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The Gift Of The Magi

by O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved 1
one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's
cheeks 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.

What do you think this story is going to be about?

It will be about a girl and a boy who buy useless gifts for each other since they
bought the useless gifts with the things that could've made the gifts not useless.

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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 3
the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had
that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

Make an inference about why Della is sad. Provide text-based evidence.

She doesn't have enough money to buy the watch bracelet for the boy.

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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 5
possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, 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.
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repitition and descrption 6

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and
looked out dully at a 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 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 honor of being owned by Jim.

Summarize what has occurred in the text so far.

Della wants to get Jim a present but can't because she has no money.

mirror 7
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, 8
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 9
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.

Make a prediction about what Jim and Della will do with their two most prized
possessions.
Jim and Della will sell there most prized possessions for the gifts.
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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 11
sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

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Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. 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. 13

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it." 14

Down rippled the brown cascade. 15

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand. 16

"Give it to me quick," said Della. 17

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was 18
ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
Summarize the conversation above Describe what is going on in the text.
Della goes to a lady that buys hair and she ends up cutting off her hair.

19
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 20
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.
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Rewriting sections 19 and 20 in your own words.

Della goes to the store and finds a remarkable watch chain for Jim and buys it
with her money.

21
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully
like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the 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 22
Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven
cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to 23
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 24
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 for saying little silent prayer about the simplest
everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

Summarize the entire story so far.

Della had no money in the beginning and sold her hair for some. She bought a
watch chain for Jim.

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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 stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon 26
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. 27

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"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't 28
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."
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"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 labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, 30
ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously. 31

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy. 32

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be 33
good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with
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 34
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. 35

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a 36
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 a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, 37
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.

Describe sections 29-37 in your own words.

Jim is disappointed that Della sold of her hair because his gift is combs for hair.
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For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a
Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, 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 39
and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!" 40

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The 41
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 42
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 a while. They're too nice to use 43
just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the
chops on."

What motivated these characters to make the choices that they did?
Della: She wanted to get Jim a nice gift

Jim: He wanted to get Della a nice gift.

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the 44
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. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are
wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
What is the theme of this story?
Sacrificing yourself can be a great thing until it's not.
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QUICK REFERENCE VOCABULARY

Imputation: to attribute or ascribe: The children imputed magical powers to the old woman.

Parsimony: extreme or excessive economy or frugality; stinginess;

Instigates: to start something or cause it to happen

Predominating: to be the stronger or leading element or force.

Mendicancy: the state or condition of being a beggar.

Appertaining: to belong (to) as a part, function, right, etc; relate (to) or be connected (with)

Conception: origination; beginning: The organization has been beset by problems from its conception.

Depreciate: to reduce the purchasing value of (money).

Faltered: to hesitate or waver in action, purpose, intent, etc.; give way: Her courage did not falter at
the prospect of hardship.

Meretricious: alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.

Truant: a student who stays away from school without permission.

Laboriously: requiring much work, exertion, or perseverance: a laborious undertaking.

Patent: the exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an
invention for a certain number of years.

Idiocy: utterly senseless or foolish behavior; a stupid or foolish act, statement, etc.

Scrutiny: a searching examination or investigation; minute inquiry.

Inconsequential: of little or no importance; insignificant; trivial.

Illuminated: to supply or brighten with light; light up.

Ardent: having, expressive of, or characterized by intense feeling; passionate; fervent: an ardent vow;
ardent love.
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