Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

by O. Henry

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics

10 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

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. 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.

Reviews

[April Helms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy is sent to join a group of rangers to help patrol the area. He brings with him Muriel, to the surprise of his fellow rangers. She winds up providing a valuable service in the end after the rangers are surprised by a roving band of infamous outlaws. Sweet and funny, and a bit sad.

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:

"Easy to mistake
The mettle of cheerful souls—
But you’d be surprised."

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

O. Henry’s “Jimmy Hayes and Muriel” is one of my favorites of his short stories for its show of strength and worth in the unlikely.

Story in short- A young untested but liked young man joins the Texas Rangers.

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Two minutes of waiting brought a tired “paint” pony single-footing into camp. A gangling youth of
twenty lolled in the saddle. Of the “Muriel” whom he had been addressing, nothing was to be seen. “Hi,
fellows!” shouted the rider cheerfully. “This here’s a letter fer Lieutenant Manning.” He dismounted,
unsaddled, dropped the coils of his stake-rope,
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and got his hobbles from the saddle-horn. While Lieutenant Manning, in command, was reading the
letter, the newcomer, rubbed solicitously at some dried mud in the loops of the hobbles, showing a
consideration for the forelegs of his mount. “Boys,” said the lieutenant, waving his hand to the rangers,
“this is Mr. James Hayes. He’s a new member of the company. Captain McLean sends him down from El
Paso. The boys will see that you have some supper, Hayes, as soon as you get your pony hobbled.”
Page 2148❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert

Jimmy is liked for his humor about his frog who knows and likes his master but he has not been tested yet. When a surprise attack by bandits takes the Rangers by surprise it seems Jimmy left as a coward and could not be found as well as the bandits. A year later bodies are found of a gunfight with the bandits and another man who was Jimmy identified by his frog still by her master alive.

