A Visit of Charity

“A Visit of Charity” is a short story written by Eudora Welty, the first living writer published in the Library of America series. “A Visit of Charity” is one of 17 short stories in Welty’s 1941 collection A Curtain of Green, which also includes the stories “A Worn Path,” “Petrified Man,” and “Why I Live at the P.O.” The text referenced in this guide is from Eudora Welty: Stories, Essays, and Memoir, published by the Library of America in 1998.

The main character, Marian, a 14-year-old Campfire Girl, decides to visit an “Old Ladies’ Home” to earn points for her merit badges. Wearing a white cap, she pauses when she spots “prickly dark shrubs” (137) surrounding the home. Built of whitewashed brick, the building looks as though it is a block of ice in the winter sunlight. Once inside, Marian is greeted by a nurse in a white uniform. Marian announces that she is there to pay a visit to an old lady. The nurse asks Marian if she knows any of the residents. Marian tells her she does not know anyone living in the home but says “any of them will do” (137).

As the nurse leads her down a hallway, Marian carries a potted plant she has brought. Behind one of the doors, she hears a woman clearing her throat, like the bleating of a sheep. Marian wants to run when she hears the sound but she’s drawn into the room by the nurse. Once inside she meets two older ladies. One is bedridden (Addie). The other, unnamed, has a “terrible, square smile (which was a smile of welcome) stamped on her bony face” (138). The unnamed woman pulls the cap off Marian’s head as the nurse leaves. Everything in the room feels damp, and Marian’s hands begin to feel cold. The window shades are drawn, and Marian feels as if she is caught in the cave of a robber “just before one was murdered” (138).

The unnamed woman asks Marian if she has come to be their little girl for a while. She then snatches the plant out of Marian’s hands. The two women begin arguing about whether the plant is pretty. The standing woman asks Marian who she is, and Marian can’t remember her own name. She tells them she is a Campfire Girl. They tell her another Campfire Girl visited them a month ago and read to them out of a Bible. The women begin arguing again, this time about whether they enjoyed the other Campfire Girl reading to them. Marian says, “We all enjoyed it” (139) without realizing she has spoken.

Marian says she can’t stay. The unnamed woman sits in a rocking chair and says Addie is sick. Addie denies it and tells the woman in the rocker she doesn’t know anything. The women continue to bicker, and Marian starts trembling. The woman in the rocker says it is Addie’s birthday, which Addie denies. Marian becomes interested in Addie and asks how old she is. She sees Addie very clearly for the first time and, as she wonders about her, she realizes this is the first time she has been curious about another person. Addie begins whimpering and, to Marian, she no longer sounds like a sheep but a little lamb. She tells the woman in the rocker that Addie’s crying, but the woman dismisses it, saying, “That’s Addie for you” (142).

Marian moves toward the door, but the woman grabs her, asking for money. Marian wrenches free from her hands. She bolts down the hallway, finding the nurse reading Field & Stream at her desk. The nurse invites her to stay for dinner, but Marian runs out of the building. As she leaves, she bends down to grab a red apple she had hidden under one of the shrubs in front of the building. She hails a bus, climbs aboard, and takes a bite out of the apple.