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One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it |
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was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the |
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grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with |
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|
the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three |
| 5 | |
|
times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next |
| | |
|
day would be Christmas. |
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|
|
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|
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch |
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|
and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that |
| 10 | |
|
life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating. |
| | |
|
|
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|
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 |
| 15 | |
|
the lookout for the mendicancy squad. |
| | |
|
|
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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 |
| 20 | |
|
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, though, they were thinking seriously of |
| 25 | |
|
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. |
| | |
|
|
| 30 | |
|
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. |
| 35 | |
|
Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only |
| | |
|
$1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning |
| | |
|
for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling-some |
| | |
|
thing just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by |
| | |
|
Jim. |
| 40 | |
|
|
| | |
|
Excerpted from: Gift of the Magi by O. Henry |
| | |
|
Project Gutenberg - http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html |
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|
|
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|
Glossary |
| 45 | |
|
|
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|
impute: to credit a person with something |
| | |
|
parsimony: being careful with money or resources |
| | |
|
beggar: (verb) to make a beggar of, to exhaust the resources of |
| | |
|
mendicancy: poverty, destitution |
| 50 | |
|
vestibule: entrance |
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|
appertain: to pertain to |
