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The Third Ingredient
First published January 1, 2008
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About the author
O. Henry
2,919 books1,891 followersSuch volumes as
Cabbages and Kings
(1904) and
The Four Million
(1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O. Henry.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 17, 2008
I liked the wry humor in this story. A woman is on a mission to recruit the ingredients for beef stew; she can take or leave the people accompanying the ingredients.
February 26, 2016
A typical O'Henry story with a wonderful twist at the end. I especially enjoyed the romantic (and hopeful) angle to the story.
February 23, 2021
A escrita me incomodou demais, e eu não sei explicar o porquê.
October 10, 2018
Hetty is thirty-three years old, plain and down to earth and poor. Even poorer when, having been thrown out of her job as shop-girl for resisting the advances of a boss, she returns to her room with a bit of beef. Hetty wants to cook a beef stew, but what's a stew without potatoes, or onions? But fate (always such an important character in O Henry's stories) is waiting in the wings, with a happy surprise in store for Hetty. A chance encounter at the Vallmambrosa Apartments' communal sink introduces Hetty to Cecilia, a miniature artist, who happens to have only two potatoes by way of food. So a little pact is made, and the potatoes go into what will become a shared stew. But there's still the question of the onions, and there's a story of a romantic yearning that Cecilia shares with her new friend as they wait for the incomplete stew to cook...
I loved this story. It was vintage O Henry, the characters easy to relate to, their situations easy to sympathize with. I could see the end coming (though not all the way, since there was a red herring there) but even then, this was a delightful little read. It left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling and a desire for a good stew.
I loved this story. It was vintage O Henry, the characters easy to relate to, their situations easy to sympathize with. I could see the end coming (though not all the way, since there was a red herring there) but even then, this was a delightful little read. It left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling and a desire for a good stew.
August 20, 2017
It is Destiny!
April 4, 2017
Cute O'Henry short story with similarities to "Stone Soup".
February 18, 2021
Engraçadinho, fofo! Acho que é a sensação que fica no final, rs!
May 19, 2024
O. Henry's "The Third Ingredient" is from the "Options" is a clever romantic short story of desperate portions that a recipe turns right.
Story in short- Hetty loses her job and with limited income needs some ingredients and finds them with their attached owners.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19086
THE (SO-CALLED) VALLAMBROSA Apartment-House is not an apartment-house. It is composed of two old- fashioned, brownstone-front residences welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the wraps and head-gear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with the sophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You may have a room there for two
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19090
dollars a week or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa’s roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail when the door-bell rings.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19093
At six o’clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floor rear $3.50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharply pointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store where you have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in your purse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely chiselled. And now for Hetty’s thumb-nail biography while she climbs the two flights of stairs. She walked into the Biggest Store one morning four years before with seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waist department
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19098
counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewildering scene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godivas.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19101
Hetty Pepper,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19101
homely of countenance, with small, contemptuous, green eyes and chocolate-colored hair, dressed in a suit of plain burlap and a common-sense hat, stood before him with every one of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight. “You’re on!” shouted the bald-headed young man, and was saved. And that is how Hetty came to be employed in the Biggest Store.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19110
This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department he seemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds, machine- embroidered, floated around him. Too many sweets bring surfeit. He
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19112
looked upon Hetty Pepper’s homely countenance, emerald eyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in a desert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched her arm kindly, three inches above the elbow. She slapped him three feet away with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily- white right. So, now you know why Hetty Pepper came to leave the Biggest Store at thirty minutes’ notice, with one dime and a nickel in her purse
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Hetty Pepper is a plain young middle aged woman who lost her job, she has some meat for stew but no money for an onion or potato. She sees a young lady artist, Cecilia who has a potato that lives in her apartment and convincing her to add her potato to the stew. The young lady tells of her attempted suicide and the hero who saved her but she refused to give her address, she felt embarrassed but after three days she is depressed because he has not found her. Hetty sees a young man leaving a writer's apartment with an onion, he says he is going to eat it but Hetty wants him to add his onion to the stew. He has a cold and wants the onion, but Hetty figures out that he is the hero and tells of the young lady he seeks is there with the stew.
