Today, I’m summarise “Witche’s Loaves” by O. Henry. But I’m not guarantee my English skills. Also this book isn’t script by O. Henry, some part was calibrated.
Summary of “Witche’s Loaves”
Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner. Two or three times each week a gentleman who speaks English with a strong German accent came into her bakery. She began to take an interest in him. He always bought two loaves of stale bread. It’s cheaper than a fresh bread. Once, Miss Martha noticed some red and brown paint on his fingers. She was sure then that he was an artist and very poor. So she wished that he might share her tasty food instead of stale bread. She decided whether he was an artist or not, so she placed painting of Venice complete with churches. As she expected, a man noticed that picture with a little bit of comments. So Miss Martha assures he would be an artist. One day, the gentleman came in as usual, put his five cents on the counter and called for his two stale loaves. At that moment, a great noise came outside, so a gentleman hurried to the door. Quickly Miss Martha made a deep cut in each of two loaves, placed a large amount of butter into each one, then pressed the loaves back together again. And a gentleman comes back and take off that bread. For a long time that day Miss Martha thought about her surprise. But against the expectation, a gentleman comes back and speaks loudly, looks so very angry, says “You have destroyed me.”
Because he’s an architectural draftsman, he’s been working very hard now for three months on a plan for a new city hall building. He finished drawing the lines in ink yesterday. You know, a draftsman always makes his drawing in pencil first before he uses the ink. So stale bread works well. But today, because of Miss Martha put into butter, the plan wasn’t good.
Bibliography
O. Henry., (2015), Best Short Stories of O. Henry, Tokyo: IBC Publishing(日本語訳：O. Henry、大久保康雄訳、2002年、『O, ヘンリ短編集(一)』、新潮文庫)
