The Door by E. B. White

http://www.theprairielibrary.com/2011/01/short-story-saturday-door-by-eb-white.html
Weird story of rats that I did not understand. Doors kept changing. People bumping.

18 The Man who Shot Snapping Turtles by Edmund Wilson

Narrator has a weird neighbor named Asa M. Stryker. He lived with a cook and a man in Hecate County. He had no visitors and sometimes had short visits to relatives. He had a pond where he kept his "pet ducks" or wild ducks. There were snapping turtles in the pond which ate the ducks, so he began shooting the turtles. Once he tried draining the pond to kill all the turtles, but his neighbor complained and the turtles were still there. He asked why God allows mud-turtle to eat the beautiful ducks? Is it because He is old now? Then he poisoned the pond, but the poison killed everything in the pond including the ducks. A female snapping turtle appear, so he fenced all his estate. He had a New Orleans neighbor called Clarence Latouche who worked in an advertising business. He proposed that Stryker should shoot the ducks instead of the turtles and make turtle soup and sell them. Stryker started eating turtle soup at breakfast. Latouche made advertisement for canned snapper which the women were cured of anemia and tuberculosis by eating these. Soon, Stryker created a small cannery with shallow tanks to farm the turtles. He employed people by paying their housing and feeding them, so they feel in debt to him and never leave. He had his gardener as a foreman and a middle-aged woman as the secretary. He gave 10% profit to Clarence. Clarence had an affair with a married woman, but she thought it was too troublesome to divorce her husband and refused to marry Clarence. Clarence went to Stryker's study one Sunday afternoon and detected that Stryker was going to kill him. Stryker treated him friendly which is odd. Stryker offered Clarence to take a trip to the South. Many of Stryker's wealthy relatives died regularly. Clarence shot Stryker and sold his estate in Hecate County to buy a ticket to Europe, but Hitler's war began, he moved to southern California where he drank to death. He was constantly afraid of the foreman getting caught. The foreman organized strikes against Stryker and disappeared after Stryker was murdered, so he was suspected to be the murderer. Clarence was willing to tell the truth if the foreman was caught, because he has a soul of honor. He will not let innocent man die.

17 The Man of the House by Frank O'Connor

Sullivan, a 10-year-old boy, took up the responsibility to take care of his mother, who was coughing very hard for several days. He decided to stay at home instead of going to school. When she did not get well, they called the doctor and the doctor told him to go to a dispensary to get a coughing syrup for his mother. He went over the hills and got one. On his way, he saw a cathedral and told himself that he will use the only penny he had to buy a candle in the cathedral when he got the syrup and pray for his mother. He met a very smart and talkative girl who was getting a bad tasting medicine for her sister's "consumption," a disease. She convinced him to let them try the syrup and they drank it all. Sullivan cried and went to the church repenting and praying to virgin Mary for a miracle. When he got home, he fell asleep because of intoxication of the syrup. When he woke up, his mother was well. The miracle happened.

16 The Other Two by Edith Wharton

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/OthTwo.shtml

Mr. Waythorn just married Mrs. Waythorn and were coming back from their honeymoon, because Lily Haskett, Mrs. Waythorn's daughter with her first husband, was sick. Mrs. Waythorn was married first to Mr. Haskett, then to Mr. Varick, then to Mr. Waythorn. Mr. Haskett really loved his daughter, so he moved from Utica to New York City to be near Lily. He cared about her education and came to Mr. Waythorn's house frequently to visit Lily. He was a little man. At first Mr. Waythorn thought he was a brute, because Mrs. Waythorn put it that way until Mr. Waythorn met him. Mr. Waythorn found out that Mrs. Waythorn lied when she said that she didn't meet Mr. Haskett when he came the first time after Lily was ill. Mr. Waythorn had a friend in business called Mr. Sellers. Mr. Sellers was ill with gout, so he cannot carried out the business for Mr. Varick and he asked Mr. Waythorn to manage the money and transaction for Mr. Varick in place of him. Therefore, Mr. Waythorn began meeting Mr. Varick regularly. Once, Mr. Waythorn saw Mr. Varick in a restaurant drinking coffee with cognac. When he got home, Mrs. Waythorn did the same with his coffee, but he said that he didn't drink cognac with coffee. In the beginning Mr. Waythorn was really angry about Mrs. Waythorn meeting Haskett and that he met Mr. Varick on the street. After Lily and Sellers's illnesses, he learned to live with them on a regular basis. Mr. Varick was a polite man. Mr. Waythorn finally realized that Mrs. Waythorn learned from her previous marriages to make this third marriage a success. At last, they all met and Mrs. Waythorn offered all 3 tea and they all accepted it.

