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

How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY

Pearl Button is a little girl living in a big and rich house, a kind of house that she calls House of Boxes. At the moment of the story, she is playing in the garden, when two big and fat women (perhaps native New Zealander people or gipsies) get there. They liked the child very much and offer her to go with them. At first, the girl has some doubts, but, as the two women seem very nice and wear coloured robes, she decides to go. So they go away from the girl’s house on foot, but, after a while, the girl feels tired, and one of the women carry her. They arrive to their camp; there everybody is very nice, and they give her some fruit. She likes it very much, and, although she stains her dress, nobody worries about it. Then they leave their camp and drive on carts until they reach the beach; Pearl has never seen the sea and she’s amazed and happy. She sees the small houses where these happy people live; the women take off her clothes, and all of them go to the shore. A small wave wets Pearl’s feet and, after the first surprise, she enjoys it very much. But, at this moment, policemen arrive to rescue the girl.

But, was the girl really kidnapped? Or is it better to say that she ran away from her boring life? Were the two women kidnapping her? Or were they only inviting her?

To be happy, do you have to break the rules, do you have to escape from the routine?

There is a narrator in this story, but sometimes this narrator uses the characters’ words and thoughts to tell the story, e.g., “House of Boxes”. What is the effect of this? Don’t you feel nearer the characters? The distance between narrator and character is broken and you are aware you know better their feelings, their points of view.

AUDIOBOOK

 

QUESTIONS

What does the name’s girl suggest to you?

What resources does the author use to make the two women nice for us?

What does a “House of Boxes” look like?

Do you think the girl cried because she was afraid? How do you know?

“The woman was warm as a cat”. What animal do you think is the best pet for a child? Why?

Are fat people nicer or kinder, according to the cliché? Are they more “comfortable”?

Why dies the writer says “[the water] stopped being blue in her hands”?

Who were the “little men in blue coats”? How do you know?

What do you know about the Stockholm syndrome?

 

VOCABULARY

swung, rugs, whip, briar, nestled, purring, paddock, coaxed