O. HENRY'S DRUG STORE DAYS AND DAYS IN TEXAS

Written by Shirley Worth Porter (no date)

When in his seventeenth year O. Henry entered the drug store of his uncle, W. C. Porter, as a clerk, to learn the business. Here he plunged into the studies of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and the secrets of the Pharmacopolia, with the same assiduity he formerly gave to his school studies, and in a remarkably short time he had prepared himself to go before the Board of Pharmacy for examination, which he passed easily and became a full fledged registered druggist. Porter Drug Store was the headquarters of the majority of the doctors of the town and the favorite gathering place of the other professional and business men when their daily duties were done. Here they would meet and discuss political and social problems, municipal affairs, laws, religions, Isms, fads, current events, any and everything that was at the time attracting attention of the public. The walls of that old drug store, if they had the power of speech, could tell of arguments, had they been delivered before a jury, would have won the case hands down, and of forensic debate that may have even caused the spirits of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay to sit up and take notice. Chess and checkers were the popular games, and the waiting line for the services of these boards was as permanent a fixture as the prescription desk itself.

This old store was the clearinghouse for all the news, needs and notions of the town. A newspaper reporter short on news, would head straight for Porter's, confident that he could pick up something there to fill his shortage. A man stepping into an office or place of business to see the proprietor and finding him out would at once set his course for the back room of Porter's drug store, and nine times out of ten would find the object of his search engaged in a chess or checkers battle, utterly

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oblivious to time or business. Professor Jesse Wharton was the local champion chess player, and Mr. Don White, the postmaster, held the high seat in checkers. Many were the battles to deprive these men of this honor, but when I left the town all efforts to this end had proved fruitless.

The young prescription clerk, (O. Henry) was always good natured, willing and obliging, always ready at the call, day or night, never grumbling at long hours or disturbed rest. He was an exceedingly careful compounder. During the years spent at the prescription desk, he held the record of never having to throw out a mixture on account of an error in the mixing thereof.

He was a general favorite with the patrons and other frequenters of the store, and was loved and esteemed by all of the physicians, everyone of whom was his life long leal and loyal friend.

When a heated debate or argument was in progress, if not busy, the young clerk (O. Henry) would lean over his counter, an intent but silent listener and keen observer. Suddenly he would tear off a piece of wrapping paper and reach for his pencil, while an amused smile would play over his features. His pencil would skim rapidly over the paper for a few minutes, then leaving the sketch lying on the counter he would walk away. Soon someone would discover it, and the debate or argument would end abruptly in a burst of laughter, as the sketch was passed around.  He had caught some comic situation or some peculiar trait of one of the actors, and his pencil had faithfully turned it on the scrap of paper. These pencil sketches were prized and preserved by some of his medical friends, and it is reported that a number of them are still on exhibition in the "O. Henry drug store"- the same

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store in which he sketched them -- in his home town, now grown to city size.

O. Henry did not like the confinement of the drug store, but he never complained, never shirked his work, and would never take any time off, with the exception of three or four days in the fall of the year. He was very slow in forming close friendship with those of his own age, and his reticence acted as a handicap also, but he had three very close, intimate friends that I remember, Tom Tate, Percy Gray, and Jeff Smith.  He and this trio of friends owned a tent and camping equipment, and each fall they would hie away to some chosen spot by stream or woods, pitch camp, hunt, fish, or just loaf around the camp in friendly converse. These short outings with these three chums gave him the keenest enjoyment of his Greensboro days.

The confinement of the store was becoming more and more irksome. I was, at that time, with a construction camp out in the Smokies, and while I was on a short visit home in the Winter of 1881, he asked me numerous questions about our camp life, and finally told me he wanted to get away from the store and out in the open, that he was afraid the confinement indoors was injuring his health, and asked me to find an opening for him at the camp. I told him that life in a construction camp was considerably rough and entirely unsuited for one of his temperament, but I would see if I could find a place for him with the surveying outfit, where he would be with more congenial companions, but that I doubted very much if this would suit him as life at the surveying camp was on the rough and ready order also.  I suggested that he get a place as traveling salesman and get out on the road with a line of drugs, but he insisted that I try to

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get him a place with the surveying corps. However, before I could get in touch with the chief engineer on my return to camp, he wrote me that he had decided to go to Texas with Dr. and Mrs. Hall who were going out to visit their sons, four of whom were living in Texas at that time.

At the time I was talking with him, he had a slight cough, nothing serious, as it turned out, but I learned later that this little cough was the sole cause of his worry. C. N. B. Evans, owner and editor of the "Milton Chronicle" and the originator of the fictitious character - Jesse Holmes - the fool killer, was a relative of our Mother. He was very fond of her and she often visited with his family in her young days.

In his published obituary of her death in 1865, he gave the cause of death as consumption. This was an error, but someone of the family had put the paper among the mementos of Mother, and it seems O. Henry had found and read it, and when the little cough developed, the fear of infection preyed upon his mind, thus causing his anxiety to get out of the store and in the open.

On his arrival in Texas he made his home with one of his old friends, Dr. Hall's son - Mr. Richard W. Hall, in LaSalle County, and still obsessed with the fear that this lungs were affected, he insisted on sleeping in the open, and spent his nights on a cot under the trees in the yard near the ranch house. The little cough soon disappeared and he grew into robust, healthy young manhood. He remained on Mr. Hall's ranch about two years.  During this time his fear of horses became a thing of the past.  He learned to handle the lasso and became a crack pistol shot.  Even in his later years in New York, he kept up his pistol practice. One of his closest New York friends

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said it was almost impossible for him to pass a shooting gallery without going in to try a few shots at the targets, even in his busiest times.

At the expiration of the two years on the Hall ranch, he went to Austin and clerked in a drug store for awhile.  From the drug store he went with Maddox Bro. and Anderson, real estate men, as bookkeeper. He remained with this firm until Mr. Richard Hall became land commissioner of Texas. He secured a place in the land office with Mr. Hall, and was with him throughout his incumbency.

While in the land office, in looking over some of the old records he came across some scraps of paper and a crude map, the hieroglyphics on which he felt certain he could interpret as directions leading to one of the old lost gold mines about which there are legends galore in our western country. He wrote me asking if I would come out and make a try at finding this particular one, as he thought there was good chance for success with the aid of these old papers and map. As I knew nothing whatever about gold mines and was very doubtful if I would be able to recognize one, lost or otherwise, if I should fall over it in broad daylight, I had to write him declining the job. He replied that I had missed a big chance of becoming a second Death Valley Scotty.  Possibly so, but I have never heard of that mine ever being found.

In 1887 he married Athol Estes, one of the best and sweetest little women it was ever my good fortune to know.

After the birth of her little daughter Margaret, her health became delicate and she and her little daughter spent two summers at the old home in Greensboro, N. C. While on her second

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visit I saw her disease-tuberculosis-was getting the upper hand, and before another summer it had made such inroads upon her health that she was unable to make the trip.

Like her husband she was extremely hurt. I think on her last visit she realized her condition, but she was always bright and cheerful.

She had a wonderfully sympathetic and lovable disposition.  She died at her home in Austin in 1897. There were one angel less on earth and one more in heaven, the day her lovely spirit left her frail little body.

written by Shirley Porter