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Hygeia At The Solito and Other Stories
"Hygeia At The Solito and Other Stories" from O. Henry. American writer (1862-1910).
- GenresShort Stories
60 pages, Paperback
Published May 19, 2015
2 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 of 1 review
February 12, 2023
O. Henry's "Hygeia at the Solito" is a Western short story that has some humor but it is mostly all heart. This was another that I started and needed to read again the beginning but then becoming more interested, it ended once again with an O. Henry pleasant conclusion.
Story in short- Cattleman goes to the city and finds a sick prize fighter to bring home to his ranch.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9305
“Cricket” McGuire found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman — may his shadow never measure under six foot two. The cattleman, out this early to catch the south-bound for his ranch station, stopped at the side of the distressed patron of sport, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9309
spoke in the kindly drawl of his ilk and region, “Got it pretty bad, bud?” “Cricket” McGuire, ex-feather-weight prizefighter, tout, jockey, follower of the “ponies,” all-round sport, and manipulator of the gum balls and walnut shells, looked up pugnaciously at the imputation cast by “bud.” “G’wan,” he rasped, “telegraph pole. I didn’t ring for yer.” Another paroxysm wrung him, and he leaned limply against a convenient baggage truck. Raidler waited patiently, glancing around
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9313
at the white hats, short overcoats, and big cigars thronging the platform. “You’re from the No’th, ain’t you, bud?” he asked when the other was partially recovered. “Come down to see the fight?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9332
“Come on, bud,” he said. “We got three minutes to catch the train.” Sarcasm seemed to be McGuire’s vein. “You ain’t seen me cash in any chips or call a turn since I told you I was broke, a minute ago, have you? Friend, chase yourself away.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9334
“You’re going down to my ranch,” said the cattleman, “and stay till you get well. Six months’ll fix you good as new.” He lifted McGuire with one hand, and half-dragged him in the direction of the train. “What about the money?” said McGuire, struggling weakly to escape. “Money for what?” asked Raidler, puzzled.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9346
McGuire sat, collapsed into his corner of the seat, receiving with acid suspicion the conversation of the cattleman. What was the “game” of this big “geezer” who was carrying him off? Altruism would have been McGuire’s last guess. “He ain’t no farmer,” thought the captive, “and he ain’t no con man, for sure. W’at’s his lay? You trail in, Cricket, and see how many cards he draws. You’re up against it, anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin’ consumption, and you better lay low. Lay low and see w’at’s his game.” At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled the thirty miles between the station and their destination. If anything could, this drive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire to a sense of his ransom. They sped upon velvety wheels across an exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanish ponies struck a nimble, tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved by a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9354
wild, untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as they absorbed it, with the delicate redolence of prairie flowers. The road perished, and the buckboard swam the uncharted billows of the grass itself, steered by the practised hand of Raidler, to whom each tiny distant mott of trees was a signboard, each convolution of the low hills a voucher of course and distance. But McGuire reclined upon his spine, seeing nothing but a desert, and receiving the cattleman’s advances with sullen distrust. “W’at’s he up to?” was the burden of his thoughts; “w’at kind of a gold brick has the big guy got to sell?” McGuire was only applying the measure of the streets he had walked to a range bounded by the horizon and the fourth dimension. A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped it at the ranch for the boys to attend to. It was impossible for McGuire to know or comprehend that, in the eyes of the cattleman, his case and that of the calf were identical in interest and demand upon his assistance. A creature was ill and helpless; he had the power to render aid — these were the only postulates required for the cattleman to act. They formed his system of logic and the most of his creed. McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thus casually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that is said to linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been guests of Solito Ranch until they had been able to leave, cured or better, and exhausting the vocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came too late, but rested very comfortably, at last, under a ratama tree in the garden.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9379
“T’ought I was lyin’ about the money, did ye? Well, you can frisk
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9379
me if you wanter. Dat’s the last simoleon in the treasury. Who’s goin’ to pay?” The cattleman’s clear grey eyes looked steadily from under his grizzly brows into the huckleberry optics of his guest. After a little he said simply, and not ungraciously, “I’ll be much obliged to you, son, if you won’t mention money any more. Once was quite a plenty. Folks I ask to my ranch don’t have to pay anything, and they very scarcely ever offers it. Supper’ll be ready in half an hour. There’s water in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9383
