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 grocer 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. Delia 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 formonths, 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. Something fine and
rare and sterling - something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps 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. Suddenly she
whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lostits colour 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 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 airshaft, 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 the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out of 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 yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it.'
Down rippled the brown cascade. 'Twenty dollars,' said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
'Give it to me quick,' said Della. 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 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, closelying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection inthe 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. 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 away
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 without
gloves. Jim stepped 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 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 it 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 labour. 'Cut it off and sold it,' said
Della. '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 is gone?' he said with an air almost of idiocy. 'You needn't look for it,' said
Della. '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 a sudden serious sweetness, 'but nobody
could ever 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 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 anythingin the way of a haircut 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 awhile 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. O HENRY - 100 SELECTED STORIES 5For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and
back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with
jewelled 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 precious metal seemed to
flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. 'Isn't it a 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,' said he, '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 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 mag
