Making Predictions

Based on the Story Preview, which of the following predictions is the most probable? Circle your choice or give an answer that you think is better.

1. The Old Gentleman decides not to take Stuffy to dinner on Thanksgiving Day anymore.

2. Stuffy decides that he doesn’t want to accept the Old Gentleman’s philanthropy anymore.

3. Stuffy cooks Thanksgiving dinner for the Old Gendeman.

4. _____________________________________________________________________________

5.Literary Term: Imagery

A story’s theme is the main idea that runs through the narrative. Sometimes, a story has several themes.

Focus One of the themes in “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” is respect for tradition. As you read, ask yourself how Stuffy Pete and the Old Gentleman each show that they respect the tradition of Thanksgiving.

B. The Story About the Author the story, look

About the Author

O. Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter (1862—1910), but he used the pen name O. Henry. Although he is best known for his stories about New York City, he didn’t actually live in New York until 1902. Born and raised in North Carolina, he moved to Texas in 1882. While in Texas, he wrote stories but also worked in a bank to support his wife and child. He was accused and convicted of stealing money from the bank and served three years in prison. During his prison term, he developed his writing technique. From fellow prisoners he heard some of the interesting stories that he used in his work.

After O. Henry moved to New York and began to make his living as a short-story writer, he continued to be fascinated with down-and-out people. The colorful characters he met in the streets and cafés of the city became immortalized in his stories. “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” deals with two such characters. O. Henry was the first American writer to popularize the surprise ending, another feature of the story you are about to read.

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all Americans like to go back home to eat a big dinner and feel they are part of a family. Bless the day. We hear some talk about the Puritans and the original Thanksgiving. But that was a long time ago. They landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts after escaping religious persecution in England. I’ll bet we could lick ’em if they tried to land again today.

They were lucky. The Indians they met took pity on them and helped them survive the winter. The first feast was held to celebrate their survival and their friendship with the original Americans, the Indians. Today we celebrate the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday. It is one day that is purely American. Yes, it is a day of celebration, exclusively American.

The following story will prove to you that we have traditions on this side of the ocean even though we are still a young country. Our story takes place in New York City on Thanksgiving Day.

Stuffy Pete took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at one o’clock. For every time he had done so, he had been rewarded with a feast.

But today Stuffy Pete’s appearance at the annual meeting place was a result of habit rather than hunger – which philanthropists seem to think the poor feel only on holidays. It seems that these are the only times the well-fed think of their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

Stuffy Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that left him barely able to breathe and move about. His breath came in short wheezes. The buttons that had been sewn on his coat by Salvation Army workers were popping from the pressure of his fat belly. His clothes were ragged and his shirt was split open. The November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought a grateful coolness. Stuffy Pete was still recovering from a huge dinner beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world.

The meal had been an unexpected one. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth Avenue. In this mansion there lived two old ladies of a traditional family. One of their traditional habits was to station a servant at the gate with orders to admit the first hungry person who walked by after the hour of noon. Stuffy happened to pass by on his way to Union Square and the servants upheld their custom. After stuffing himself and confirming the meaning of his name, Stuffy wandered on to the square as he had done so many times before. He sat on the park bench for ten minutes and stared into space. With a tremendous effort he turned his head slowly to the left. His eyes bulged out and his breath ceased. The Old Gentleman was coming across the walk toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on the bench. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had led Stuffy Pete to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. The Old Gentleman was a proud American patriot, and he was pleased to have established this Thanksgiving Day tradition with Stuffy Pete. It was extremely important to the Old Gentleman that their tradition should continue.

The annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was significant. It showed, at least, that traditions were possible not only in England. They were possible in America, too!

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won’t stay on your nose. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle.

As his benefactor came up, Stuffy Pete wheezed and shuddered like some over-fat pug when a street dog snarls at him. He would have escaped, but he was too full to move quickly.

"Good afternoon,” said the Old Gentleman. “I am glad to see that this year you are enjoying good health in the beautiful world. For that blessing alone this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that will satisfy you physically and mentally.”

That is what the Old Gentleman had said every time on every Thanksgiving Day for nine years. Nothing compared with these words except the Declaration of Independence. Always before they had been music in Stuffy’s ears. But now he looked up at the Old Gentleman’s face with tearful agony. The Old Gentleman shivered a little and turned his back to the wind.

Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech a little sadly. He did not know that it was because he was wishing every time that he had a son to succeed him. A son who would come there after he was gone – a son who would stand proud and strong before some future Stuffy and say: “In memory of my father.” Then the tradition would be an institution.

But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the decayed old family brownstone mansions on one of the quiet streets east of the park. In the winter he raised fuschias in a little greenhouse the size of a closet. In the spring he walked in the Easter Parade. In the summer he lived in a farmhouse in the New Jersey hills, and sat in a wicker armchair, speaking of a rare butterfly that he hoped to find some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. These were the Old Gentleman’s occupations.

Stuffy looked at him. The Old Gentleman’s eyes were bright with the pleasure of giving. His face was getting more lined each year, but his black necktie was in a bow, his shirt was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled gracefully at the ends.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll go with you and I’m very grateful. I’m very hungry, sir,” said Stuffy Pete. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own; it belonged by established custom to this kind, old gentleman. True, America is free. It got this freedom through the hard work of its heroes. Though he wasn’t as famous as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, Stuffy Pete was a hero who fought bravely to maintain tradition.

The Old Gentleman led his guest to the restaurant and to the table where the feast had always been served. They were recognized by the waiters. "Here comes that old guy who always treats that same bum to a meal every Thanksgiving.”

The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing with the pride one feels after doing a good deed. The waiters covered the table with holiday food and Stuffy began eating.

Our valiant hero fought his way through turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, and pies. Every time he felt discouraged and ready to give up the battle, he looked at the Old Gentleman. He saw the look of happiness on the Old Gentleman’s face, and it gave him the courage to go on. Stuffy did not have the heart to see the Old Gentleman’s happiness wane. In an hour Stuffy leaned back with the battle won.

“Thank you kindly, sir. Thank you kindly for a hearty meal,” Stuffy said. Then he got up with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen. A waiter turned him around and pointed toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in change, leaving three dimes for the waiter.

They parted as they did every year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy going north.

Stuffy turned around the first corner and stood for one minute. Then he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out its feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like a horse who has been in the sun too long.

When the ambulance came the young doctor and the driver cursed at his weight. Stuffy did not smell from whiskey, so instead of transferring him to the police, Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched him on a bed and started testing him for strange diseases.

An hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. They laid him on another bed and talked about his case. Pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses, whose eyes he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases.

“That nice old gentleman over there, now,” he said. “You wouldn’t think that was a case of near starvation. Proud old family, I guess. He told me he hadn’t eaten a thing in three days.”

C . After Reading

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1092