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 bull dozing the grocer, and the
vegetable man and the butcher, until one's cheeks burned with
a silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied
three times. Dellah 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 Dellah 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 stay 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. 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 appertaining thereunto 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 mister 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 powdered rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully at a gray cat
walking a gray fence in a gray back yard. 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 very far.
Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always
were only one dollar and 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
nearer to being worthy of the honor of being owned
by Jim. There was a peer glass between the window
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, obtain a fairly accurate conception of
his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art. Suddenly,
she rolled 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 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 went her old brown jacket, On
went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts,
and with a brilliant sparkle still in her eye, she
fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street,
where she stopped. The sign read Madame Soffronie hair goods
of all kinds one flight up. Della ran and collected herself, panting.
Madame large, two white, chilly, hardly looked the Soffrannie. Will
you buy my hair, asked Ella. I buy hair, said Madame.
Take your hat off and let's have a look at
the stooks of it. Down rippled the brown cascade. Twenty dollars,
said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand. Give
it to me quick, said dollah Oh. And 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 value.
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 Dellah
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. Dellah
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 every day 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 a quail. His eyes
were fixed upon Dela, 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 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 labor, cut it off and
sold it, said Dellah, 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's gone, he said,
with an air almost of idiocy. You needn't look for it,
said Dellah. 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, Jem seemed quickly
to wake. He unfolded his dullah 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 that flat. For there lay the combs,
the set of combs sighed and back that Delah had worked,
shipped long in a Broadway window, beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell,
with jeweled rims, just the shade 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 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. The dull pressure metal seemed to flash
with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. Isn't
it the 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. Dell. He said,
let's put our Christmas presents away and keep em 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 a 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. End of the Gift of the Magi
by O. Henry