Editor's note: Our intention is to publish this manuscript again in segments before having it formatted for publication as an historic novel.

This is the fifty-chapter story of Bonham's one-and-only Rhodes Scholar, Harry Peyton Steger; born in Moscow, Tennessee and reared and educated in Fannin County, Texas, before leaving his mark on Austin, Texas, and studying Sanskrit at Johns Hopkins University; then it was across the pond to Oxford, England where he chaired the top debate club, dropped out to work with the underprivileged, almost starved before jumping a tramp steamer to return to the U.S. where Doubleday Publishing assigned him to work with William Sydney Porter, a mysterious short story writer forever known to the world as O. Henry.

It is a story of a boy who grew up in a thriving town with merchants crowded into every nook and cranny around a bustling town square and much of life centered around when the next train would roll up to the depot. Christy Mathewson stepped off the train in Bonham; so did Jim Thorpe. They were in town for an exhibition baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the then-New York Giants.

John Lomax, the man who discovered legendary blues guitarist Lead Belly, visited Bonham in his day. Roy Bedichek, author of Adventures With a Texas Naturalist and longtime director of the UIL, knew his way to town.

Before the advent of highways and air travel, Bonham had a train station and that was as good as it got.

But this story isn't about trains or baseball. It is the story of a Bonham boy who spent mornings playing tennis with the finest writers of his day - guys like Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Booth Tarkington - and who would one day find himself sitting alone in an attic in Austin, Texas, sifting through the clues to the secrets that had haunted his friend, William Sydney Porter -- O. Henry.

The ironic twist isn't lost on me that the story of arguably Bonham High School's most gifted graduate has been told by possibly the weakest graduate of that esteemed institution of higher learning. All I can say is, the pleasure was all mine.

Allen Rich