о.
Henry's Texas Connection
Some» of (lie colorful people* ho know and
immortalized in liis slorios.
By JOII\ THOM S
РЛС
II
In the July. 1903. issue of Every¬
body's Magazine appeared a short
story by O. Henry titled. "The
Atavism of John Tom Little Bear".
The story was a raving success and
Everybody was mightily pleased. Also
Everybody thought that the author had
based the character of his story 's hero.
John Tom. on a C herokee Indian
whom he had known as a young man
while living in LaSalle County. Texas.
But he didn't. No. (). Henry derived
the character of Mr. Bear from a boy¬
hood playmate whom he had known
thirty years before in the Centre Com¬
munity. a few miles south of Greens¬
boro. of Guilford County. North Caro¬
lina.
The reason I happen to know is be¬
cause the playmate was my grand¬
father and one of the two John's I am
named after. My mother told me that
as small boys, somewhere between
their fifth to ninth birthdays. Willie
Porter (O. Henry) and John Thom
(pronounced Tom); stuck turkey
feathers in their head-bands, rubbed
on warpaint, rode their stick horses,
and made "heap bad medicine" on the
invading palefaces along Polecat
Creek. From all reports it seems that
they won the southern part of Guilford
County. N.C.. for the Indians.
Porter Goes West
Alas, the two fearless warriors had
to part and Willie, whose motherless
family had already moved to the town
of Greensboro, was imprisoned in his
Aunt Lina's one-room schoolhouse on
West Market Street. Lonesome John
Thom was left to fight the battles along
Polecat Creek all by himself. In 1882.
Will Porter, at the age of nineteen,
went to Texas seeking a cure for his
tubercular condition. The disease was
the cause of his mother’s death. Dr.
James K. Hall. Will’s friend and ben¬
efactor. had served as a surgeon in
Gen. Pettigrew's N.C. Brigade of the
Army of Northern Virginia and said he
had seen enough of dying young men
and was going to prevent seeing
10
another one die. The kindly doctor
took the thin, pale druggist with the
hacking cough to live on his son's
ranch in south Texas. In later years the
masterful writer. O. Henry, must have
felt bad about deserting his little com¬
rade in warpaint and wrote the "John
Tom Little Bear" story to make
amends. At any rate, the fictional In¬
dian in the story wins the day by
scalping the villain and returning the
kidnapped boy. nine years of age. to
his mother. I he real John Thom would
have recognized the compliment.
The D.H.&D. Ranch, where Dr.
Hall brought his young patient and
which would be his home for the next
two years, was a vast ranch-empire
spreading into neighboring McMullen
and Frio Counties. It had a 120-mile
circuit in which 12.000 head of cattle
and 6.000 sheep were herded over
400.000 acres. It had a work force of
over sixty men. Also it had a manager,
w hose abilities and reputation were al¬
ready nationally known, big enough to
handle the job — Lee Hall. Dr. Hall’s
eldest son. Leigh (when he became a
true-steel "Texian" he changed his
name to Lee) Hall, had also "Gone To
Texas" from North Carolina at the age
William Sydney Porter (O Henry), noti.e ot
Grccniboro, went to Te>oi in 1882 tacking
о
cure
for hi* tuberculosis.
of nineteen in 1869. His first employ¬
ment as a schoolteacher in Grayson
County did not last a year. Once he
discovered his talents led in another
direction he became a lawman the likes
of which the lawless had never known
before. BeginnihgasaCity Marshall of
Sherman and a Deputy Sheriff of Deni¬
son. and finally as a Captain of the
Special State Troops (The Texas
Rangers) he put more bad men out of
business than any other lawman before
him.
A Model For O. Henry's Stories
When Lee Hall died in 1911 the San
Antonio Daily Express said of him:
"He did more to rid Texas of desper¬
adoes. to establish law and order, than
any officer Texas ever had. He has
made more outlaws lay down their
guns and delivered more desperadoes
into the custody of the courts, and used
his own guns less, than any other offi¬
cer in Texas". Many authors, among
them J. Frank Dobie. Edmund King.
Al Jennings. Dr. Prescott Webb, and
D. N. Raymond, have written about
this exceptionally skillful and cou¬
rageous peace officer. Suffice it to say
that William Sydney Porter also wrote
about him but in a much different way.
In a way that made Lee Hall immortal
and cast the die for all the movie, tele¬
vision. and western novel lawmen
which were to follow. As O. Henry.
Will Porter used Lee Hall as the model
for Ranger Lieutenant Sandridge in
"The Caballero’s Way" and described
him as "six feet two. blond as a Viking,
quiet as a deacon, dangerous as a ma¬
chine gun".
It is also noteworthy as an example
of O. Henry’s phenomenal memory
that he put on the Cisco Kid’s lips,
from the same story, a song which he
had sung as a pupil in his Aunt Lina's
Greensboro school:
"If you don't stop fooling with my
Lulu I tell you what I’ll do;
I’ll feel around your heart with a
razor and I'll cut your liver out
too."
THE STATE. September 19B3
