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The Gift of the Magi O.Henry It was Christmas, and Della and Jim wanted to give each other special gifts. They had no extra money, but they each could sacrifice something dear.Once 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 bargaining with the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eight 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 $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but rather looked as if it were “begging.”In the doorway 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 “Mr. James Dillingham Young.” But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mr. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.Della finished her cry and attended to her cheek with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at the gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesnt go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 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 Jims wife.Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the mirror. 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 Jims gold watch that had been his fathers and his grandfathers. The other was Dellas hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived the flat across the way, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majestys jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.So now Dellas 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 on old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eye, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street. Where she stopped the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting, Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yet hat off the lets have a sight at the looks of it.”Down rippled the brown cascade.“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jims 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. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jims. 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 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 forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.“If Jim doesnt kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, hell say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do oh! What could I do with a dollar and eight-seven cents?”At 7 oclock 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 way down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers 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 with gloves.Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon 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 had been prepared for. He simple stared at her fixedly with at peculiar expression on his face. Della wriggled off the table and went for him.“Jim, daring.” She cried, “dont look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldnt have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. Itll grow out again you wont mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say Merry Christmas! Jim, and lets be happy. You dont know what a nice what a beautiful, nice gift Ive got for you.”“Youve cut off your hair?” ask 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 Della. “Dont you like me just as well, anyhow? Im me without my hair, arent I?” Jim looked about the room curiously.“You say your hair is gone!” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.“You neednt look for it,” said Della. “Its sold, I tell you sold and gone, too. Its Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could even 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 magic 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. “Dont make any mistake, Della.” he said, “about me. I dont think theres any thing in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if youll 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 Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, 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 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!”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.“Isnt it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. Youll 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,” said he, “Lets put our Christmas presents away and keep em a while. Theyre 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 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. ExercisesPre-Reading/Listening Exercises:1. Vocabulary 2. Expressions bargaining flung to the breeze howl, sobs, sniffles no mortal finger sterling full length depreciate took a mighty pride intoxication with a practiced hand chorus girl ransacking the stores terrify repairing sentiments you had me going peculiar isnt it a dandy? trance combs2. Questions: a. If you had no money and wanted to give a very special friend a gift, what would you give them? b. What makes a gift special? c. If you had to sell something you owned in order to get some money, what would be the hardest thing to sell?3. Note: When reading the story, have the students stop at the paragraph which begins: “The door opened and Jim stepped in.”Then have them make guesses for how the story will end.Post-Reading/Listening Exercises:1. Comprehension Questions: a. What did Della want to do for Jim? b. Why was Della so very sad? c. Where did Della go to get more money? d. What did Della buy for Jim? e. What did Jim buy for Della? f. Why are these two people called “the magi”?2. Understanding the Meaning: a. What was so special about the gifts they gave each other? b. What had they really done for each other? c. If you were Jim/Della, what would you have done? How would you have reacted?3. Discussion: Possible discussion questions: a. What qualities of giving are reflected in these givers? b. What was so special about their love for each other? c. What was a special gift you once received? d. How is it possible for poor people to be generous in their hearts? e. What makes people generous? f. Are some people born generous and kind? g. Can such generosity be repaid?
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