O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 | Page 7

is, as the equal of author and reader,
but also--and still without condescension--as reason for twinkles and
smiles.
Apart from consideration of impulses dominating the short story of
1921, impulses here summarized under the general idea of democracy,
the story is different in several particulars. First, its method of referring
to drink, strong drink, marks it of the present year. The setting is

frequently that of a foreign country, where prohibition is not yet known;
the date of the action may be prior to 1919; or the apology for presence
of intoxicating liquors is forthcoming in such statement as "My cellar is
not yet exhausted, you see."
Second, the war is no longer tabu; witness "The Tribute," and "His Soul
Goes Marching On." Touched by the patina of time and mellowed
through the mellifluence of age, the war now makes an appeal
dissimilar to that which caused readers two or three years ago to
declare they were "fed up."
Third, Freudian theories have found organic place in the substance of
the story. They have not yet found incorporation in many narratives
that preserve short story structure, however--although it is within
conceivability that the influence may finally burst the mould and create
a new--and the Committee agree in demanding both substance and
structure as short story essentials.
Finally, the story reflects the changing ideals of a constantly changing
age. Not only are these ideals changing because of cross-currents that
have their many sources in racial springs far asunder, not only because
of contact or conflict between the ideals and cosmic forces dimly
apprehended; also they are changing because of the undeniable
influence of what Emerson called the Oversoul. The youth of the time
is different, as youth is always different. But now and then a sharp
cleavage separates the succeeding generations and it separates them
now. The youth of England has found interpretation in Clemence
Dane's play, "A Bill of Divorcement." In America, the interpretation is
only half articulate; but when the incoherent sounds are wholly
intelligible, the literature of the short story will have entered, in definite
respects, upon a new era.
The Committee of Award wish once again to thank the authors, editors,
and publishers whose cooperation makes possible this annual volume
and the O. Henry Memorial Prizes.
Blanche Colton Williams.

New York City January 10, 1922

O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES of 1921

THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA
By EDISON MARSHALL
From Everybody's
I
If it hadn't been for a purple moon that came peering up above the dark
jungle just at nightfall, it would have been impossible to tell that Little
Shikara was at his watch. He was really just the colour of the
shadows--a rather pleasant brown--he was very little indeed, and
besides, he was standing very, very still. If he was trembling at all,
from anticipation and excitement, it was no more than Nahar the tiger
trembles as he crouches in ambush. But the moon did show
him--peering down through the leaf-clusters of the heavy vines--and
shone very softly in his wide-open dark eyes.
And it was a purple moon--no other colour that man could name. It
looked almost unreal, like a paper moon painted very badly by a
clumsy stage-hand. The jungle-moon quite often has that peculiar
purplish tint, most travellers know, but few of them indeed ever try to
tell what causes it. This particular moon probed down here and there
between the tall bamboos, transformed the jungle--just now
waking--into a mystery and a fairyland, glinted on a hard-packed
elephant trail that wound away into the thickets, and always came back
to shine on the coal-black Oriental eyes of the little boy beside the
village gate. It showed him standing very straight and just as tall as his
small stature would permit, and looked oddly silvery and strange on his
long, dark hair. Little Shikara, son of Khoda Dunnoo, was waiting for
the return of a certain idol and demigod who was even now riding

home in his howdah from the tiger hunt.
Other of the villagers would be down to meet Warwick Sahib as soon
as they heard the shouts of his beaters--but Little Shikara had been
waiting almost an hour. Likely, if they had known about it, they would
have commented on his badness, because he was notoriously bad, if
indeed--as the villagers told each other--he was not actually cursed with
evil spirits.
In the first place, he was almost valueless as a herder of buffalo. Three
times, when he had been sent with the other boys to watch the herds in
their wallows, he had left his post and crept away into the fringe of
jungle on what was unquestionably some mission of witchcraft. For
small naked brown boys, as a rule, do not go alone and unarmed into
the