Story in short- Hetty loses her job and with limited income needs some ingredients and finds them with their attached owners.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19086
THE (SO-CALLED) VALLAMBROSA Apartment-House is not an apartment-house. It is composed of two old- fashioned, brownstone-front residences welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the wraps and head-gear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with the sophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You may have a room there for two
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19090
dollars a week or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa’s roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail when the door-bell rings.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19093
At six o’clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floor rear $3.50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharply pointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store where you have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in your purse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely chiselled. And now for Hetty’s thumb-nail biography while she climbs the two flights of stairs. She walked into the Biggest Store one morning four years before with seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waist department
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19098
counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewildering scene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godivas.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19101
Hetty Pepper,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19101
homely of countenance, with small, contemptuous, green eyes and chocolate-colored hair, dressed in a suit of plain burlap and a common-sense hat, stood before him with every one of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight. “You’re on!” shouted the bald-headed young man, and was saved. And that is how Hetty came to be employed in the Biggest Store.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19110
This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department he seemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds, machine- embroidered, floated around him. Too many sweets bring surfeit. He
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 19112
looked upon Hetty Pepper’s homely countenance, emerald eyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in a desert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched her arm kindly, three inches above the elbow. She slapped him three feet away with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily- white right. So, now you know why Hetty Pepper came to leave the Biggest Store at thirty minutes’ notice, with one dime and a nickel in her purse
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Hetty Pepper is a plain young middle aged woman who lost her job, she has some meat for stew but no money for an onion or potato. She sees a young lady artist, Cecilia who has a potato that lives in her apartment and convincing her to add her potato to the stew. The young lady tells of her attempted suicide and the hero who saved her but she refused to give her address, she felt embarrassed but after three days she is depressed because he has not found her. Hetty sees a young man leaving a writer's apartment with an onion, he says he is going to eat it but Hetty wants him to add his onion to the stew. He has a cold and wants the onion, but Hetty figures out that he is the hero and tells of the young lady he seeks is there with the stew.
September 26, 2024
Faltou-lhes a cebola e no livro faltou sal.
December 11, 2024
Kind of romance short story that makes us giggling.
December 31, 2025
Мила історія з ноткою гумору.
January 13, 2026
Wow, it feels like it's been forever since another decent understandable story appears in O. Henry's short story collection. No weird twist to end with? 🤣
March 4, 2024
A história tem potencial, é sobre duas mulheres que se encontram no corredor da casa/apartamento que moram, sendo que as duas não tem muito dinheiro para comprar comida, mas possuem carne e batata, mas cadê a cabola para fazer um ensopado? Não tinha! Ai a mulher que ofereceu a batata vê um quadro de uma balsa, começa a chorar e fala que uns três dias atrás perdeu as esperanças de conseguir reconhecimento e trabalho como artista e decidiu pular de uma balsa, um cara salva ela, mas ela não passou nome nem nenhuma outra forma de contato, mas o cara disse que ia atrás dela. Adivinha quem aparece DO NADA no apartamento com uma cebola na mão??? O dito cujo. Foi a parte mais previsível e entediante da história, porque eu tava achando legalzinho e até que engraçado, mas quando ele aparece, perdeu toda a credibilidade comigo. Não gosto de histórias aleatórias assim em que duas pessoas parecem destinadas a se encontrar em momentos improváveis - e bota improvável nisso. Enfim, é curto e levezinho, mas não traz nada de novo. Bem água com sal.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2016
O.Henri'nin ilk dəfə 1908-ci ildə nəşr olunan "Üçüncü inqrediyent" hekayəsi.
Kartof gözləyir.İçəri keç,Soğan! hissəsini xüsusi olaraq bəyəndim.
Kartof gözləyir.İçəri keç,Soğan! hissəsini xüsusi olaraq bəyəndim.
December 14, 2023
Dec 11, 2023: Hands down one of my favourite O. Henry stories—if not, my favourite. Tied with "A Retrieved Reformation."
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews