Summary

“Poor Little Saturday” is told by an unnamed, young, male first-person narrator. Set in the past tense, the narrator tells the story of the witch he met in “a deserted, boarded-up plantation” in the deep south (221). Once the home of Colonel Londermaine and his wife, it has been mostly forgotten, until the narrator stumbles into its yard as he has a malaria-induced fit. He is found by a young girl, who leads him inside the house to be taken care of and meet “‘Her’” (224).

At this point, the narrator meets the witch. She sits on a throne, has a pet leopard, and is supremely beautiful: the boy notes that he “would not have been surprised to learn that she was a hundred—or twenty-five” (227). She cures him of malaria and invites him to...