Characters:
- O. Henry
- Miss Martha Meacham
- Miss Martha’s friend
- Blumberger (a draughtsman)
- Young man
O. Henry (to the audience): Hello, dear friends. Do you know who I am? No!? Let me introduce myself. I am a writer. People all over the world know my pen- name O. Henry but my real name is William Sydney Porter. I live in the USA and write short stories.
Today I want to tell you one of my stories. It is called “ Witches’ Loaves”.
Miss Martha Meacham keeps a small bakery on the corner. She is forty, she has two thousand dollars in a bank, two false teeth and a kind heart. Although she is still unmarried, she hopes to get married some time.
Two or three times a week a man comes into her shop to buy bread, and very soon she begins to take an interest in him.
Scene 1
The setting is a bakery. Miss Martha and her friend are drinking tea and chatting. Blumberger comes into the shop.
M: Good morning sir! Can I help you? What would you like?
B: I’d like two loaves of stale bread.
M: Anything else?
B: No, thank you. That’s all. Good bye. (He leaves the shop)
F: What a strange man! He speaks with a strong German accent. Do you know him?
M: Unfortunately I don’t. He comes into my shop two or three times a week and always buys only two loaves of stale bread. But how polite and well- mannered he is! (Dreamily) I’m sure that he is an artist and very poor.
F: Why do you think so?
M: I saw red and brown stains on his hands.
F: Poor thing! He doesn’t have enough money!
M: Of course he lives in a little cold room where he paints his pictures. He eats stale bread and only thinks of the tasty things to eat in my bakery.
Together: Poor thing!
M: (Dreamily) I’d like to share all good things I have with this man.
F: How are you going to test your theory about his occupation?
M: I have a wonderful idea! Do you remember one day I bought a painting at a sale.
Wait! I’ll try to find it. Look! (She shows a picture.) It is an Italian painting! A beautiful palace near the lake is shown in it.
F: And what? What are you going to do with it?
M: (Proudly) I’m going to put it against the shelves. I am sure that an artist will notice it and that way I’ll find out his profession!
Scene 2
O. Henry: Two days late the man came into the shop again.
B: Two loaves of stale bread, if you please. You have a fine picture here, madam.
M: (wrapping up the bread) Yes? I love art and painting. Do you think it is a good picture?
B: The palace is not in good drawing. The perspective of it is not true. Good bye, madam.
M: He must be an artist! (taking the picture back). (Dreamily) How kind his eyes are behind his glasses! How clever he is! To be an artist- and to live on stale bread!
O. Henry: Often now when he comes, he talks for sometime with Miss Martha.
(She is singing and dancing. She is wearing her best clothes.)
Scene 3
(Miss Martha and her friend are drinking tea, eating tasty things and chatting in the bakery.)
M: (Regretfully) You know, he continues buying stale bread, never a cake, never a pie, never anything else.
F: May be he prefers stale bread?
M: (Sad) He begins to look thinner! But what can I do for him? How could I help him? May be I’ll give him some tasty things?!
F: You know, dear all these artists are so proud!
Scene 4
O. Henry: One day the man came as usual.
B: Two loaves of stale bread, please.
(A great noise is heard from the street.)
B: What’s going on?? What a terrible noise!
(The man hurries to the door.)
M: (to herself) I have a bright idea! He’ll be happy!
(Miss Martha takes some fresh butter from the shelf; with a bread knife she makes a deep cut in each of the stale loaves and puts a big piece of butter there. When the man turns to her, she is putting the loaves into a paper bag).
The man has gone. Miss Martha is smiling to herself. She is singing and dancing.
Scene 5
The bell is ringing loudly. Two men come in. An unknown young man and the artist.(His face is red; his hat is on the back of his head; he looks absolutely furious.)
B: (shouts angrily) Dummkopf! Tausendonfer! Fool!
(The young man tries to draw him away.)
B: I shall not go before I tell her! (knocking on the counter.) You have spoilt my work! I’ll tell you! You are a stupid old cat!
Miss Martha stands back against the shelves and lays one hand on her heart.
The young man: (taking his companion by the collar.) Come on! You’ve said enough.
(He draws the angry man offstage and then comes back.)
I think, I must tell you madam why he is so angry. That’s Blumberger. He is a draughtsman. I work in the same office with him. He has been working hard for three months drawing a plan for a new City Hall. It was a prize competition. He finished inking the lines yesterday. You know, a draughtsman always makes his drawing in pencil first. When it is finished he rubs out the pencil lines with stale bread. Blumberger always bought the bread here. Well, today, well you know madam, that butter isn’t well. Blumberger’s plan isn’t good anything now except to cut up into railroad sandwiches.
Miss Martha goes offstage. She takes off her best clothes and puts on the old ones she wore before.
Whole cast comes on stage.
Curtain.
