Welcome back, everyone to 1001 classic short stories and tales.

This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn.

Today, Whistling Dick's Christmas stocking by one of our favorite authors here, O'Henry. This story was first published in O'Henry's

collection, Rhodes of Destiny, written in 1909. It was the first story he published under his

pseudonym, O'Henry. The name stuck,

and he used it ever since. The story is about a railway tramp traveling in the south who retrieves

a lost gift off the back of a passing surrey. On Christmas Eve, the skirts of fortune had swept

them into their folds.

If you like this story, you can check our archives at best of 1001stories.com,

O'Henry Stories, for a chaparral Christmas,

set in the Wild West.

Meanwhile, enjoy Whistling Dick's Christmas stocking.

It was with much caution that Whistling Dick slid back the door of the box car for Article 5716,

city ordinances, authorized, perhaps unconstitutionally, arrest on suspicion, and he was

familiar of old with this ordinance.

"'So, before climbing out, he surveyed the field with all the care of a good general.

"'He saw no change since his last visit to this big almsgiving, long-suffering city of the south,

"'the cold weather paradise of the tramps.

"'The levy where his freight car stood was pimpled

with dark bulks of merchandise. The breeze reeked with the well-remembered, sickening smell of

the old tarpaulins that covered bales and barrels. The Dunn River slipped along among the shipping

with an oily gurgle. Bar down towards Chalmet, he could see the great bend in the stream outlined by the row of electric lights.

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