Magic : The World

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 butcheruntil one's cheek 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 left 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 cer­

tainly had that word on the look-out 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 seri­

ously 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.

Delia 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. 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 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. Some­

thing fine and rare and sterling - something just a little bit near to

being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Per­

haps 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

colour 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 shin­

ing 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 of 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, pant­

ing. 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 heused in place of a chain.