Options | Page 3

or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

Scanned and proofread by Tim O'Connell

Note: Many of the authors spellings follow older, obsolete or
intentionally incorrect practice.

OPTIONS BY O HENRY

CONTENTS
"The Rose of Dixie" The Third Ingredient The Hiding of Black Bill
Schools and Schools Thimble, Thimble Supply and Demand Buried
Treasure To Him Who Waits He Also Serves The Moment of Victory
The Head-Hunter No Story The Higher Pragmatism Best-Seller Rus in
Urbe A Poor Rule

OPTIONS

"THE ROSE OF DIXIE"

When The Rose of Dixie magazine was started by a stock company in
Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chief
editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair was
the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family, reputation,
and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit, and logical editor.
So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizens who had subscribed
the founding fund of $100,000 called upon Colonel Telfair at his
residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterprise and the South
should suffer by his possible refusal.
The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent most of
his days. The library had descended to him from his father. It contained
ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published as late as the
year 1861. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfair was seated at
his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy. He arose and shook hands punctiliously with each
member of the committee. If you were familiar with The Rose of Dixie
you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it from
time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed white
hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the left; the
keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth beneath the
drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.
The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor,
humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication was
designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel's
lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by red
gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.
In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an outline
of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought the battle of
Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would so conduct
The Rose of Dixie that its fragrance and beauty would permeate the
entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern minions their
belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains and hearts of the
people whose property they had destroyed and whose rights they had
curtailed.
Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the

second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the
colonel to cause The Rose of Dixie to blossom and flourish or to wilt in
the balmy air of the land of flowers.
The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair drew
about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches. The
first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a father killed during
Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank, was the nephew
of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, Jackson Rockingham,
had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army, having
appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a
milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a third
cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune, the
colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once been
kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy, got
his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the
commencement exercises of the Toombs