

E-text prepared by Tim O'Connell and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.



Note: Many of the author's spellings follow older, obsolete, or
      intentionally incorrect practice.





OPTIONS

by

O. HENRY







CONTENTS

   "The Rose of Dixie"
   The Third Ingredient
   The Hiding of Black Bill
   Schools and Schools
   Thimble, Thimble
   Supply and Demand
   Buried Treasure
   To Him Who Waits
   He Also Serves
   The Moment of Victory
   The Head-Hunter
   No Story
   The Higher Pragmatism
   Best-Seller
   Rus in Urbe
   A Poor Rule





"THE ROSE OF DIXIE"


When _The Rose of Dixie_ magazine was started by a stock company in
Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chief
editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair
was the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family,
reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit,
and logical editor. So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizens
who had subscribed the founding fund of $100,000 called upon Colonel
Telfair at his residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterprise
and the South should suffer by his possible refusal.

The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent most
of his days. The library had descended to him from his father. It
contained ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published as
late as the year 1861. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfair
was seated at his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's
"Anatomy of Melancholy." He arose and shook hands punctiliously with
each member of the committee. If you were familiar with _The Rose of
Dixie_ you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it
from time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed
white hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the
left; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth
beneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.

The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor,
humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication was
designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel's
lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by red
gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.

In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an
outline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought the
battle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would
so conduct _The Rose of Dixie_ that its fragrance and beauty would
permeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern
minions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains
and hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whose
rights they had curtailed.

Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the
second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the
colonel to cause _The Rose of Dixie_ to blossom and flourish or to
wilt in the balmy air of the land of flowers.

The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair
drew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches.
The first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a father
killed during Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank,
was the nephew of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, Jackson
Rockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army,
having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a
milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a
third cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune, the
colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once been
kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy,
got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the
commencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls who
wrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southern
families in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub named
Hawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had recommendations and a bond
from a guarantee company filed with the owners. Even Georgia stock
companies sometimes realize that it takes live ones to bury the dead.

Well, sir, if you believe me, _The Rose of Dixie_ blossomed five times
before anybody heard of it except the people who buy their hooks and
eyes in Toombs City. Then Hawkins climbed off his stool and told on
'em to the stock company. Even in Ann Arbor he had been used to having
his business propositions heard of at least as far away as Detroit. So
an advertising manager was engaged--Beauregard Fitzhugh Banks, a young
man in a lavender necktie, whose grandfather had been the Exalted High
Pillow-slip of the Kuklux Klan.

In spite of which _