The Gift of the Magi

One dollar and eighty-seven cents.

That was all Della had. She had counted it three times, and it was still one dollar and eighty-seven cents. She had saved it a penny at a time, bargaining with the grocer and the butcher until her cheeks burned. And tomorrow was Christmas.

There was nothing to do but sit down on the shabby little sofa and cry. So Della did.

She and her husband, Jim, lived in a small furnished flat in New York that cost eight dollars a week. Jim was paid twenty dollars a week. It went nowhere. And Della wanted, more than anything, to buy Jim something beautiful. Something worthy of him.

Two treasures

Della dried her eyes and stood in front of the narrow mirror between the windows. Then she pulled down her hair and let it fall.

Now, there were two things in that flat that Della and Jim were enormously proud of.

One was Jim's gold watch, which had belonged to his father and his grandfather before him.

The other was Della's hair. It fell past her knees, rippling and shining like a brown waterfall. It was so beautiful that, as O. Henry said, if the Queen of Sheba had lived across the way, Della would have let it hang out of the window just to make the queen's jewels look poor.

Della looked at her hair for a long minute. A tear or two fell onto the worn red carpet.

Then she put on her old brown jacket and her old brown hat, and went out.

Twenty dollars

She stopped at a sign that said Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.

"Will you buy my hair?" Della asked.

Madame lifted the heavy brown mass with a practised hand. "Twenty dollars," she said.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

The next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Della searched every shop in the city for Jim's present, and at last she found it: a platinum chain for his watch, simple and elegant, worthy of the watch itself. Jim was ashamed of the old leather strap he used, and checked the time in secret. With this chain, he could look at his watch in any company.

It cost twenty-one dollars. Della hurried home with eighty-seven cents.

Jim comes home

At home she curled what was left of her hair into tight little curls all over her head, until she looked like a truant schoolboy.

"If Jim doesn't kill me before he takes a second look at me," she said to the mirror, "he'll say I look like a chorus girl. But what could I do with one dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

At seven o'clock the coffee was made and the pan was hot for the chops. She heard his step on the stairs and whispered a little prayer: Please let him think I'm still pretty.

Jim came in and shut the door. He was thin and very serious. He was only twenty-two, and he needed a new overcoat and had no gloves.

He stopped. His eyes fixed on Della with a look she could not read. It wasn't anger, or surprise, or horror. He simply stared.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me like that. 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? Say 'Merry Christmas', Jim, and let's be happy."

"You've cut off your hair?" he asked slowly, as if he could not quite take it in.

Then he woke, as if from a trance, and held her close. He took a small package out of his overcoat pocket and put it on the table.

The combs

Della's white fingers tore at the string and paper. And then a scream of joy, and then tears.

For there lay The Combs: the set of combs, side and back, that Della had admired for a long time in a Broadway shop window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with jewelled rims, just the shade to wear in her lovely vanished hair. They were expensive, and she had wanted them without the faintest hope of owning them.

She hugged them to her heart. At last she looked up with a smile and said, "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

Then she leaped up. Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly on her open palm.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim sank down on the sofa, put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," he said, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep them a while. 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 wisest of all

The Magi, O. Henry reminds us, were the wise men who brought gifts to the baby in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents, and their gifts were surely wise ones.

And here were two foolish children in a flat, who most unwisely gave up for each other the greatest treasures of their house.

But of all who give gifts, O. Henry wrote, these two were the wisest. They are the Magi.

About this story

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862–1910), famous for his warm stories of ordinary New Yorkers and their surprise endings. This is a shortened retelling; the original is in the public domain and well worth reading in full.