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The recruit was received cordially by the rangers. Still, they observed him shrewdly and with suspended
judgment. Picking a comrade on the border is done with ten times the care and discretion with which a
girl chooses a sweetheart. On your “side-kicker’s” nerve, loyalty, aim, and coolness your own life may
depend many times. After a hearty supper Hayes joined the smokers about the fire. His appearance did
not settle all the questions in the minds of his brother rangers. They saw simply
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loose, lank youth with tow-coloured, sun-burned hair and a berry-brown, ingenuous face that wore a
quizzical, good-natured smile. “Fellows,” said the new ranger, “I’m goin’ to interduce to you a lady friend
of mine. Ain’t ever heard anybody call her a beauty, but you’ll all admit she’s got some fine points about
her. Come along, Muriel!” He held open the front of his blue flannel shirt. Out of it crawled a horned frog.
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“This here Muriel,” said Hayes, with an oratorical wave of his hand, “has got qualities. She never talks
back, she always stays at home, and she’s satisfied with one red dress for every day and Sunday, too.”
“Look at that blame insect!” said one of the rangers with a grin. “I’ve seen plenty of them horny frogs,
but I never knew anybody to have one for a side-partner. Does the blame thing know you from anybody
else?”
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“Take it over there and see,” said Hayes. The stumpy little lizard known as the horned frog is harmless.
He has the hideousness of the prehistoric monsters whose reduced descendant he is, but he is gentler
than the dove. The ranger took Muriel from Hayes’s knee and went back to his seat on a roll of blankets.
The captive twisted and clawed and struggled vigorously in his hand. After holding it for a moment or
two, the ranger set it upon the ground. Awkwardly, but swiftly the frog worked its four oddly moving
legs until it stopped close by Hayes’s foot. “Well, dang my hide!” said the other ranger. “The little cuss
knows you. Never thought them insects had that much sense!”
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Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger camp. He had an endless store of good-nature, and a
mild, perennial quality of humour that is well adapted to camp life. He was never without his horned
frog. In the bosom of his shirt during rides, on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at night,
the ugly little beast never left him. Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in the rural South and
West. Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty
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conceptions, he had hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very
funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame horned frog with a red
ribbon around its neck. As it was a happy idea, why not perpetuate it?
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Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brotherhood with his comrades. They loved him for his
simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great sword of suspended judgment. To make
merry in camp is not all of a ranger’s
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life. There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to
rout out of the chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had
been “‘most generally a cow-puncher,” he said; he was inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare.
Therefore the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire. For, let it be known,
the honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its members.
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One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted for supper after a long ride. Their horses stood
panting, with their saddles on. The men were frying bacon and boiling coffee. Suddenly, out of the
brush, Sebastiano Saldar and his gang dashed upon them with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced
yells. It was a neat surprise. The rangers swore in annoyed tones, and got their Winchesters busy; but
the attack was only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican type. After the florid demonstration the
raiders
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galloped away, yelling, down the river. The rangers mounted and pursued; but in less than two miles
the fagged ponies laboured so that Lieutenant Manning gave the word to abandon the chase and return
to the camp. Then it was discovered that Jimmy Hayes was missing. Some one remembered having seen
him run for his pony when the attack began, but no one had set eyes on him since. Morning came, but no
Jimmy. They searched the country around, on the theory that he had
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been killed or wounded, but without success. Then they followed after Saldar’s gang, but it seemed to
have disappeared. Manning concluded that the wily Mexican had recrossed the river after his theatric
farewell. And, indeed, no further depredations from him were reported. This gave the rangers time to
nurse a soreness they had. As has been said, the pride and honour of the company is the individual
bravery of its members. And now they believed that Jimmy Hayes had
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turned coward at the whiz of Mexican bullets. There was no other deduction. Buck Davis pointed out
that not a shot was fired by Saldar’s gang after Jimmy was seen running for his horse. There was no way
for him to have been shot. No, he had fled from his first fight, and afterward he would not return, aware
that the scorn of his comrades would be a worse thing to face than the muzzles of many rifles.
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All of them had liked Jimmy Hayes, and that made it worse. Days, weeks, and months went by, and still
that little cloud of unforgotten cowardice hung above the camp.
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One afternoon, while they were riding through a dense mesquite flat, they came upon a patch of open
hog-wallow prairie. There they rode upon the scene of an unwritten tragedy.
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In a big hog-wallow lay the skeletons of three Mexicans. Their clothing alone served to identify them.
The largest of the figures had once been Sebastiano Saldar. His great, costly sombrero, heavy with gold
ornamentation — a hat famous all along the Rio Grande — lay there pierced by three bullets. Along the
ridge of the hog-wallow rested the rusting Winchesters of the Mexicans — all pointing in the same
direction. The rangers rode in that direction for fifty yards. There, in a little depression of the ground,
with his rifle still bearing upon the three, lay another skeleton. It had been a battle of extermination.
There was nothing to identify the solitary defender. His clothing — such as the elements had left
distinguishable — seemed to be of the kind that any ranchman or cowboy might have worn. “Some cow-
puncher,” said Manning, “that they caught out alone. Good boy! He put up a dandy scrap before they got
him. So that’s why
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we didn’t hear from Don Sebastiano any more!” And then, from beneath the weather-beaten rags of the
dead man, there wriggled out a horned frog with a faded red ribbon around its neck, and sat upon the
shoulder of its long quiet master. Mutely it told the story of the untried youth and the swift “paint” pony
— how they had outstripped all their comrades that day in the pursuit of the Mexican raiders, and how
the boy had gone down upholding the honour of the company.
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The ranger troop herded close, and a simultaneous wild yell arose from their lips. The outburst was at
once a dirge, an apology, an epitaph, and a pæan of triumph. A strange requiem, you may say, over the
body of a fallen, comrade; but if Jimmy Hayes could have heard it he would have understood.

[Anatoly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short story “Jimmy Hayes and Muriel” by O. Henry looks beautiful and impressive, but not real. This is a case where O. Henry temporarily turned from a famous writer into a journalist from some kind of "yellow press".

So according to the plot, a young guy called Jimmy Hayes along with his girlfriend Muriel, arrived at a frontier post. Who was the guy's girlfriend, and what happened next, you will find out by reading this short story.

Here is the link to the text of the story:

https://americanliterature.com/author...