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 by bulldozing the groceries and
the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheek 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 left 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 it certainly had that word on the look-out 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 'Mr. James Dillingham Young.'
The 'Dillingham' had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity
when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk
to $20, the letters of 'Dillingham' looked blurred, as though they were thinking
seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But 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.
Which is all very good.
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. To-morrow 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 doesn't 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. Some- thing 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 pier-glass between the windows of the room. Per- haps you have seen
a pier-glass in an $8 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.
