EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF O. HENRY
By Shirley W. Porter (no date)

(Note) I see that a professor of Psychology has made the assertion that no one could remember any occurrence or incident that happened prior to the seventh year of age. He may think he is right in this theory, but I will have to go him a few years better in practice.

My first recollection of Wm. Sydney Porter dates back about 4 years earlier than the date set by this psychologist. 

In the early days of 1863 when the war between the States was in progress, Dr. Algernon Sydney Porter with his family, consisting of Mother (Mary Virginia Swaim Porter) - Wm. Sydney and myself, lived on a farm - on the outskirts of Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina. The farm was the property of some of the members of the Houston family.

This farm bordered the road leading from Greensboro out by the "West Green" homestead - a show place of the County - then owned by the Westbrooks - later during reconstruction days, became the home of Albion W. Tourgee, and I have been told that in this quiet retreat his "Fools Errand" and "Bricks Without Straw" were written. (The scenes and incidents of his Fools Errand were laid around this beautiful place). Our house was somewhat isolated; "West Green" lying a mile or more west of us and our nearest neighbor in the other direction, about a quarter of a mile away. At this time when I was in my third year of age and Will was still a babe in arms, an incident occurred one night that made such an indentible [sic] impression on my childish mind that I distinctly recall how Will Porter looked that night in Mother's arms while I huddled up against

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her with my hands in hers. Mother owned a number of Negro slaves - just how many I do not remember, some were field hands that lived in the quarters that we youngsters did not come in contact with, and I can only recall the ones that were employed around the house and kitchen. Among these field hands was a big strapping woman of a very sullen and vicious disposition; she did not like to live in the country and was continually stirring up trouble among the other Negroes with the view of being sent back to the Swaim's home in town.  On the night spoken of, Will, crying and caughing[,] awoke Mother; she found the room filled with smoke; she called Pa, caught up Will, grabbed me out of my little trundle bed, and hurried out in the yard to find one corner of the house - the fartherest from the sleeping room on fire. Pa called up the Negroes, and by fast work they finally got the fire out. The incendiary origin of the fire was too plain for any doubt, as some of the kindling and wood piled under the corner of the house had not all been burned. As it was not long till day, Father would not allow the Negroes to go back to their quarters, but made them stay out in the yard with him. When morning came he lined them up and began questioning them. One of the Negroes was a young stripling named Jim - docile, good natured, a good worker, but not bright, and easily led. Out of the roled denials, protestations, hope the Lord will strike dead the suspicion - finally pointed to Jim as the culprit. Pa called for a rope to tie him, ordered the stable man to hitch up and bring his buggy around to the gate, and told Jim he was going to take him to town and turn him over to the patrols and let them hang him as he did not wish to kill him with his own hands on account of his [being] Mother's property. At this

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time Jim broke down and confessed that the woman mentioned above had persuaded him to fire the house under threat of putting a curse on him if he refused. That night just about dark some men rode up to the gate and called Pa out; Mother called me to her and, young as I was, I sensed she was frightened at something - that something was wrong - in a little while Pa came in and in answer to Mother's question, he said the men had warned him to get rid of those two Negroes at once, that if they were there the following night they would come and attend to them.

The next day they were sent away, I never knew where, but I never saw them again. Pa's practice called him away from home so much at this time that after this occurrence he decided to move the family to town, and in a very short while he disposed of all the Negroes with the exception of Aunt Molia - very black mammy as we called her. Florence, Will's nurse and her brother Ed, the stable boy - all of whom remained with us until sometime after the surrender - and moved to the home of our Grandmother Porter on West Market Street, Greensboro. Shortly after our removal to this Greensboro home David Weir, our youngest brother, was born. In a few months Mother's health began to fail and when the baby was about one year old, she passed away leaving "Bunnie" - as the baby was lovingly called - one year of age[,] Will three and I five to the care of our good grandmother, Ruth Porter and Aunt Lina (Evalina). Another year winged by and  "Bonnie" the baby went home to his mother.

