The Gift of the Magi

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. Three times Della counted the contents of her piggy bank. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

What would she do? Nothing, except flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it.

Della and her husband Jim were quite poorly off. But though they were always short of money, they were never short of love.

Della finished her cry and went and stood by the window and looked at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. Her whole world looked grey. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy Jim a present. Her Jim. Many an hour she had spent planning to buy him something rare.

As she stood feeling helpless, her gaze happened to fall on a mirror that hung between the windows of the room.

Suddenly, she whirled from the window and stood before the mirrow. Her eyes were bright with excitement, but her face lost its colour within seconds as she unpinned her hair and let it fall, cascading to its full length.

Now there were two possessions belonging to Jim and Della in which they tood great pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and grandfather's. The other was Della's hair.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her hips, covering her like a garment. And then she tied it up again quickly, as a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

She put on her old brown jacket and her old brown hat, and with the sparkle of tears still in her eyes, she let herself out of their front door.

Where she stopped, the sign read: HAIR GOODS OF ALL KINGS. Della ran up the flight of stairs and stood before the lady in charge.

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"Take your hat off and let's have a look at it", said the lady.

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars", said the lady, lifting the hair with a practised hand.

"Give it to me, quickly", said Della.

The next two hours were packed with excitement for Della. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's gift.

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

them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in design. 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. It cost her twenty-one dollars, and clutching the watch chain and the eighty-seven cents, she hurried home. Now Jim would be able to look at his watch proudly. He would not have to be ashamed of his old leather strap.

When Della reached home, her excitment subsided as she set about repairing with curlers, what the scissors had done to her beautiful locks. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.

"If Jim doesn't kill me, I'll be lucky", she thought. "But what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents!".

At seven 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 by which he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stairway, and she turned white for just a moment. "Please, God", she whispered, "make him think I'm still pretty".

The door opened and Jim stepped in. He looked thin and overburdened. He was only twenty-two. Too young to be burndened with a family. His overcoat was worn out and he had no gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, his eyes fixed on Della with an expression in them which she could not read. It terrified her. It was not anger, surprise, disapproval, horror, or any of the feelings that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her with that peculiar expression.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I cut off my hair and sold it, because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow again. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a beautiful gift I've got you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, as if he could not understand it. "You say your hair is gone?" And he looked about the room.

"Cut off and sold. It's gone. Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? It's still me without my hair, isn't it? It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered, but nobody could ever count my love for you."

Jim quickly awoke from his trance. He enfolded his Della in his arms. Eight dollars a week or a million a year -what is the difference? The Magi brought valuable gifts, buy money was not among them.

Jim drew a package from his pocket.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell, about me. I don't think a haircut could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going awhile at first."

Della's nimble fingers tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to tears and wails, which needed Jim's comforting powers.

For there lay the combs -the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a shop window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with jewelled rims -just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair.

She hugged them for a long time, and at lenght, she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!".

Then Della held out eagerly upon her open palm, her present for Jim. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with joy.

"Isn't it lovely, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day. Now give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim flopped down on the sofa and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "Let's put our Christmas presents away. They're too nice to use just as yet. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now, suppose you get me some coffee?"

The Magi, as you know, were wise men -wonderfully wise men- who brought gifts to the Baby Jesus in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas gifts. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones.

And here, I have told you the story of two foolish children who most unwisely sacrificed for each other their greatest treasures. But to the wise of this world, let it be said that of all who give gifts, these two were of the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, people such as they are the wisest. They are the Magi.

O. Henry was an American writer whose real name was William Sydney Porter. In this touching story, he writes about a husband and wife who love each other greatly.

originally posted on dic. 23 2015 10:1

[updated on 23 dic. 2015 11:18 ]