Three times Della counted it. One dollar and 87 cents, and the next day would be Christmas. There was 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 two stages smiles, and sobs, sniffles, with sniffles predominating. Simultaneously, the mistress of the house is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second. Take a look at the home, a furnished flat at eight dollars per week. It didn't fit precisely beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the men can say squad. 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 appertaining there, under was a card bearing the name Mr James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham took up the dwelling form a predecessor who was earlier paying thirty dollars per week.
Now, as the income had shrunk to nearly twenty dollars a week, they were seriously thinking of contracting to a modest and unassuming Dwelling. Still, whenever Mr James Dillingham, Young, came home and reached his flat above, he was called Jim and greatly hugged by Mrs James Dillingham, Young already introduced to you as Della. Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out Dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar and 87 cents 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 have been more significant than she had calculated. They always are. Only one dollar and 87 cents to buy a present for Jim, her Jim, many a happy hour, she had spent planning for something nice for him, something subtle and rare and darling, something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim. There was a pier-glass between the windows, of the room, perhaps you've seen a pier-glasses, and in an eight dollar flat. A skinny and very agile person, may, by observing his reflection and a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks.
Della, being slender, had mastered the art. Suddenly she furled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within 20 seconds. Rapidly, she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs 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 in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry, 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 out his watch every time he passed 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 or a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
Wore winter old brown jacket and wore winter old brown hat with a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street where she stopped the sign read Madam Sofiane, hair goods of all kinds. One flight up, Della ran and collected herself panting. Madame large too white Chile hardly looked the Sofiane. "Will you buy my hair?" Asked Della. I buy hair said, Madam, take your hat off and let's have a side of the looks of it. Down, replied the Brown cascade. Twenty dollars, said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand, give it to me quick, said Della. Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings, forget the harsh metaphor, she was ransacking the stores for Jim's present. She found it at last. It indeed 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 farm chain, simple and chested appropriately, proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation, as all good things should do. 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 21 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 40 minutes, her head covered with tiny clothesline curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant 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 87 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 FUB 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 away down on the first flight, and she turned white just for a moment. She had a habit of saying a little silent prayer about the simplest, everyday things. And now she whispered. Please, God, make him think I'm still pretty. The door opened, and Jim stepped in and closed it.
He looked thin and earnest. Poor fellow, he was only 22 and to be burdened with a family, he needed a new overcoat, and he was without gloves. Jim stopped 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 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 hadn't been prepared for. He stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him. Jim, darling, she cried, don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again, please don't mind, I just had to do it. My hair grows fast. Say Merry Christmas, Jim, and let's be happy.
You don't know what a nice what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.
You've cut off your hair? Asked Jim laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labour cut it off and sold it, said, Della, don't you like me just as well anyhow?
I mean, without my hair, ain't I? Jim looked around the room curiously. You say your hair is gone.
He said with an air almost of idiocy; you needn't look for it, said Della. It's sold, I tell you, sold and gone to It's Christmas Eve, boy, be good to me for it went for you.
Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered. She went on with sudden serious sweetness. But nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on Jim? Out of his trance, Jim seemed quickly to wake, and he unfolded his Della. For 10 seconds, let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year. What is the difference a mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer? The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. Don't make any mistake, Del. He said about me, I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a 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 in paper 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 the Lord of the flat.
For their laid the combs, the set of comb's side and back that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful homes, pure tortoiseshell with jewelled rims, just the shade daywear and the beautiful varnished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession, and now they were hers. But the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone. But she held them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with demised and a smile and say, my hair grows so fast, Jim. And then Della leapt up like a little singed cat and cried, Oh, oh, Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present, she held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. That dull, precious metal seemed to flash with the reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time 100 times a day. Now, please give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it. Instead of obeying, Jim tumbles down on the couch, puts his hands under the back of his head, and smiles.
"Della," said he.
Let's put our Christmas presents away and keep them away, as they're too lovely to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combes. And now suppose you put the chops on.
As you know, the magi were wise men, wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the babe in the major, and 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 the 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.
Originally Written by O henry,(December 1905) Presented by Yap Cafe.
