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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 $$8 per week.
It did not exactly
beggar description,
but rather looked as if it were
“
begging.
”
In
the
doorway
below
was
a
letter-box
into
which
no
letter
would
go,
and
an
electric
button
from
which
no
mortal
finger
could
coax
a
ring.
Also
appertaining
thereunto was a
card bearing the name
“
Mr.
James Dillingham Young.
”
But whenever
Mr. James
Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat
above
he was called
“
Jim
”
and greatly hugged by Mr. James
Dillingham Young, already introduced to
you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to
her cheek with the powder rag. She stood by
the
window
and
looked
out
dully
at
the
gray
cat
walking
a
gray
fence
in
a
gray
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backyard.
Tomorrow would be
Christmas Day, and she had only $$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
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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
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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.
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