The Green Door

by O. Henry
Review by Kurt Richardson

In The Green Door, Adventure calls to Rudolf Steiner in New York City. Rudolf is a great adventurer at heart, who stumbles upon a great mystery. One day, as Rudolf is walking down Broadway after dark, and walks past an African-American who is silently slipping people pieces of paper under the shadow of the dentist's office. Rudolf examines some of the pieces of paper that people recieved, then just threw away. Each of them is just the dentist's business card. However, When Rudolf walks casually past the man, the man stealthely slips him a card with green block letters: THE GREEN DOOR. Our adventurer walks past the African-American, and he is given the same card with written THE GREEN DOOR on it. When Rudolf tries to get another one, he recieves a fierce, stern look instead. Our adventurer hastens away from this man, running up the stairs outside a building. Once Rudolf is out of sight, he turns around to see a very green door in front of him. When he knocks on the door, it is slowly opened. A teenage girl falls forward and faints in his arms...

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Rudolf learns that the girl is living alone in a small apartment. She is sick and has not eaten in three days! Upon hearing this, Rudolf runs away, returning shortly with a huge bag of groceries. He makes supper for the girl, then promises to come back the next day to see how she is doing. As our adventurer leaves, he asks the African-American man why he gave him the cards whit the green door written on them. The man points accross the street at a theater showing a play called, The Green Door. He explains that they paid him to pass cards advertising the play along with the dentist's cards. Rudolf laughs, glad that somehow fate allowed this card to lead him to a starving little girl, but I wonder, WAS IT FATE OR WAS IT DEVINE?