pitcher, and some, cooler, to drink, in that red jar hanging on the gallery.” “Where’s the bell?” asked McGuire, looking about. “Bell for what?” “Bell to ring for things. I can’t — see here,” he exploded in a sudden, weak fury, “I never asked you to bring me here. I never held you up for a cent. I never gave you a hard-luck story till you asked me. Here I am fifty miles from a bellboy or a cocktail. I’m sick. I can’t hustle. Gee! but I’m up against it!” McGuire
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9388
fell upon the cot and sobbed shiveringly. Raidler went to the door and called. A slender, bright-complexioned Mexican youth about twenty came quickly. Raidler spoke to him in Spanish. “Ylario, it is in my mind that I promised you the position of /vaquero/ on the San Carlos range at the fall /rodeo/.” “/Si, senor/, such was your goodness.” “Listen. This /senorito/ is my friend. He is very sick. Place yourself at his side. Attend to his wants at all times. Have much patience and care with him. And when he is well, or — and when he is well, instead of / vaquero/ I will make you /mayordomo/ of the Rancho de las Piedras. /Esta bueno/?” “/Si, si — mil gracias, senor/.” Ylario tried to kneel upon the floor in his gratitude, but the cattleman kicked at him benevolently, growling, “None of your opery-house antics, now.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Raidler, a cattleman who has helped many sick people by bringing them to his ranch to recover their health. McGuire is his next subject to help but after a doctor examined him, he is declared very healthy. Raidler then upset about being fooled has McGuire help in the fields, while McGuire saying he is ill. Raidler was needed elsewhere and returns much later and finds out that the doctor examined the young man looking after McGuire and the mistake had Raidler thinking he killed McGuire for sending him on the cattle drive. Certain that McGuire is dead, he happily finds the prize fighter healthy and happy, hoping to stay on the ranch, when at first he was not liking his stay.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9395
Ten minutes later Ylario came from McGuire’s room and stood before Raidler. “The little /senor/,” he announced, “presents his compliments” (Raidler credited Ylario with the preliminary) “and desires some pounded ice, one hot bath, one gin feez-z, that the windows be all closed, toast, one shave, one Newyorkheral’, cigarettes, and to send one telegram.” Raidler took a quart bottle of whisky from his medicine cabinet. “Here, take him this,” he said.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9399
Thus was instituted the reign of terror at the Solito Ranch. For a few weeks McGuire blustered and boasted and swaggered before the cow- punchers who rode in for miles around to see this latest importation of Raidler’s. He was an absolutely new experience to them. He explained to them all the intricate points of sparring and the tricks of training and defence. He opened to their minds’ view all the indecorous life of a tagger after professional sports. His jargon of slang was a continuous joy and surprise
Story in short- Cattleman goes to the city and finds a sick prize fighter to bring home to his ranch.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9305
“Cricket” McGuire found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman — may his shadow never measure under six foot two. The cattleman, out this early to catch the south-bound for his ranch station, stopped at the side of the distressed patron of sport, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9309
spoke in the kindly drawl of his ilk and region, “Got it pretty bad, bud?” “Cricket” McGuire, ex-feather-weight prizefighter, tout, jockey, follower of the “ponies,” all-round sport, and manipulator of the gum balls and walnut shells, looked up pugnaciously at the imputation cast by “bud.” “G’wan,” he rasped, “telegraph pole. I didn’t ring for yer.” Another paroxysm wrung him, and he leaned limply against a convenient baggage truck. Raidler waited patiently, glancing around
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9313
at the white hats, short overcoats, and big cigars thronging the platform. “You’re from the No’th, ain’t you, bud?” he asked when the other was partially recovered. “Come down to see the fight?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9332
“Come on, bud,” he said. “We got three minutes to catch the train.” Sarcasm seemed to be McGuire’s vein. “You ain’t seen me cash in any chips or call a turn since I told you I was broke, a minute ago, have you? Friend, chase yourself away.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9334
“You’re going down to my ranch,” said the cattleman, “and stay till you get well. Six months’ll fix you good as new.” He lifted McGuire with one hand, and half-dragged him in the direction of the train. “What about the money?” said McGuire, struggling weakly to escape. “Money for what?” asked Raidler, puzzled.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9346
McGuire sat, collapsed into his corner of the seat, receiving with acid suspicion the conversation of the cattleman. What was the “game” of this big “geezer” who was carrying him off? Altruism would have been McGuire’s last guess. “He ain’t no farmer,” thought the captive, “and he ain’t no con man, for sure. W’at’s his lay? You trail in, Cricket, and see how many cards he draws. You’re up against it, anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin’ consumption, and you better lay low. Lay low and see w’at’s his game.” At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled the thirty miles between the station and their destination. If anything could, this drive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire to a sense of his ransom. They sped upon velvety wheels across an exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanish ponies struck a nimble, tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved by a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9354