15 Looking Back by Guy De Maupassant

3 children, 2 girls and 1 boy, went to bed while Abbé Mauduit Curé, an old priest, was talking to Comtesse de Saville, a grandmother. Comtesse asked Curé why he did not live an ordinary life like everybody else did. Curé began telling her his childhood. He was sent to a boarding school when he was still very young. He was very sensitive, and the boarding school experience without love of his parents made him afraid of everything around him. His parents were wholesale haberdashers (male clothes) at Verdiers and were wealthy. He felt that children's nerves are very sensitive and delicate, easily affected. He cried everyday in his bed thinking about the little things he had done in his home. He was tortured by homesick pain and loneliness. He became pessimistic. He believed that he has no hope in the future. He believed that he will be killed by his pain and struggles. After he graduated, he was given 6 months to choose his career. His parents didn't love him with their hearts, but with his head. They welcomed him to take over their business. He was on his home one day, a thin red spaniel dog with long curly ears ran towards him. Then stopped. He patted him gently and the dog followed him home. This is the first time he loved a creature so passionately. He felt that this dog was his brother, because he also loved him back by licking his face, wagging his tail, and following him everywhere he went. Sam, the dog, sit on his knee or beside him when he sat down on the grass. One day at the end of June, when they were walking on the road to Saint-Pierre-de-Chavrol, he saw a bus running like a horse in full speed. Sam wanting to get closer to Curé ran in front of the bus. He saw Sam almost cut in half by the bus and died in a few minutes. He could not leave his room for 1 month because of his death. His father than asked him how he can survive if his future wife and children die if now he could not stand a dog dies. He decided to devote himself to serve others. As long as he is not experiencing the feeling himself, he will be able to survive. Now he only has to feel sympathy for others. He was not made for this world. She said that she would not be able to live without her grandchildren either. Then he left and she kept thinking about what don't happen to young people.

14 The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

http://www.online-literature.com/poe/36/
http://librivox.org/short-ghost-and-horror-collection-001/

Prince Prospero confined a group of people in his own castle. Everywhere else people were attacked by the Red Death, only Prince Prospero's seclusion has not been infected. He held a masked ball one day. Everyone was enjoying the ball, but every hour, the giant ebony clock would strike and produce a sound that caused everyone to be silent until it was over. It horrified them, but they continued to enjoy the party. There were 7 rooms, from the east, blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black velvet. The black velvet room had a red bloody window. Every room has no candle light, but a fire on the tripod would light up the rooms. When it was 12 o'clock midnight. Everyone noticed a weird masked guest. He was masked like a corpse and was covered with blood. No one noticed him before. The robust prince was angry and told the people to seize this corpse. Nobody moved, because they were all afraid. This corpse walked closer and closer to the Prince who was in the blue room and into the other rooms until he went to the violet room. The Prince was angry and holding a dagger rushed to the corpse. Suddenly the corpse turned and killed the Prince. The people came to look at the corpse, but there was no one under the mask. They found that the corpse is the Red Death who came in like a thief in the night. He attacked everyone until they were all dead. Even the ebony clock died, and the flame on the tripods died out, and Darkness, Decay, and the Red Death ruled the whole place.

13 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=19477

There was a town of about 300 people which has an annual lottery drawn. Mr. Summers directed the whole thing and prepared carefully folded white papers enough for every head of the family with only 1 that has a black mark on it and put them into the ancient black box. On June 27th, everyone gathers and the children picked out a pile of round stones. When everyone was there, Mr. Summers called out the head of each family one by one who would go and pick out a folded paper and hold it in his hand until everyone got one. Mrs. Hutchinson came late and hurried to get beside her husband. Everyone got one and opened the papers. Mr. Bill Hutchinson got the one with the black dot. Mrs. Hutchinson shouted that Bill didn't have enough time to pick one, so this is unfair. They should have a redraw. His whole family, Nancy, their 12-year-old daughter, Bill, Jr., Little Dave, Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson, and Mr. Bill Hutchinson, they each need to draw out a paper again. Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson got the dotted one and everyone began to throw stones at her. Mrs. Hutchinson kept shouting that this was not fair, but was stoned to death. Even her own son Dave and her friends threw stones at her.

I don't quite get why my classmates like this story. I don't like it. It was weird. Why do people stone people to death annually?