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OK, I've found out what goes wrong.  (Debugging a
20,000+-line 'configure' script that omits all useful
information from its output and throws away all its
intermediate files *even if it detects errors* is not fun.)

With the set of configuration options that the script
decides is appropriate (too long to include here),
compilation of a dummy .c file that #includes <curses.h>
fails thusly:

In file included from /usr/include/curses.h:14,
                 from t.h:54,
                 from t.c:1:
/usr/include/ncurses.h:251: error: conflicting types for
`wchar_t'
/usr/include/stdlib.h:51: error: previous declaration of
`wchar_t'

This apparently happens because of line 1483 of the
configure script, which reads:

  OpenBSD/2.* | OpenBSD/3.[0123456])

I can't fathom why OpenBSD 3.7 and later are excluded here,
especially since (1) there are other places in the script
that include all OpenBSD/3.* versions, and (2) the situation
described by the comment just above this line is still true
in OpenBSD 3.7. In any case, changing this line to read

  OpenBSD/2.* | OpenBSD/3.*)

causes configure (and a subsequent make) to complete with no
errors. So apparently other things are broken in the OpenBSD
headerfiles if _XOPEN_SOURCE is defined, not just select(2).

I hope someone authorized to do so will make this fix for
Python 2.4.<N+1>. TIA.