wild, untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as they absorbed it, with the delicate redolence of prairie flowers. The road perished, and the buckboard swam the uncharted billows of the grass itself, steered by the practised hand of Raidler, to whom each tiny distant mott of trees was a signboard, each convolution of the low hills a voucher of course and distance. But McGuire reclined upon his spine, seeing nothing but a desert, and receiving the cattleman’s advances with sullen distrust. “W’at’s he up to?” was the burden of his thoughts; “w’at kind of a gold brick has the big guy got to sell?” McGuire was only applying the measure of the streets he had walked to a range bounded by the horizon and the fourth dimension. A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped it at the ranch for the boys to attend to. It was impossible for McGuire to know or comprehend that, in the eyes of the cattleman, his case and that of the calf were identical in interest and demand upon his assistance. A creature was ill and helpless; he had the power to render aid — these were the only postulates required for the cattleman to act. They formed his system of logic and the most of his creed. McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thus casually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that is said to linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been guests of Solito Ranch until they had been able to leave, cured or better, and exhausting the vocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came too late, but rested very comfortably, at last, under a ratama tree in the garden.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9379
“T’ought I was lyin’ about the money, did ye? Well, you can frisk
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9379
me if you wanter. Dat’s the last simoleon in the treasury. Who’s goin’ to pay?” The cattleman’s clear grey eyes looked steadily from under his grizzly brows into the huckleberry optics of his guest. After a little he said simply, and not ungraciously, “I’ll be much obliged to you, son, if you won’t mention money any more. Once was quite a plenty. Folks I ask to my ranch don’t have to pay anything, and they very scarcely ever offers it. Supper’ll be ready in half an hour. There’s water in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9383
pitcher, and some, cooler, to drink, in that red jar hanging on the gallery.” “Where’s the bell?” asked McGuire, looking about. “Bell for what?” “Bell to ring for things. I can’t — see here,” he exploded in a sudden, weak fury, “I never asked you to bring me here. I never held you up for a cent. I never gave you a hard-luck story till you asked me. Here I am fifty miles from a bellboy or a cocktail. I’m sick. I can’t hustle. Gee! but I’m up against it!” McGuire
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9388
fell upon the cot and sobbed shiveringly. Raidler went to the door and called. A slender, bright-complexioned Mexican youth about twenty came quickly. Raidler spoke to him in Spanish. “Ylario, it is in my mind that I promised you the position of /vaquero/ on the San Carlos range at the fall /rodeo/.” “/Si, senor/, such was your goodness.” “Listen. This /senorito/ is my friend. He is very sick. Place yourself at his side. Attend to his wants at all times. Have much patience and care with him. And when he is well, or — and when he is well, instead of / vaquero/ I will make you /mayordomo/ of the Rancho de las Piedras. /Esta bueno/?” “/Si, si — mil gracias, senor/.” Ylario tried to kneel upon the floor in his gratitude, but the cattleman kicked at him benevolently, growling, “None of your opery-house antics, now.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Raidler, a cattleman who has helped many sick people by bringing them to his ranch to recover their health. McGuire is his next subject to help but after a doctor examined him, he is declared very healthy. Raidler then upset about being fooled has McGuire help in the fields, while McGuire saying he is ill. Raidler was needed elsewhere and returns much later and finds out that the doctor examined the young man looking after McGuire and the mistake had Raidler thinking he killed McGuire for sending him on the cattle drive. Certain that McGuire is dead, he happily finds the prize fighter healthy and happy, hoping to stay on the ranch, when at first he was not liking his stay.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9395
Ten minutes later Ylario came from McGuire’s room and stood before Raidler. “The little /senor/,” he announced, “presents his compliments” (Raidler credited Ylario with the preliminary) “and desires some pounded ice, one hot bath, one gin feez-z, that the windows be all closed, toast, one shave, one Newyorkheral’, cigarettes, and to send one telegram.” Raidler took a quart bottle of whisky from his medicine cabinet. “Here, take him this,” he said.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 9399
Thus was instituted the reign of terror at the Solito Ranch. For a few weeks McGuire blustered and boasted and swaggered before the cow- punchers who rode in for miles around to see this latest importation of Raidler’s. He was an absolutely new experience to them. He explained to them all the intricate points of sparring and the tricks of training and defence. He opened to their minds’ view all the indecorous life of a tagger after professional sports. His jargon of slang was a continuous joy and surprise
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