Talk:Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

[untitled section]

This story was the first which William Sydney Poerter published under the pseudonym O. Henry, and appeared in the December 1899 issue of McClure's Magazine. It was later collected in Roads of Destiny, of which the earliest edition in the Library of Congress catalog was in 1913. The present text was initially drawn from a 1919 printing used by Project Gutenberg, but which is further not identified. Proofreading has been done to conform to the McClure's version, and includes the restoration of a full paragraph. Also restored was a statement that the hobo camp was 200 yards from the plantation house which appears as 75 yards in the collected version. It is noted, however, that accurately slinging a rock in a stocking through a window would be difficult enough at 75 yards. Eclecticology 17:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The O. Henry name

There is one interesting point about this story which may still be a matter of sheer coincidence, and may only add to the mystery of the origins of the pseudonym "O. Henry". Another story in the same issue of McClure's by Mary Stewart Cutting, Their Second Marriage, uses the expression, "Oh, Henry!" several times. Whether there was any connection between the two authors remains to be explored. Eclecticology 17:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)