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The Gift of the
Magi
It was
Christmas, and Della and Jim wanted to give each
other special gifts.
They had no extra money,
but they each could sacrifice something dear.
Once dollar and eighty
–
seven cents. That was all.
And sixty cents of it was in
pennies.
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bargaining
with the grocer and the
vegetable man
and the butcher. Three times Della counted it. One
dollar and eight
–
seven cents. And the next day would be
Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to
do but flop down on the shabby little couch and
howl.
So
Della
did
it.
Which
instigates
the
moral
reflection
that
life
is
made
up
of
sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with
sniffles predominating.
While the
mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from
the first stage to the
second, take a
look at the home. A furnished flat at $$8 per week.
It did not exactly
beggar description,
but rather looked as if it were
“
begging.
”
In
the doorway below was a letter-box into which no
letter would go, and an
electric
button
from
which
no
mortal
finger
could
coax
a
ring.
Also
appertaining
thereunto was a
card bearing the name
“
Mr.
James Dillingham Young.
”
But
whenever
Mr.
James
Dillingham
Young
came
home
and
reached
his
flat
above
he
was
called
“
Jim
”
and greatly hugged by Mr. James Dillingham Young,
already introduced to you
as Della.
Which is all very good.
Della finished
her cry and attended to her cheek with the powder
rag. She stood
by the window and looked
out dully at the gray cat walking a gray fence in
a gray
backyard.
Tomorrow
would be Christmas Day, and she had only $$1.87
with which to buy
Jim
a
present.
She
had
been
saving
every
penny
she
could
for
months,
with
this
result. Twenty dollars
a week doesn
’
t go far.
Expenses had been greater than she had
calculated. They always are. Only $$1.87
to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for
something nice for him. Something fine and
rare and sterling
–
something just a little
bit near to being worthy of the honor of
being Jim
’
s wife.
Suddenly she whirled from the window
and stood before the mirror. Her eyes
were shining brilliantly, but her face
had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly
she pulled down her hair and let it
fall to its full length.
Now, there
were two possessions of the James Dillingham
Young
’
s in which they
both took a mighty pride. One was
Jim
’
s gold watch that had
been his father
’
s and
his
grandfather
’
s. The other was
Della
’
s hair. Had the Queen
of Sheba lived the flat
across the way,
Della would have let her hair hang out the window
some day to dry
just to depreciate Her
Majesty
’
s jewels and gifts.
Had King Solomon been the janitor,
with
all
his
treasures
piled
up
in
the
basement,
Jim
would
have
pulled
his
watch
every
time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard
from envy.
So now
Della
’
s beautiful hair fell
about her rippling and shining like a cascade of
brown waters. It reached below her knee
and made itself almost a garment for her.
And then she did it up again nervously
and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute
and stood still while a tear or two
splashed on the worn red carpet.
On
went her old brown jacket, on went on old brown
hat. With a whirl of skirts
and with
the brilliant sparkle still in her eye, she
fluttered out the door and down the
stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read:
“
Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods
of All kinds.
”
One
flight up Della ran, and collected
herself, panting, Madame, large, too white,
chilly,
hardly looked the
“<
/p>
Sofronie.
”
“
Will you buy my
hair?
”
asked Della.
“
I buy
hair,
”
said Madame.
“
Take yet hat off the
let
’
s have a sight at the
looks of
it.
”
Down rippled the brown cascade.
“
Twenty
dollars,
”
said Madame,
lifting the mass with a practiced hand.
Oh,
and
the
next
two
hours
tripped
by
on
rosy
wings.
Forget
the
hashed
metaphor. She was ransacking the stores
for Jim
’
s present.
She found it at last. It surely had
been made for Jim and no one else. There was
no other like it in any of the stores,
and she had turned all of them inside out. It was
a platinum fob chain simple and chaste
in design, properly proclaiming its value by
substance alone. It was even worthy of
The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew
that it must be
Jim
’
s.
It was like him. Quietness and value
–
the description applied
to both. Twenty-one dollars they took
from her for it, and she hurried home with the
87 cents. With that chain on his watch
Jim might be properly anxious about the time
in any company. Grand as the watch was,
he sometimes looked at it on the sly
on
account of the old leather strap that
he used in place of a chain.
When
Della
reached
home
her
intoxication
gave
way
a
little
to
prudence
and
reason. She got out her curling irons
and lighted the gas and went to work repairing
the ravages made by generosity added to
love. Which is always a tremendous task,
dear friends
–
a
mammoth task.
Within
forty
minutes
her
head
was
covered
with
tiny,
close-lying
curls
that
made
her
look
wonderfully
like
a
schoolboy.
She
looked
at
her
reflection
in
the
mirror long, carefully, and critically.
“
If Jim
doesn’t
kill
me,
”
she said to herself,
“
before he takes a second
look at me,
he
’
ll
say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But
what could I do
–
oh! What
could I
do with a dollar and eight-
seven cents?
”
At
7
o
’
clock
the
coffee
was
made
and
the
frying-pan
was
on
the
back
of
the
stove hot and ready to
cook the chops.
Jim
was
never
late.
Della
doubled
the
fob
chain
in
her
hand
and
sat
on
the
corner of
the table near the door that he always entered.
Then she heard his step on
the stair
way down on the first flight, and she turned white
for just a moment. She
had
a
habit
of
saying
little
silent
prayers
about
the
simplest
everyday
things,
and
now
she whispered:
“
Please God,
make him think I am still
pretty.
”
The
door
opened
and
Jim
stepped
in
and
closed
it.
He
looked
thin
and
very
serious
Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two and to be
burdened with a family! He
needed a new
overcoat and he was with gloves.
Jim
stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter
at the scent of quail. His
eyes were
fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in
them that she could not
read, and it
terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor
disapproval, nor horror,
nor any of the
sentiments that she had been prepared for. He
simple stared at her
fixedly with at
peculiar expression on his face. Della wriggled
off the table and went
for him.
“
Jim,
daring.
”
She cried,
“
do
n’
t
look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and
sold it because I
couldn’t
have lived through
Christmas without giving you a present.
It
’
ll grow out
again
–
you
won
’
t mind, will you? I just
had to do it. My hair grows
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