Dire is thy vengeance,
   Don Jose Calderon. 
   For the slight thing we did
   Killing thy grandfather. 
   What boots it if we killed
   Only one greaser,
   Don Jose Calderon? 
   This is your deep revenge,
   You have greased all of us,
   Greased a whole nation
   With your Tamales,
   Don Jose Calderon. 
   Santos Esperiton,
   Vincente Camillo,
   Quitana de Rios,
   De Rosa y Ribera.

[Illustration:  A letter to his daughter Margaret.]

LETTERS

      [Letter to Mr. Gilman Hall, O. Henry’s friend and Associate
      Editor of Everybody’s Magazine.]

“the Callie”—­

Excavation Road—­ Sundy.

my dear mr. hall: 

in your october E’bodys’ i read a story in which i noticed some sentences as follows: 

“Day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, it had rained, rained, and rained and rained & rained & rained & rained & rained till the mountains loomed like a chunk of rooined velvet.”

And the other one was:  “i don’t keer whether you are any good or not,” she cried.  “You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!”

I thought she would never stop saying it, on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.  “You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re ALIVE!

“You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re alive!  You’re ALIVE!

“YOU’RE ALIVE!”

Say, bill; do you get this at a rate, or does every word go?

i want to know, because if the latter is right i’m going to interduce in compositions some histerical personages that will loom up large as repeeters when the words are counted up at the polls.

Yours truly

O. henry
28 West 26th St.,
West of broadway

Mr. hall, part editor of everybody’s.

KYNTOEKNEEYOUGH RANCH, November 31, 1883.

      [Letter to Mrs. Hall, a friend back in North Carolina. 
      This is one of the earliest letters found.]

Dear Mrs. Hall: 

As I have not heard from you since the shout you gave when you set out from the station on your way home I guess you have not received some seven or eight letters from me, and hence your silence.  The mails are so unreliable that they may all have been lost.  If you don’t get this you had better send to Washington and get them to look over the dead letter office for the others.  I have nothing to tell you of any interest, except that we all nearly froze to death last night, thermometer away below 32 degrees in the shade all night.