The Gift of the Magi

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.” 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.
Della 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.
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.
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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 for 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 stopped 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 labor.
“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 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 anything in 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 a while 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.
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 and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And them 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 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 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 magi.
In the Bible, the "magi" are the "Three Wise Men" who visited the newborn Jesus, bringing
gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which is why the tradition of gift-giving on Christmas
is often associated with their story.
Key points about the Magi:
Meaning of "Magi":
The word "Magi" comes from the Persian word "Magus" which refers to ancient Zoroastrian
priests who were known for their wisdom and knowledge of astrology.
Biblical Account:
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Magi are described as men from the East who followed a star
to Bethlehem to find the newborn "King of the Jews" and worship him.
Gifts and Symbolism:
The gifts they brought - gold, frankincense, and myrrh - are symbolic:
Gold: Represents Jesus' royal status as a king.
Frankincense: Represents Jesus' divinity and sacrificial nature (used in religious
ceremonies).
Myrrh: Represents Jesus' humanity and mortality (used for embalming).

The “magi” referred to here, and in the title, are the “Three Wise Men” that play a part in the
nativity story in the Bible. In the story, the magi travel hundreds of miles to be there when
Jesus is born. The magi each brought a different gift: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is
where the tradition of gift giving on Christmas comes from.
The “magi” is a reference to the biblical Magi who brought gifts to Jesus when he
was born. The biblical Magi are often referred to as the three wisemen or the three
kings. In the biblical story, the Magi followed the star of Bethlehem to Jesus’s
manger and bestowed gold, frankincense, and myrrh upon him. These gifts
established the Christian tradition of gift-giving on Christmas Day. The final reference
compares Jim’s and Della’s gifts to those of the Magi: wise gifts that demonstrate
their love for each other and the true spirit of the holiday.

The Gift of the Magi Full Plot

The story begins the day before Christmas with a young woman named
Della sitting at home counting her savings. The home she lives in with her
husband, Jim, is a cheap, furnished rental apartment. When they first
moved in Jim was earning more money, but the couple has fallen on hard
times and now live in poverty. Della has been putting money aside after
buying groceries for many months. She is sad and anxious because
despite her efforts, she has not saved enough money. She had been
hoping to buy Jim something special for Christmas with her savings. Della
begins to cry on her couch as she realizes she does not have enough
money to buy Jim a Christmas present.

After she stops crying, Della cleans up her face and looks out the window
lost in thought. She suddenly catches a glimpse of herself in the dingy
mirror on the wall and gets an idea. She lets down her long brown hair
and looks at it for a little while. Della’s hair, notable for its beauty, is her
prized possession. She puts on her old coat and hat and visits a shop that
buys and sells hair. The shopkeeper, Madame Sofronie, agrees to cut and
buy Della’s hair. Della spends the rest of the day going around the city
looking for the perfect gift for Jim. His prized possession is a gold pocket
watch that has been passed down through his family. She wants to buy
him a nice chain to go with it, something special and rare. Eventually, she
finds the perfect platinum chain. It costs all the money she got from
selling her hair, plus most of her savings. Della goes home feeling very
excited to give Jim his present.

When Della gets home, she tries to style her new haircut as best she can.
She worries that Jim will be angry and will no longer think she is pretty.
When Jim sees Della has cut her hair, he gets a strange look on his face.
Not knowing what it means, Della goes to him and quickly explains that
she sold her hair to buy him a Christmas present. In response, Jim hugs
her and tells her he loves her no matter what her hair looks like. He then
gives her a Christmas present: a set of jeweled tortoiseshell combs she’d
once admired in a shop window. Della loves the present, but she bursts
into tears when she realizes she is unable to use Jim’s thoughtful gift. As
Jim comforts her, she reassures him her hair will grow back quickly. She
then excitedly gives him the platinum watch chain. Jim laughs and reveals
he sold his prized watch to pay for the combs. The narrator concludes the
story by praising the couple for their selfless gifts of love, calling them
even wiser than the three wise magi who brought gifts to the baby Jesus
on the first Christmas Eve.