During his short life, he wrote nearly 600 short stories! What better writer to read for Short Story Month (May, 2017) than William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250 six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. People rewarded other persons financially more. Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters Rolling Stones, Waifs and Strays, and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed. In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer, The Enchanted Kiss, and The Duplicity of Hargraves. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him. He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him. In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch. Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. His era produced their voices and his language. His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. Such volumes as Cabbages and Kings (1904) and The Four Million (1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O.

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