Speaker 1: The gift of the Magi 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, until one's cheeks burned with the
silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied 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, 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 eight
dollars per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but
it certainly had that word on the lookout for the
mendicancy squad. And 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 thereun two was a card bearing the name mister
James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham had been flung to the
breeze during a former period of prosperity, when its possessor
was being paid thirty dollars per week. Now, when the
income was shrunk to twenty dollars, though, they were thinking
seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming d But
whenever Miss James Dillingham Young came home and reached his
flat above, he was called Jim and greatly hugged by
missus James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della,
which is all very good. Della finished her cry and
attended to her cheeks with a powder rag. She stood
by the window and looked out dully at a gray
cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow
would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar
and eighty seven cents 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 one dollar eighty seven cents 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 owned by Jim.
There was a peer glass between the windows of the room.
Perhaps you have seen a peer glass in an eight
dollar flat. A very thin and very agile person may,
by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips,
obtained 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. 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 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 air shaft, 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 out 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 winter old brown jacket, on winter old brown hat,
and 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 Madame souffrony hair goods of all kinds.
One flied at. Dela ran and collected herself, panting. Madame large,
too white, chilly, hardly looked the SOFFRONI will you buy
my hair? Asked delah I buy hair, said Madame. Take
your hat off, and 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. Give
it to me quick, said Della Oh. In 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 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 val you.
The description applied to both 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,
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 forty minutes, her head
was covered with tiny, close lying 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 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 that he
always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair
away down on the first flight, and she turned white
for just 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 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
without gloves. Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as
a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were
fixed upon Deella, 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 simply 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. You won't mind, will you?
I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast.
Say Merry Christmas, Jim, and let's be happy. You don't
know what a.
Speaker 2: 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 pat In fact, yet,
even after the hardest mental labor, cut it off and
sold it, said Dela.
Speaker 1: Don't you like me just as well? Anyhow? 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 host of idiocy. You needn't look for it,
said Dela. It's sold, I tell you, sold and gone too.
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. He enfolded his Della for ten 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, Dell, he said about me. I don't think
there's anything in the way of a hair cut, 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
and 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 there lay the combs,
the set of combs side and back that Dela had
worshiped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell,
with jeweled rims, just the shape to wear in the
beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and
her heart had simply 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 hugged them to her bosom, and
at length she was able to look up with dim
eyes and a smile and say, my hair grows so fast. Jim,
and then Della leaped up like a 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.
The dull, precious metal seemed to flash with a 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 a hundred times a day. Now,
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. 'n Dell said he 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 the money to buy your combs. And now
suppose you put the chops on 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 relied 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. And
of the gift of the Magi. By O. Henry