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The Gift of the Magi - by
O.Henry
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
on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
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