The Last of the Troubadours Page #2

"The Last of the Troubadours" is a short story by O. Henry that beautifully weaves themes of romance, nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of time. Set in a vibrant urban landscape, the narrative follows a down-and-out musician who wanders the streets, reflecting on love and lost dreams while capturing moments of genuine human connection. O. Henry's signature wit and poignant storytelling shine through as he explores the resilience of the human spirit, the power of art, and the enduring quest for beauty amid life's hardships. The story serves as a tribute to the troubadours of the past, celebrating the timeless nature of music and love.

• Short story

								

Kiowa’s biscuits were light and tasty and his coffee strong.
Ineradicable hospitality and appreciation glowed on old man Ellison’s
weather-tanned face. As for the troubadour, he said to himself that he
had stumbled upon pleasant places indeed. A well-cooked, abundant meal,
a host whom his lightest attempt to entertain seemed to delight far
beyond the merits of the exertion, and the reposeful atmosphere that
his sensitive soul at that time craved united to confer upon him a
satisfaction and luxurious ease that he had seldom found on his tours
of the ranches.

After the delectable supper, Sam untied the green duck bag and took out
his guitar. Not by way of payment, mind you—neither Sam Galloway nor
any other of the true troubadours are lineal descendants of the late
Tommy Tucker. You have read of Tommy Tucker in the works of the
esteemed but often obscure Mother Goose. Tommy Tucker sang for his
supper. No true troubadour would do that. He would have his supper, and
then sing for Art’s sake.

Sam Galloway’s repertoire comprised about fifty funny stories and
between thirty and forty songs. He by no means stopped there. He could
talk through twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up. And he
never sat up when he could lie down; and never stood when he could sit.
I am strongly disposed to linger with him, for I am drawing a portrait
as well as a blunt pencil and a tattered thesaurus will allow.

I wish you could have seen him: he was small and tough and inactive
beyond the power of imagination to conceive. He wore an
ultramarine-blue woollen shirt laced down the front with a pearl-gray,
exaggerated sort of shoestring, indestructible brown duck clothes,
inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican spurs, and a Mexican straw
sombrero.

That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under the
hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour gaily
touched his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird,
melancholy, minor-keyed canciones that he had learned from the
Mexican sheep herders and vaqueros. One, in particular, charmed and
soothed the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the
sheep herders, beginning: “Huile, huile, palomita,” which being
translated means, “Fly, fly, little dove.” Sam sang it for old man
Ellison many times that evening.

The troubadour stayed on at the old man’s ranch. There was peace and
quiet and appreciation there, such as he had not found in the noisy
camps of the cattle kings. No audience in the world could have crowned
the work of poet, musician, or artist with more worshipful and
unflagging approval than that bestowed upon his efforts by old man
Ellison. No visit by a royal personage to a humble woodchopper or
peasant could have been received with more flattering thankfulness and
joy.

On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the hackberry trees Sam
Galloway passed the greater part of his time. There he rolled his brown
paper cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch afforded,
and added to his repertoire of improvisations that he played so
expertly on his guitar. To him, as a slave ministering to a great lord,
the Kiowa brought cool water from the red jar hanging under the brush
shelter, and food when he called for it. The prairie zephyrs fanned him
mildly; mocking-birds at morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled
the sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness seemed to fill all
his world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his flocks of
sheep on his mile-an-hour pony, and while the Kiowa took his siesta in
the burning sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam would lie on his
cot thinking what a happy world he lived in, and how kind it is to the
ones whose mission in life it is to give entertainment and pleasure.
Here he had food and lodging as good as he had ever longed for;
absolute immunity from care or exertion or strife; an endless welcome,
and a host whose delight at the sixteenth repetition of a song or a
story was as keen as at its initial giving. Was there ever a troubadour
of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his wanderings? While he
lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown cottontails would
shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted blue quail
would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a paisano bird,
out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him
with sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse
pasture the pony with the Dantesque face grew fat and almost smiling.
The troubadour was at the end of his wanderings.

Old man Ellison was his own vaciero. That means that he supplied his
sheep camps with wood, water, and rations by his own labours instead of
hiring a vaciero. On small ranches it is often done.

One morning he started for the camp of Incarnación Felipe de la Cruz y
Monte Piedras (one of his sheep herders) with the week’s usual rations
of brown beans, coffee, meal, and sugar. Two miles away on the trail
from old Fort Ewing he met, face to face, a terrible being called King
James, mounted on a fiery, prancing, Kentucky-bred horse.

King James’s real name was James King; but people reversed it because
it seemed to fit him better, and also because it seemed to please his
majesty. King James was the biggest cattleman between the Alamo plaza
in San Antone and Bill Hopper’s saloon in Brownsville. Also he was the
loudest and most offensive bully and braggart and bad man in southwest
Texas. And he always made good whenever he bragged; and the more noise
he made the more dangerous he was. In the story papers it is always the
quiet, mild-mannered man with light blue eyes and a low voice who turns
out to be really dangerous; but in real life and in this story such is
not the case. Give me my choice between assaulting a large, loudmouthed
rough-houser and an inoffensive stranger with blue eyes sitting quietly
in a corner, and you will see something doing in the corner every time.

King James, as I intended to say earlier, was a fierce,
two-hundred-pound, sunburned, blond man, as pink as an October
strawberry, and with two horizontal slits under shaggy red eyebrows for
eyes. On that day he wore a flannel shirt that was tan-coloured, with
the exception of certain large areas which were darkened by
transudations due to the summer sun. There seemed to be other clothing
and garnishings about him, such as brown duck trousers stuffed into
immense boots, and red handkerchiefs and revolvers; and a shotgun laid
across his saddle and a leather belt with millions of cartridges
shining in it—but your mind skidded off such accessories; what held
your gaze was just the two little horizontal slits that he used for
eyes.

This was the man that old man Ellison met on the trail; and when you
count up in the baron’s favour that he was sixty-five and weighed
ninety-eight pounds and had heard of King James’s record and that he
(the baron) had a hankering for the vita simplex and had no gun with
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