一美元和80美分

2021年1月26日发(作者：貂皮)

One
dollar
and
eighty-seven
cents.
That
was
all.
And
sixty
cents of
it
were
smallest pieces of money - pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by
negotiating
with
the
man
at
the
market
who
sold
vegetables
and
meat.
Negotiating until one's face burned with the silent knowledge of being poor
.

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 sit down and cry,
so Della cried, which led to the thought that life
is made up of little cries and
smiles with more little cries than smiles.

Della finished her crying and dried her face. She stood by
the window and looked
out
unhappily
at
a
grey
cat
walking
along
a
grey
fence
in
a
grey
backyard.
Tomorrow
would
be
Christmas
Day,
and
she
had
only
one
dollar
and
eighty-seven cents to buy her husband Jim a gift. She had been saving every
penny she could for months with this result.

Jim earned 20 dollars a week which does not
go far
. Expenses had been greater
than she
had
expected. They
always
are.
Many
a
happy
hour she
had
spent
planning to buy something nice for him. Something fine and rare; something
close to being worthy of the honor of belonging to Jim.


There was a tall, glass mirror between the windows of the room. Suddenly Della
turned from
the window and stood before the glass mirror and looked at herself.
Her eyes were shining, but her face had
lost its color within twenty seconds.
Quickly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now,
Mr
.
And
Mrs.
James
Dillingham
Young
had two
possessions
which
they
valued: One was Jim's gold timepiece, the watch that had been his father's and
his grandfather's: the other was Della's hair
. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in
their building, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window to dry just
to reduce the value of the queen’s jewels.


So now Della's beautiful hair fell
about her
, shining
like
a brown waterfall. It
reached below her knees and made itself almost like a covering for her
.
And then
quickly she put it up again. She stood still while a few tears fell on the floor
.

She put on her coat and her old brown hat with a quick motion and brightness
still
in her eyes, she danced out of the door and down the street. Where she
stopped
the sign read “Madam Sofronie Hair goods
of all kinds.” Della ran up the
steps to the shop, out of breath.



,

Down came the beautiful brown waterfall of hair
.






The next two hours went by as if they had wings. Della looked in all the stores
to choose a gift for Jim.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim
and no one else. It was
chain, simple round rings of silver
. It was perfect for Jim’s gold watch. As soon
as she saw it, she knew that it must be for him. It was like him, quiet and with
great value. She gave the shopkeeper twenty-one dollars and she hurried home
with the eighty-seven cents that was left.

When Della arrived home, she began to repair what was left up her hair
, the hair
had been ruined by her love and her desire to give a special gift. Repairing the
damage was a very big job.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with
tiny,
round curls of hair that made her look wonderfully like a schoolboy. She looked
at herself in the glass mirror long and carefully.


At
7 o'clock that night, the coffee was made and the pan on the
back of
the stove
was hot and ready to cook the meat.

Jim was never late coming home from work. Della held the silver chain in her
hand and sat near the door
. Then she heard his step and she turned white for
just a moment. She had a way of saying on little silent prayer about the simplest
everyday things, and now
she whispered:
pretty.

The door
opened and Jim stepped in. He looked thin and very serious. Poor man,
he was only 22 and he had to care for a wife. He needed a new coat and gloves
to keep his hands warm.

Jim stopped inside the door
, as immovable as a dog smelling a bird. His eyes
were fixed upon Della. There was an expression in them that
she could not read,
and it frightened her
.
It was not anger
, nor surprise, nor fear
, nor any of the
feelings that she had been prepared for
. He simply looked at her with a strange
expression on his face.

Della went to him.


cut and sold because I could not have lived through Christmas without giving
you a gift. My hair will grow out again. I just had to do it. My hair grows very fast.
Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let us be happy. You don not know what a nice,
what a beautiful nice gift I have for you.