Johnson['s] surrender took place near Greensboro during this year and the town was full of soldiers, both the blue and the gray.  There was a deep well in our back yard a few steps from the kitchen door; the water was very cool and clear - and though it was rather

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strongly impregnated with limestone, it seemed to be favored of the soldiers and there were not many hours during the day that there was not a number of them around the well drinking and filling their canteens. Will seemed to be especially taken with them and would toddle out among them at every chance and often the nurse would find him up in the arms of some battered, tattered soldier who was petting and playing with him. He never showed any fear of them, but I fought shy of everything in blue. Our Old Black Mammy had told me so many hair-raising tales from the depth of her vivid imagination of how terrible the Yankee soldiers were that I promptly went under the house if I couldn't get in it when I saw a bunch of them approaching. Those were troublous days for me though apparently joyous ones for Will; he gave no sign then of the reserve that became characteristic of him in later years.

The days drifted on while we two rollicked around the old homestead, barefooted, bareheaded, careless care free, making mud houses, baking mud pies, racing around with Rolla - the dog who was never far away from us during our waking hours - scrambling about in the hay loft, hunting hidden hens' nests, chasing the chickens out of the garden, and while doing so, doing more damage in three minutes than the chickens would have done in three hours if left to themselves, staining ourselves from a tawny tan to a dead black, trying to hull out the green walnuts under the old walnut trees on the edge of the field, sometimes sitting in the shade very quiet, watching the blue bird that nested in the hollow of the old apple tree, catching and carrying bugs and worms to her nestlings. And at the day's end ambling in to our mush and milk, from there to the little trundle bed that would be pulled out from under the big bed, then good night till another day.

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Aunt Lina decided that Will and I had run range about long enough, we were therefore run into the corral, roped, and led up to our first feed of ABC'S in "Webster's Blue Back Speller"; Will took it as naturally as a young duckling to water. A once over was about all he needed to learn his lesson. I, however, was slower gaited and also did not fancy either the confined or the fed, but Aunt Lina had her own views about imparting an education, and if one did not of his own free will absorb learning under ordinary inducements, there were others; and she never hesitated to advance them vigorously under her vigorous regime. I began to improve rapidly and was soon able to trot along beside Will without letting my traces hang too slack; but he had to play his games along sibilance lines many hours while I sat crumped up in school room and tried to drum into my head that it took of phthisic to spell the little word base; and to wonder whether a Greek or a Chicataw Indian taught Webster how to spell. With hard work and some harder knocks I managed to keep in touch and we took up other studies.

Will Porter had a wonderful memory and power of concentration and forged ahead in his studies with ease.

About this time some of the neighbors proposed to Aunt Lina to take their children as pupils. She agreed and fitted up the large room in which we had been reciting our lessons as a school room with long tables and benches and a blackboard. The school grew rapidly and it was not long before she was forced to put up a more suitable building for the purpose. 

Long before this he had been making sketches of his school companions or some incident comic or otherwise on his slate or the blackboard, and on several occasions came near having trouble with his

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teacher by causing hilarity among his nearby deskmates by exhibiting some sketch he had made of some incident that had happened in the school room or on the play ground; but on making him bring the cause of the trouble to her desk, he was invariably let down easy. The sketch being of such nature that I have seen her with difficulty keep her own face straight.

His gift along this line was truly remarkable (being a rather silent lad he simply used his pencil to express his ideas and views instead of voicing them). Many of his older friends strongly urged him to develop this gift and become a cartoonist. In fact, his father encouraged him to take up this line of work. The Nast [Thomas Nast], one of the most popular cartoonists of those days, endeavored on several occasions to get him interested in this profession, offering to take him with him, but I don't think he ever seriously considered it as his life's work.  I know he did not up to the time we two came to our "Parting of the Ways."

On the opposite side of the street from our grandmother's house was the spacious grounds and building of the Edgeworth College, a noted place of learning in its days. Immediately after the surrender this college was turned into barracks and hospital by the Federal forces and was occupied for a considerable length of time by troops under command of a Major Worth, a fine officer who often visited our house - and he and Will soon became great friends. A plant (Pursley) was almost a pest on the lot, growing in great bunches all over the field if not kept cut down. It was highly relished by hogs, but was not considered as fit for human food by our people. The Major's soldiers, however, were very fond of it cooked as greens and begged permission to gather it. This was readily given as the Major told Grandma that he would

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warn his men not to touch anything else under the penalty of punishment.  A detail of soldiers would come over every morning, and Will would follow them around watching them fill their buckets, and as it began to grow scarcer taking a great interest in helping them find the outlying bunches. The bugle calls, the drills, and the band stationed at the barracks were always a source of great delight to him.

Shirley W. Porter