Drawing and Poem By O. Henry

The following is a newspaper article entitled "Book Nook" describing a poem and picture by William Sidney Porter in 1879. The original clipping of the news article and the reproduction of this poem with drawing is housed in the "Poetry, About & By - Clippings" Folder of the Greensboro Public Library's O. Henry Collection.

"Book Nook," Durham Morning Herald
Sunday, Jan. 14, 1962. Page 5D

All writers know that their career wasn't something they chose overnight, but a goal which materialized over a period of time. They can look back into their youth and point out incidents that showed the direction in which they were headed, achievements that forecast later success.

Framed and hanging in the handsome library of Durhamite W. H. Branson Sr. is an 82-year-old autograph book that reveals the early talent of one now quite famous North Carolina writer.

The page, taken from a memory book belonging to Mr. Branson's mother, who was the former Clara Sergeant of Greensboro, bears a drawing and a little poem created for Miss Sergeant by William Sidney Porter, the O. Henry of later literary fame.

Dated 1879, the drawing and poem were done by the teen-age Porter for Miss Sergeant while the two were members of an 11-party camping trip to Pilot Mountain.

Autograph books were a part of every young girl's paraphernalia in those days and Miss Sergeant took hers with her on the camping trip.

On his page Porter did a detailed line drawing in ink of Pilot Mountain, with an inset sketch of a camping tent and his initials blended neatly into the foreground.

Below that he listed the 11 members of the camping party: Miss Clara Sergeant, Miss Lou Lindsay, Miss Annie Smith, Miss Mollie Smith, Dr. R. F. Robertson, Mr. Albert R. Wilson, Mr. George W. McIver, Mr. Henry L. Smith, Mr. Egbert W. Smith, Mr. William S. Porter and Mr. Jesse R. Wharton Jr.

Then came the poem, continued so that the first letters of the lines spelled out Miss Sergeant's first name.

"Campgrounds where the mountains rise,
Lingering yet before our eyes,
Although years may come between,
Rolling clouds the skies may screen,
Always keep their memory green."

It made a little keepsake Mr. Branson now treasures, thankful that his mother "never was one to throw things away."