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"A Worn Path" is a short story by Eudora Welty. It was published in Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1941. The story describes a journey by an elderly black woman named Phoenix Jackson, who must walk a long way into Natchez from her home in rural Mississippi to retrieve medicine for her grandson. Jackson encounters various obstacles on the way, some physical (dense forest and a creek crossing), some psychological (an unpleasant encounter with a white man on the road, from whom she steals a dropped nickel); the story's overarching theme is its protagonist's persistence in making this repeated journey through the harsh landscape of the Depression-era South for the sake of her grandson, who she loves. "A Worn Path" was included in Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, and was praised for its poignant sense of place. The story received the second place O. Henry Award in 1941 and remains one of Welty's most famous short works.
