e wise of
these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the
wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.
Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

O. HENRY

He came to New York in 1902 almost unknown. At his death eight years
later he was the best known writer of short stories in America. His life
was as full of ups and downs, and of strange turns of fortune, as one of
his own stories. William Sidney Porter, who always signed his stories as
O. Henry, was born in Greenboro, North Carolina, September 11, 1862. His
mother died when he was but three years old; and an aunt, Miss Evelina
Porter, cared for him and gave him nearly all his education. Books, too,
were his teachers. He says that between his thirteenth and nineteenth
years he did more reading than in all the years since. His favorite
books were _The Arabian Nights_, in Lane's translation, and Burton's
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, an old English book in which bits of science,
superstition and reflections upon life were strangely mingled. Other
books that he enjoyed were the works of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray,
Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. He early showed ability as a
cartoonist, and was noted among his friends as a good story teller.
After school days he became a clerk in his uncle's drug store, and here
acquired that knowledge which he used to such good effect in stories
like "Makes the Whole World Kin" and "The Love Philtre of Ikey
Schoenstein."

His health was not robust, and confinement in a drug store did not
improve it. A friend who was going to Texas invited him to go along, and
from 1882 to 1884 he lived on a ranch, acting as cowboy, and at odd
moments studying French, German and Spanish. Then he went to Austin,
where at various times he was clerk, editor, bookkeeper, draftsman, bank
teller, actor and cartoonist. In 1887 he married Miss Athol Roach. He
began contributing short stories and humorous sketches to newspapers,
and finally purchased a paper of his own, which he called _Rolling
Stones_, a humorous weekly. After a year the paper failed, and the
editor went to Houston to become a reporter on the _Daily Post_. A year
later, it was discovered that there were serious irregularities in the
bank in which he had worked in Austin. Several arrests were made, and O.
Henry was called to stand trial with others. He had not been guilty of
wrong doing, but the affairs of the bank had been so loosely mana