The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Della saved them one and two at a time. She argued with the grocer, the vegetable man and the butcher about every price. Three times she counted the money. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day was Christmas.

There was nothing to do but sit down on the old little couch and cry. So Della did.

Della and her husband lived in a small flat in New York. It cost eight dollars a week. It was not a terrible place, but it was a poor one. Downstairs there was a letter box, but no letters came. There was a bell, but it did not ring. Next to the bell there was a card with a name on it: "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

A few years before, James earned thirty dollars a week. Then the long name "Dillingham" looked proud on the card. Now he earned only twenty dollars, and the name looked tired. But every evening, when James Dillingham Young came home, his wife called him "Jim" and hugged him warmly. And that was very good.