The Ransom of Red Chief, by O. Henry

Full House (Chapter 4: The Ransom of the Red Chief, minute 1.05.15) 

Another film

And the one of the picture!

Academic activities

SUMMARY

Bill and Sam had all of a sudden an idea, or, better, an inspiration, and this idea was kidnapping a child and getting a lot of money for his ransom. They looked for a very calm and quiet place far from the bustling and populated cities. Then they choose a wealthy citizen with a lovely child. They also looked for a place to keep the hostage until they get the ransom.

They found their prey and took him, but the boy fought back. In the end they could carry him to their hideaway.  However the boy, once in the cave in the mountains, enjoyed the situation: he was camping out, nothing he ever did, and felt happy and started to play pretending he was an Indian, the Red Chief. He demanded that the two kidnappers played with him. He was so excited that nobody went to sleep until the small hours of the morning. Bill and Sam knew that the boy wouldn’t escape.

The next day he got up very early and started to play Indians again. He was trying to cut Bill’s scalp. Sam saw it just in time to take the knife from the boy’s hands. Sam also had to be watchful because the “Red Chief” had said he (Sam) was to be tied to a stake and burned to death.

Bill and Sam expected that patrols would roam around the country and the mountains searching for the boy, but the landscape was quiet as ever.

The boy attacked Bill again and Sam had to restore peace. But the child went on being mischievous, especially with Bill.

Sam decided to immediately send a message to the father asking for the ransom and giving instructions about how to pay it and recover the boy, the time and the place. He went to another village to send the message, and all was suspiciously calm too.

When he got back to the cave, the boy wasn’t an Indian anymore: he was a scout, and Bill his horse. Bill had to carry the boy on his back for a long way and now he was exhausted. So, he couldn’t bear the boy anymore and decided on the spot to send him home and forget about all the business. But unfortunately for Bill, the boy came back to the kidnappers: he was having such a great time!

Sam asked Bill to have a bit more patience: at night the business will be completed, and they would get rich and free from the naughty boy.

At the right time and the right place, a messenger arrived by bike. But, instead of the ransom, he left a note in the place. It was from the father, and it said…

 

QUESTIONS

What do you know about Stockholm syndrome?

What can we make of King Herod legend?

What is your opinion about educating children at home and not going to school?

 

VOCABULARY

flannel-cake, undeleterious, Maypole, philoprogenitoveness, lackadaisical, bloodhounds, passer and forecloser, brake, hitched, court-plaster, buzzard, warpath, broiled, possum, pesky, rubber for, pard, imp, dote on, yeomanry, dun, fold, niggerhead, stockade, foil, hoss, chawbacons, whiskerando, yodel, wabbled, oats, Bedlam, ewe, leech, calliope

Witches' Loafes, by O. Henry

Video (an amateur film)

Summary and analysis

Analysis

Themes

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

The story is about Miss Martha. She is a single middle-aged lady who runs her own bakery. She has a good heart and she sympathizes with one of her customers, a man with a German accent, who only buys two loaves of stale bread, two or three times a week.

Miss Martha finds him attractive. The man, Blumberger, doesn’t seem rich in any way. His clothes are mended in some places. Despite that, he looks neat and is very polite. She is sure that he is an artist, and very poor, because once she saw a red and brown stain on his fingers.

Miss Martha imagines the artist sitting in the middle of his empty room, having the stale bread and water for his meals. She falls in love with the idea of helping him and maybe creating a relationship.

One day, Miss Martha changes her old apron for a blue-dotted silk one, and behind the counter, she looks more beautiful. She also prepares a mixture of seeds and borax for her complexion, to make her more attractive to him. Then the customer arrives for his stale bread, and while he is distracted by a fire-engine outside, Miss Martha puts some fresh butter inside the stale loaves and gives them to him without him noticing. She imagines how he will enjoy the surprise of finding the fresh butter after his painting work. 

A few hours later, the outside bell rings. Two men are standing there. One is a young man smoking a pipe, the other is her favourite customer. He is upset and very angry. He is shouting, accusing her of mocking him, and insults her with German words. 

Poor Miss Martha! She feels ashamed and guilty… She removes her apron replacing it with the old one and throws the mixture out of the window. The romantic bubble has burst.

Some reflections

Some people have a tendency to make assumptions based on appearances, and there is a danger of acting on those assumptions without fully understanding a person’s situation. Miss Martha’s sympathetic heart and her desire to help the artist are admirable, but her actions are wrong and hurtful. 

The story’s title “Witches’ loaves” gives the association between women and evil enchantment. Perhaps the title suggests that Martha has attempted to “bewitch” Blumberger with butter in order to try to win him as her husband.

QUESTIONS
How can you recognize a genius?
Are pictures an exact representation of reality? (Think about Canaletto and his Venetian pictures, or about Stubbs and his running horses.)

Do you believe in first impressions? When, or how, can you decide you know a person? Imagine you go to a blind date and you meet someone new: When and why do you decide to go on with the meeting, or to stop it?

On your view, what are the essencial qualities a shopkeeper must have?

Why being single was a shame (mostly for a woman) in older times?

 

VOCABULARY

sympathetic, darned, stale, garret, chops, showcase, Sally Luns, quince, complexion, nickel, dairyman, fluttering, edibles, dwelt, easel, viciously