The Woman at the Store : Summary

The story 'The Woman at the Store' has been written by Katherine Mansfield. She wrote it in 1912. The story weaves into it several themes, which show loneliness of the woman, desperation on her part and how a child could be unruly and without innocence only because of the surrounding atmosphere.

Jo, Hin and the narrator are riding horses in the countryside, they are tired and need a place to stay for the night when they notice a whare (a store) with a paddock and a creek nearby. They stop there for embrocation (a medicine) as the horse had a small wound. Hin had been there before and he said that a pretty woman lived there who knew how to kiss 'one hundred and twenty-five different ways'.

The woman came out on seeing them. She was so weak that she looked a bundle of bones under the pinafore that she wore. She had blue eyes and ugly yellow skin, and broken teeth. She was wearing dirty Bluchers. She appeared to be mentally unstable. The child too was dirty, so was the dog.

When the riders asked if they could stay there, the woman refused at first and then she of herself agreed to their staying there in the store itself. The store was dirty with flies buzzing around.

When the narrator returned with the embrocation, the tent had been pitched, Jo had taken a bath, combed his hair and put on a coat over his shirt, in a bid to look handsome. In fact, he had been fascinated by the woman and wished to court her. The narrator too took a bath in the creek.

The woman too had tried to make herself up, applying rouge on the face and wearing a new dress. She too wished to court Jo. When the woman was asked where her husband was, she said that she had been away for shearing.

When the girl came with food, she told that she liked to draw pictures and she would draw the tent, the horses and the guests before her. She said that she had spied on while the narrator was bathing and she will draw her too.

After drinks, as they ate, Jo and the woman were 'kissing feet' and touching shoulders. At dinner, the woman described how she was suffering there, she was trying to win their sympathy. The woman asked them to stay overnight in the store. She allowed the narrator and Hin to stay in a small room with her daughter, while she closed herself with Jo in the bedroom, which she had decorated somewhat.

In the room, the narrator asked the girl to draw. She said she would draw what her mother had forbidden to. And then she drew something which shocked the narrator and Hin. The kid had drawn the picture of the woman shooting at a man with a rook rifle and then digging a hole to bury him in. This sent a chill down their spine. Somehow they passed the night and got ready to go away early morning. Just then, Jo came out and motioned them to go away saying that he would come later. The narrator and Hin rode away.