Christmas is a time of stories and story telling. It would not, I think, be Christmas without being reminded of some of the great Christmas tales and verse: Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” telling the tale of the miserly old Scrooge, the wonderful poem “Twas the night before Christmas” describing Saint Nicholas’ and his reindeers visiting to deliver presents to sleeping households, or the film “It’s a wonderful life” starring James Stewart relating how George Bailey facing life’s challenges is saved by Clarence, his guardian angel. The common thread for all these, and more, is the spirit of Christmas, of giving, of redemption; like the words to the great Christmas carols we know the words, we probably know the story well but each year we sing it, read it, watch it, or recite it and still it speaks to us, and we feel better for it.
One of my favourite Christmas tales, and one I often told at school at Christmas time, was written over a century ago by the American short story writer O. Henry. Most of the tales written by William Sydney Porter under the pen-name O. Henry are light hearted, but with a twist in the tail. They reflect the America of the late 19th century and early 20th century so are also interesting historical and social documents. Many of them have a strong “message” or moral. Today, like so much in our brash, “in yer face”, often violent and always cynical world they might well be considered a bit dated, old hat, twee, cheesy or naff - and that is a shame because like all good fiction they teach us about the worlds that others, different from ourselves, inhabit. In reading them, for a few minutes, we become someone else, we see the world from a different perspective; as Atticus Finch in the great novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Fiction allows us to do that, and O. Henry’s wonderful Christmas tale “The Gift of the Magi” does it superbly:
“The Gift of the Magi” by O.Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all she had. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and cry. So Della did it.
Della lay in the cheap, $8 a week furnished flat. In the vestibule two floors below was a letter-box, filled with bills they couldn't pay and into which no more letters could go, and an electric door bell that didn’t work, and above it a piece of folded card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young." However, when Mr. James Dillingham Young came home from his work as an office clerk at the end of every day and climbed the stairs to his flat he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Della, Mrs. James Dillingham Young. The young couple were poor but happy in their love and company and hope for their future.
Della gradually ceased sobbing and put on a little make up. She stood by the window and looked out at the dark wet day. To-morrow 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 didn't go far in New York. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated and now she had 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 near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by her wonderful husband, Jim.
Della turned from the window and stood looking at her reflection in the wall mirror and in that moment she had an idea. Rapidly she pulled out her hair pins and her hair fell 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 before him. The other was Della's hair and now her beautiful long hair fell about her, a rippling and shining brown cascade. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. She ran her hair brush through it and then, with well practised fingers, she did it up again nervously and quickly.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat and with a whirl of skirts and a sparkle in her eyes, she slipped out of the door and down the stairs into the rain drenched Christmas Eve street.
After a short walk she stopped outside a small establishment. The sign on the door read: "Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." Della stepped inside the shop. Mme Sofronie stood behind a glass counter containing hair combs, ribbons and wigs.
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I do buy hair," said Madame. "Take your hat off and let's have a sight of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"I’ll take it” said Della, “Give it to me quick" said Della.
And a few moments later, Della left the shop. The next two hours went by on a whirl. She raced from department store to department seeking Jim's present, and at last she found it. Surely, it 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 gold fob chain simple and chaste in design, its simplicity vouching for its value. Della knew immediately that she saw it that it was worthy of Jim’s precious and much loved watch. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the remaining eighty seven cents.
When Della reached home she set to work repairing the ravages of her visit to Mme Sofronie and within half an hour and skilful use of her curling tongs her head was covered with tiny curls. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, wondering what Jim would say.
*********
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 they would enjoy for their Christmas Eve meal.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat at the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stairway on the first flight, and for just a moment her heart raced. She had a habit of 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, worn out and cold. His eyes immediately fixed upon Della sitting by the table, already set for dinner, 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, his over coat still on.
Della wriggled from the table and went over to 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. Please say you don’t mind. I did it for you. My hair grows awfully fast. Let’s say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice - what a beautiful - gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously and quietly, disbelieving, as if he had not arrived at that fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour and despite the evidence of his eyes.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm still me without my hair aren’t?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, bemused, unable to think straight.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you - sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, my love. It’s gone for you, to show my love for you."
Out of his trance Jim seemed to wake. He put his arms around his Della and hugged her tightly to his chest, a tear running down his cheek and then releasing her he drew out a package from his overcoat pocket and put it on the table.
"Make no mistake, Della," he said, "I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me love you less. But if you'll unwrap that package you might see why you had me going a while at first."
Della’s fingers tore at the string and paper. Then as the contents of the package were revealed there was an ecstatic scream of joy; followed, alas by a change to hysterical tears. And Jim took his beloved wife into his arms while she sobbed on his shoulder.
And on the table amongst the torn wrapping paper there lay a set of hair combs. The very ones that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway department store window and that she had, on many occasions, told Jim about. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims - just the shade to wear in her beautiful, but now 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 been adorned by the coveted combs were gone.
Della turned from Jim and picked up the combs. She hugged them to her bosom, and at length she looked up with dim, tear filled eyes and a smile and said: "My hair grows so fast, Jim, I’ll soon be able to put them in my hair!"
And then Della leaped away from him and cried, "Oh, Jim, you haven’t seen your present!" She held it out to him upon her open palm. The precious metal flashing brightly in the glow of the electric light.
"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."
But, instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
And taking her hands in his is quietly spoke. "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. Let’s just be happy in our own company….how about you put the chops on and we enjoy a Christmas Eve dinner together."
No comments:
Post a Comment