by the baker’s and get a nickel loaf of bread, and then hurry back and pray.”

Willie was pretending to play with his Noah’s ark, by charging the animals for rent and water, and adding the amounts on his slate, but he heard what his father said.

As his mother went out, he asked: “Mamma, is papa too sick to work?”

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Flint; “he has a high fever, and I fear will be very ill.”

After his mother had gone Willie put on his hat and slipped out the front door.

“I want to do something to help my good, kind papa, who is sick,” he said to himself.

He wandered up to Main Street and stood looking at the tall buildings that his poor father owned.

Passersby smiled when they saw the little flaxen-haired boy, and many a rough face softened at the sight of his innocent blue eyes.

Poor little Willie. What could he do in the great, busy city to help his sick father?

“I know what I will do,” he said to himself presently. “I will go up and raise the rent of several offices and that will make my papa feel better.”

Willie toiled up three flights of stairs of one of his father’s largest buildings. He had to sit down quite often and rest, for he was short on wind.

Away up to the third story was an office rented by two young men who had just begun to practice law. They had their sign out, and had given their note to Mr. Flint for the first month’s rent. As Willie climbed the stairs the young lawyers were eating some cheese and crackers, with their feet on their desks, and six empty quart beer bottles stood upon a table. They were breathing hard, and one of them, who had a magnolia in his buttonhole, was telling a funny story about a girl.

Presently one of them took his feet off his desk, opened his eyes and said:

“Jeeminy! Bob, get onto his Fauntleroyets.”

The gentleman addressed as Bob also took his feet down, wiped his knife, with which he had been slicing cheese, on his hair, and looked around.

A little blue-eyed boy with long golden curls stood in the doorway.

“Come in, sissy,” said one of the young men.

Willie walked boldly into the room.

“I’m not a girl,” he said. “My name is Willie Flint, and I’ve come to raise the rent.”

“Now, that’s kind of you, Willie,” said the young man called Bob, “to come and do that, for we couldn’t do it if we were to be electrocuted. Is that your own hair, Willie, or do you ride a bicycle?”

“Don’t worry the little boy,” said the other young gentleman, whom Bob addressed as Sam. “I’m sure that this is a nice little boy. I say, Willie, did you ever hear a gumdrop?”

“Don’t tease him,”