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A Chaparral Prince
The updated fairytale has always been a popular type of story. Here O. Henry takes the principle of the fairytale into a Western setting, and does a wonderful job of it. A Chaparral Prince has a lot going for it - vivid and unique settings in the limestone quarry and the German-settled town of Fredericksburg, Texas; memorable characters; a display of O. Henry's gift for colorful dialogue in the jargon of the train-robbers and the jumbled English of Fritz the mail-carrier; and an engaging story with a lovely blend of comedy and pathos.
- GenresShort StoriesWesterns
Unknown Binding
First published November 1, 1997
8 people want to read
About the author
O. Henry
2,919 books1,891 followersSuch 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. Henry.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. 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.
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. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. 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.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. 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. Many stories have been made into films.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. 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.
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. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. 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.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. 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. Many stories have been made into films.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 12, 2024
A sweet story of outlaw western justice
April 30, 2023
O. Henry's "A Chaparral Prince" is a cute short story but at times his own way at story telling and the dialecting to stay true to the characters is a bit confusing. Take a train robbery and an abused 11 year old girl and see what O. Henry's mind concerning a short story about the two.
Story in short - Young 11 year old Lena writes to her parents about her misery but the letter is taken by thieves.
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Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11527
NINE O’CLOCK AT last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen’s Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11531
and water in that turbulent and depressing hostelry. The din of the day’s quarrying was over — the blasting and drilling, the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing and shifting of the flat-cars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers were growling and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the house.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11535
Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She was eleven years old, thin and ill- nourished. Her back and limbs were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Lena who is worked hard at the inn and treated badly. The last straw is when the owner takes her book away that her uncle gave her and hit her. Lena writes to her parents that if she does not hear from them about her coming home she will drown herself. Lena's letter is stolen and the mail carrier tries to have the robbers let him have the letter, not knowing the contents but that Lena was writing to her family. The letter is read aloud and the mail carrier is tied to a tree and they leave him there. Fritz has fallen asleep and he wakes up, his one thought is to tell Lena's parents about the letter and he is worried about their daughter. The parents who see they have been wrong in sending their young daughter away are upset. Lena is awaken from Fritz's wagon where she was rescued from the inn by a Prince who caused trouble to the owners and placed her in the wagon where she slept. The parents cannot understand and try to have her daughter say who helped her but she sticks with the Prince story. She had dreamed of living a fairy tale and she has it Western style. Apparently the robbers after hearing the girl's letter look to do justice and help the girl in returning home. I bet she will see them again. It shows how unprincipled and those deemed no good can be just and caring in their own way.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11538
of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm. To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut — all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came the good
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11541
fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue. So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11545
to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is. Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat. They are very thrifty people. Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that is why Lena was sent to work
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11549
in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to work and assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11552
a home in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre’s castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour cattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust from their great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers. And then — to have Grimm taken away from you! Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11556
mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters. The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood from around the lead of her
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11560
pencil and began. This is the letter she wrote: Dearest Mamma: — I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. To-day I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt any one for me to read the book. I try to work as
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11564
well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me to-morrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. Your respectful and loving daughter,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11569
Lena. Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled herself upon the mattress on the floor. At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11573
the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to come pattering up the road. Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the lively hoofbeats of Fritz’s team of little black mules, and very soon afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz’s big spectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice shouted a greeting to the postmaster of Ballinger’s. The mail-carrier jumped out and took the bridles from the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11576
mules, for he always fed them oats at Ballinger’s. While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon. Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments — or to be more accurate — four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11580
“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mamma is very anxious to hear again.” “Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for Mrs. Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?” “In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years
Story in short - Young 11 year old Lena writes to her parents about her misery but the letter is taken by thieves.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11527
NINE O’CLOCK AT last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen’s Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11531
and water in that turbulent and depressing hostelry. The din of the day’s quarrying was over — the blasting and drilling, the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing and shifting of the flat-cars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers were growling and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the house.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11535
Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She was eleven years old, thin and ill- nourished. Her back and limbs were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Lena who is worked hard at the inn and treated badly. The last straw is when the owner takes her book away that her uncle gave her and hit her. Lena writes to her parents that if she does not hear from them about her coming home she will drown herself. Lena's letter is stolen and the mail carrier tries to have the robbers let him have the letter, not knowing the contents but that Lena was writing to her family. The letter is read aloud and the mail carrier is tied to a tree and they leave him there. Fritz has fallen asleep and he wakes up, his one thought is to tell Lena's parents about the letter and he is worried about their daughter. The parents who see they have been wrong in sending their young daughter away are upset. Lena is awaken from Fritz's wagon where she was rescued from the inn by a Prince who caused trouble to the owners and placed her in the wagon where she slept. The parents cannot understand and try to have her daughter say who helped her but she sticks with the Prince story. She had dreamed of living a fairy tale and she has it Western style. Apparently the robbers after hearing the girl's letter look to do justice and help the girl in returning home. I bet she will see them again. It shows how unprincipled and those deemed no good can be just and caring in their own way.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11538
of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm. To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut — all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came the good
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11541
fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue. So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11545
to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is. Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat. They are very thrifty people. Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that is why Lena was sent to work
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11549
in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to work and assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11552
a home in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre’s castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour cattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust from their great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers. And then — to have Grimm taken away from you! Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write a letter to her
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11556
mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters. The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood from around the lead of her
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11560
pencil and began. This is the letter she wrote: Dearest Mamma: — I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. To-day I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt any one for me to read the book. I try to work as
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11564
well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me to-morrow to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. Your respectful and loving daughter,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11569
Lena. Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled herself upon the mattress on the floor. At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11573
the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to come pattering up the road. Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the lively hoofbeats of Fritz’s team of little black mules, and very soon afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz’s big spectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice shouted a greeting to the postmaster of Ballinger’s. The mail-carrier jumped out and took the bridles from the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11576
mules, for he always fed them oats at Ballinger’s. While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon. Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments — or to be more accurate — four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 11580
“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mamma is very anxious to hear again.” “Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for Mrs. Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?” “In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years
April 9, 2019
This is an entertaining tale set in the wild west. It tells of a discouraged young woman at the point of suicide, who is rescued by a community of locals, including thieves who learned about her by reading stolen mail.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews