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 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.

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 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.

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.”