Gift of The Magi
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. The pennies saved one and two at a time by the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one 'Bulldoze;'s cheeks burned with the silent accusation of parsimony that such close transaction involved. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little low and crying. Della did it. Which encourages the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffed, and smiles, with the gesnuiven dominate. While the mistress of the house gradually from the first stage to the second falls, take a look at the house.
Delivered in a flat $ 8 per week. Not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for mendicancyploeg.
In the vestibule below was a letter in which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could pull a ring. The accessory thereunto was a card bearing the name "bears, Mr. James Dillingham Young." "Dillingham" had thrown to the wind during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was paid $ 30 a week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $ 20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as if they seriously tender modest and unassuming D. thought. But when M. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and highly cherished by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already to you as Della is introduced. What is already very good.
Della finished her cry and was on her cheeks with the poedervod present. She stood by the window and looked out of a dull gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray courtyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and they had only $ 1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had saved every penny it for months, with this result could. Twenty dollars a week does not have to go far. The expenditure had been greater than she had calculated. They always have. Only $ 1.87 for a present for Jim to buy. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had been planning for something nice to him spent. Fine and rare, something - something just a little bit near 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 a pier glass in an $ 8 Bat seen. A very thin and very agile person may, by his thoughts in a quick succession of longitudinal strips can be observed, a fairly accurate conception of his looks obtain. Della, being slender, had the art. controlled. Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes shone brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Quickly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. Now, there was owned by James Dillingham Youngs two in which they both took up a mighty pride. It was Jim's gold watch that his father 'had been, and his grandfather's' s.
Other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the plain airshaft, Della would let her have her hang out the window some day to Her Majesty to dry just to depreciate;'s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon the porter, with all its treasures up in the basement are stacked, Jim would have pulled his watch every time he just went over to see him pluck at his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, wavy and shiny as a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And when 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, went to her old brown hat. With a rush of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she stopped in the door and down the full steps to the street. Where they read a sign held back, "Mrs. Sofronie. Goods of All Kinds of hair. " One night at Della said, and gathered, panting into effect. Mrs. cool big, too white, hardly looked "Sofronie." "Will you buy my hair?" Asked Della. "I buy hair," Mrs. above. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it." Below waved the brown cascade. "Twenty dollars," Mrs. above, the mass exerted by a hand lifted. "It to give me quick" said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours along on rosy wings are persuaded. Forget the chopped metaphor. They searched the store for Jim 's present They finally found it. It was certainly made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any store, and they had all turned inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and clean in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by specious ornamentation - as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. Once she saw it she knew that Jim should be; s. It was like him. Quietness and value - the description was applied to both.
Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might seriously concerned over the time in any company can be. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of old leather strap that he used in place of a chain. When Della reached home her intoxication, a little to prudence and reason for expressing. She went off 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-curling is that her look wonderfully like a schoolboy made Truant.
She watched her train of thought in the mirror long, carefully, and critically. "If Jim does not have to kill me," she said to himself, "before a second look at takes me, he'll say I like a chorus girl from the Island Rabbit look. But what could I - oh, what I was a dollar and eighty-seven cents to do? "At seven o 'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was hot and ready on the back of the stove to cook the chops. Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the frame near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the rung down on the first flight path, and she turned white for just a moment.
She had a habit of saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please, God makes 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 was to be entrusted with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was out with gloves. Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed on Della, and there was an expression in them that they could not read, and drove to her fear. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any feeling that they had made preparations.
He simply stared down at her with that peculiar expression on his face. Della wriggled from the list and went for him. "Jim, darling," she cried, "don 't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn' t have through Christmas without giving you a present lived. It'll be growing out again - you won 't believe, will you? I just had to do it.
My hair grows very fast. Say' Merry Christmas! "Jim, and let's be happy. You do not know what kind, what a beautiful, nice gift I 've for you. " is received, "You've cut your hair?" asked Jim, seeds difficult, though he did not patent fact that, even after the hardest mental labor has arrived. "Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don" tu loves me just as much, anyway? I'm me without my hair, ain 't I? "Jim looked about the room curiously. "You say your hair is gone?" He said with an air almost of idiocy. "You needn 't looking for it," said Della. "It's sold's, I tell you - sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be Good to me, because before you went. Maybe the hairs of my head are numbered," she went with a sudden severe sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I the chops, turning Jim?" Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake.
He paid tribute to his Della. ten seconds to consider discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or one million per year - what's the difference? A mathematician or a mind could you give the wrong answer. Magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package from his pocket and threw it on the list. "Don 't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I do not think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that me and my girl could make less.
But if you'll fold that package open you can see why you had me for a while. "first time, the white fingers tore at the string and alert, and the document. And then an ecstatic scream of joy, and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of Lord of the plain.
Submit it to the Combs - the set of combs, side and back, which Della long in a Broadway window had worshiped. The beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims - just disappeared into the shadows to wear beautiful hair.
The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully 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 in a flat 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.