The Best Short Stories of 1915 | Page 6

qualities to
commend them to the untrained reader. All this serves to illustrate my
point that the commercial short story is not preferred by that imaginary
norm of editors known as "the reading public." If adequate means are
employed to allay the average man's suspicions of literature and to
introduce him painlessly to the best that our writers are creating, my
experience shows absolutely that he will respond heartily and make
higher standards possible by his support. We have scarcely begun to
build our democracy of letters.
Because an American publisher has been found who shares my faith in
the democratic future of the American short story as something by no
means ephemeral, this year-book of American fiction is assured of
annual publication for several years. It is my wish annually to dedicate
whatever there may be of faith and hope in each volume to the writer of
short stories whose work during the year has brought to me the most
definite message of idealism. It is accordingly my privilege this year to
associate the present volume with the name of Benjamin Rosenblatt,
who has contributed in "Zelig" a noble addition to American literature.
EDWARD J. O'BRIEN
SOUTH YARMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS Twelfth Night, 1916

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915

THE WATER-HOLE[1]
BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT
From Scribner's Magazine
[1] Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1916, by
Maxwell Struthers Burt.

Some men are like the twang of a bow-string. Hardy was like
that--short, lithe, sunburned, vivid. Into the lives of Jarrick, Hill, and
myself, old classmates of his, he came and went in the fashion of one of
those queer winds that on a sultry day in summer blow unexpectedly up
a city street out of nowhere. His comings excited us; his goings left us
refreshed and a little vaguely discontented. So many people are gray.
Hardy gave one a shock of color, as do the deserts and the mountains
he inhabited. It was not particularly what he said--he didn't talk
much--it was his appearance, his direct, a trifle fierce, gestures, the
sense of mysterious lands that pervaded him. One never knew when he
was coming to New York and one never knew how long he was going
to stay; he just appeared, was very busy with mining companies for a
while, sat about clubs in the late afternoon, and then, one day, he was
gone.
Sometimes he came twice in a year; oftener, not for two or three years
at a stretch. When he did come we gave him a dinner--that is, Jarrick,
Hill, and myself. And it was rather an occasion. We would procure a
table in the gayest restaurant we could find, near, but not too near, the
music--Hill it was who first suggested this as a dramatic bit of
incongruity between Hardy and the frequenters of Broadway--and the
most exotic food obtainable, for a good part of his time Hardy, we
knew, lived upon camp fare. Then we would try to make him tell about
his experiences. Usually he wouldn't. Impersonally, he was entertaining
about South Africa, about the Caucasus, about Alaska, Mexico,
anywhere you care to think; but concretely he might have been an
illustrated lecture for all he mentioned himself. He was passionately
fond of abstract argument. "Y' see," he would explain, "I don't get half
as much of this sort of thing as I want. Of course, one does run across
remarkable people--now, I met a cow-puncher once who knew Keats
by heart--but as a rule I deal only with material things, mines and
prospects and assays and that sort of thing." Poor chap! I wonder if he
thought that we, with our brokering and our writing and our lawyering,
dealt much with ideas! I remember one night when we sat up until three
discussing the philosophy of prohibition over three bottles of port. I
wonder how many other men have done the same thing!

But five years ago--no, it was six--Hardy really told us a real story
about himself. Necessarily the occasion is memorable in our
recollections. We had dined at Lamb's, and the place was practically
empty, for it was long after the theatre hour--only a drowsy waiter here
and there, and away over in one corner a young couple who, I suppose,
imagined themselves in love. Fancy being in love at Lamb's! We had
been discussing, of all things in the world, bravery and conscience and
cowardice and original sin, and that sort of business, and there was no
question about it that Hardy was enjoying himself hugely. He was
leaning upon the table, a coffee-cup between his relaxed brown hands,
listening with an eagerness highly complimentary to the banal remarks
we had to make upon the subject. "This is talk!" he ejaculated once
with a laugh.
Hill, against