The Gift of the Magi

From the story by O. Henry

                One 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 bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-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. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding, take a look at the home—a furnished flat at $8 per week. In the vestibule 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 a card bearing the name of Mr. James Dillingham Young.

            Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with a powder puff. She stood by the window and looked out dully. Tomorrow would be Christmas, and 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 bit nearer to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

            There was a pier glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier glass in an $8 flat. A very thin person by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, may obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

            Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall into 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. The other was Della's hair.

            So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown water. 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 her old brown hat. She fluttered out the door, and down the steps to the street.

            She stopped before a sign that read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran.

            “Will you buy my hair?”

            “I buy hair, take yer hat off and let's have a sight of it.”

            Down rippled the brown cascade, “Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

            “Give it to me quick!”

            The next two hours Della ransacked the stores for Jim's present. She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in design. It was even worthy of The Watch. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company.

            When Della reached home, she got out her curling irons and went to work. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant school-boy. She looked at her reflection carefully and critically in the mirror.

            “If Jim doesn't kill me, before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island Chorus girl.”

            Jim was never late. She heard his step on the stair. 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. His eyes were fixed on 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. He simply stared at her.

            “Jim, darling, don'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-my hair grows awfully fast. Jim, let's be happy. You don't know what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.”

            “You've cut off your hair?”

            “Cut it off and sold it. Don't you like me just as well anyhow? I'm me without my hair, aren't I?”       

            “You say your hair is gone?”

            “You needn't look for it. It's sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy, be good to me. Maybe the hairs of my head are numbered, but nobody could ever count my love for you.”

            Out of his trance Jim seemed to quickly wake.   He enfolded his Della in his arms.

            Jim then drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

            “Don't make any mistake, Dell.” he said, “about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or shave or shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

            White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper and then a scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails.

            For there lay the combs–the set of combs side and back, that Della had worshiped so long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims-just the shade to wear in the beautiful, vanished hair. She hugged them to her, and at length was able to look up with dim eye, and smile; “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

            And then Della jumped up like a little cat! “Oh! Oh!”

            Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her ardent spirit.

            “Isn't it a dandy, Jim, I hunted all over town to find it. Give me your watch, I want to see how it looks on it.”

            Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

            “Della, let's put our Christmas presents away and keep them awhile. They're too nice to use just at present, I sold the watch to get money to buy your combs.”

            Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference?

            The Magi, as you know, were wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi!