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1、The Gift of the Magi0. HenryIt was Christmas, and Della and Jim wan ted 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
2、 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 how1. So Della did it Which instigates the moral ref
3、lection 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
4、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
5、 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 goodDella 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 gr
6、ay backyard.Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a prese nt She had bee n sav ing every penny she could for mon ths, with this resuIt. 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
7、 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 Jim s wifeSuddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the mirror Her eyes were shining
8、 brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full lengthNow, there were two possessicrns of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim s gold watch that had been his fatherJ s and his
9、grandfathers. The other was Della, s 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 Majestyf s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Ji
10、m would have pulled 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 nervousl
11、y and quickly Once she faitered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpetOn 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
12、.Where she stopped the sign read： Mme Sofronie Hair Goods of All kinds. ” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, pan ting, Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the Sofronie. ”Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.“I buy hair, n said Madame. uTake yet hat off the let s have a sight a
13、t the looks of it. ”Down rippled the brown cascade“Twenty dollars,n 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 Jim s present.She found it at last. It surely had been made for Ji
14、m and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them in side out. It was a platinum fob cha in 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 J
15、im 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 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 i
16、t 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 lit tie to prude nee 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 taskWithin forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close
