195. The Cop And The Anthem. O Henry Story Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

195

The Cop And The Anthem. O Henry Story Reintroduced

P. S. Remesh Chandran
 
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By Lechenie-Narkomanii. Graphics: Adobe SP.

The short stories of O. Henry have humanity and humour in them. The hero in the story wants to get into prison somehow to spend the winter there. At least he will get free government food and shelter and pass the horrible winter there. But all his attempts to get into a prison fail. Then he hears a church anthem, decides to leave his criminal life behind, and enters the church at night. He had decided to become a good man. But then he was arrested by a police man for trespassing into a church. 

There are so many ways to get into a prison but all failed for Soapy.

Soapy, the hero in the story spends his time wandering through the city streets of New York. At night the park bench is his bed. It is winter arriving and he will not have shelter for three months. He cannot walk the streets during the day and sleep on a park bench at night for the next three months of the winter. A prison is the only solution. This makes Soapy think of going to prison someway. 

Soapy tried many ways for getting into prison. He did some petty crimes which the police minded not. He tried to enter a modern hotel to order costly food without having money to pay but he was not even permitted entry. He was turned back at the entrance itself because the poor condition of his shoes and trousers had betrayed him. Then he smashed a glittering shop window to pieces and remained there for a long time for the police to come and arrest him. But the people there told the police it would not be him who broke the glass because he had not run away. It was another man who had been running after a car who was caught for smashing the glass. Then he entered another hotel and ordered all that was there to order. After the sumptuous meal, when he told them he had no money to pay, they did not summon the police and hand him over but simply threw him out into the foot path with a laugh. So all his attempts to enter a prison failed and he cursed his fate. 

It was then that the police arrested him for entering an unguarded church at night!

Soapy was walking along the road towards his usual park bench which was his night’s resting place, thinking about all the troubles he took for getting into a prison and idle away the winter. Suddenly the peal of church bells and music reached his ears. He remembered his childhood when he would go to church with parents holding his hands. He was impressed, and decided to leave his criminal life behind. He decided to find a job and lead a decent life. He decided to enter the church, something which he had not done for many years in his adult life. It was then that a police cop arrested him for entering an unguarded church at night! The irony and humour is ‘we do not get what we want, and when we have lost interest in something, we get it.’ This is the moral significance of the story The Cop And The Anthem. 

Written on: September 1990
First published on: 27 March 2020

Tags:

American Writers, Free Student Notes, Food Shelter In Prison, How To Get Into Prison, O Henry, Short Stories Reintroduced, Surprise End Stories, The Cop And The Anthem, Vagabonds, Winter In America,

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:

00. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com

Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.

024. Spring Time. O Henry Story. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

024.

Spring Time. O Henry Story. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran
 
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Image By Kirsten Ivatts0. Graphics: Adobe SP

First published: 6th Jun 2011.  

 

O. Henry’s stories are famous for the twist towards their end. William Sydney Porter was the real person behind this name. He wrote more than Two hundred short stories, almost all of them equally famous. His stories are noted for the great sympathy they show towards human life. Here in this story he is describing how the happiness of spring is returning to Sarah’s life after the cold of a winter. 

Typewritten menus for a restaurant in exchange for three meals a day.

The O. Henry family in 1890s.

Sarah made her living through type writing. In the cold winter times, food was a problem. She made an agreement with the Schulenburg (Shoolenberg) Restaurant near her home. According to the agreement she would type the bill of fares for their twenty one tables each day and they had to provide her with three meals a day. When spring finally arrived it had no character of a spring. The snow of January still lay there in the streets even though it was March. And spring was already delayed a little in that American City of Manhattan. When spring arrived, there were changes in the menu of the restaurant. Soups became lighter, meat dishes changed and fried foods altogether vanished. 

Life in distant farms in the countryside can be as calm, quiet and peaceful as a gently flowing river.

Typing away dreams.

While Sarah was typing the bill of fares for the restaurant, her mind flew back to the country side she visited during the last summer. Life in distant farms in the country side can be as calm, quiet and peaceful as a gently flowing river. After the tediousness and monotony of life in a city, the life in the country side seemed to her appealing and pleasant. She had there fallen in love with a young farmer by the name of Walter. He was a very clever and modern farmer who had a telephone in his cow-house. He could even calculate cleverly the effect of Canadian wheat crops on the American prices of commodities.

Heaven sent Dandelions to show how pleased and delighted the ethereal realms were with earth.
 

Distant farms can be as quiet as a flowing river.

Sarah and Walter loved each other and he had decorated her hair with dandelion leaves and flowers as an expression of his love. She had left those flowers there for his caring and walked back home happily. We living in cities great and small can assume how much she might have wished to stay forever in those glens, vales and coves. How much will not an insecure girl wish for a safe and secure life under the protection of a loving husband! Her wishes were granted. They had agreed to get married in spring but he has not yet arrived in her town. She is awaiting him and she wept on her type writer.

No human beings are left alone. Teardrops of a loner are wiped away by invisible hands. 

Two dandelion friends catching the Sun.

In the evening the waiter from the restaurant brought Sarah’s food and the next day’s menu. While typing, a dish item in the menu caught her attention. It was ‘Dandelion with Eggs.’ Dandelions are not only a food but a symbol of love also. While typing, the very word Dandelion made her remember her long awaited lover and weep again. In her grief and tears a strange thing happened. One tear drop fell on the type written menu and one word was mistyped.

It is an invisible God that leads the way and walks a few miles with us.

The last Typewriter Factory closed in 2011 in India.

The next day, Walter from the country side arrived Sarah’s town, Manhattan searching for her. She had moved from her old address and the letter she sent him from the new address unfortunately had not reached him. Therefore he was not in a position to know about her whereabouts. He by chance stepped into the Schulenburg Restaurant and was given a menu of that day’s dishes. But what a bill of fare! There was the all distinguishable mark of a tear drop on it. ‘Dearest Walter with Eggs’ typed in place of 'Dandelion with Eggs'. And there was the tell tale characteristic of his lover- the capital ‘W’ typed above the line! The instant he sighted this strange bill of fare, Walter knew who the typist who created this laughable thing was. Without waiting, obtaining her address from the restaurant, he rushed to her house.

Image By Kirsten Ivatts0. Graphics: Adobe SP

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Tags

American Literature, American Writers, Appreciations, English Literature, English Short Stories, English Short Story Writers, O Henry, P S Remesh Chandran, Reviews, Sahyadri Books And Bloom Books Trivandrum, Short Stories, Spring Time, Stories, Studies, William Sydney Porter

Meet the author
PSRemeshChandra
 
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan : The Intelligent Picture Book.