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Rudolph, the Red nose Reindeer
The story about Rudolph, the Red nose Reindeer began on a December night in Chicago many years ago, a little girl climbed onto her father's lap and asked a question. It was a simple question, asked in children's curiosity, yet it had a heart-rending effect on Robert May.
"Daddy," four-year-old Barbara May asked, "Why isn't my mommy just like everybody else's mommy?"
Bob May stole a glance across his shabby two-room apartment. On a couch lay his young wife, Evelyn, racked with cancer. For two years she had been bedridden. For two years, all of Bob's small income and smaller savings had gone to pay for treatments and medication.
Bob May knew too well what it meant to be 'different'. As a child he had been weak and delicate. With the innocent cruelty of children, his playmates had continually goaded the stunted, skinny lad to tears. Later, at Dartsmouth, from which he graduated in 1936, Bob May was so small that he was always being mistaken for someone's little brother.
Now, Bob suddenly realized the happiness of his growing daughter was also in jeopardy. As he ran his fingers through Barbara's hair, he groped for some satisfactory answer to her question. On that December night in the shabby Chicago apartment, Bob cradled the little girl's head against his shoulder and began to tell a story . . .
"Once upon a time, there was a reindeer named Rudolph, the only reindeer in the world that had a big red nose. Naturally people called him "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer." As Bob went on to tell about Rudolph, he tried desperately to communicate to Barbara the knowledge that, even though some creatures of God are strange and different, they often enjoy the miraculous power to make others happy.
"Rudolph," Bob explained, "was terribly embarrassed by his unique nose. Other reindeer laughed at him; his mother and father and sister were mortified, too. Even Rudolph wallowed in self pity."
"Why was I born with such a terrible nose?" he cried.
"Well," continued Bob, "one Christmas eve, Santa Claus got his team of husky reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen, and the others -- ready for their yearly trip around the world. The entire reindeer community assembled to cheer these great heroes on their way. But, a terrible fog engulfed the earth that evening, and Santa knew that the mist was so thick that he wouldn't be able to find a single chimney."
"Suddenly Rudolph appeared, his read nose glowing brighter than ever. Santa sensed at once that here was the answer to his perplexing problem. He led Rudolph to the front of the sleigh, fastened the harness and climbed in. They were off! Rudolph guided Santa safely to every chimney that night. Rain, and fog, snow and sleet -- nothing bothered Rudolph for his bright red nose penetrated like a beacon."
"And, so it was that Rudolph became the most famous and beloved of all the reindeer. The huge red nose he once hid in shame was now the envy of every buck and doe in the reindeer world. Santa Claus told everyone that Rudolph had saved the day, and from that Christmas on, Rudolph has been living serenely and happy."
That night was the birhtday of our Rudolph, the Red nose Reindeer. The little daughter liked her father's story so much that she insisted on listening to it every night. Thus, Bob decided to make the story into a poem as a X'max present for his beloved daughter.
Shortly after Barbara had cried with joy over his handmade gift on Christmas morning, Bob was asked to an employee's holiday party at Montgomery Wards. He didn't want to go, but his office associates insisted. When Bob finally agreed, he took with him the poem and read it to the crowd. At first the noisy throng listened in laughter. Then, they became silent, and at the end broke into spontaneous applause. That was in 1938.
Nowadays, millions of children around the world love Rudolph, the Red nose Reindeer. The story about this lovely animal has captured the hearts of young children, and it's also a meaningful lesson. I hope you like it and wish you have a Merry Christmas.
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Rudolph, chú tuần lộc mũi đỏ
Câu chuyện về Rudolph, chú tuần lộc mũi đỏ _ bắt đầu vào một đêm tháng 12 tại Chicago nhiều năm trước đây, cô bé nhảy vào lòng cha và thắc mắc. Đó là câu hỏi ngây thơ trong cái tính tò mò của trẻ con, nhưng lại rất đau lòng đối với Robert May.
"Bố ơi", cô bé Barbara May mới 4 tuổi hỏi, "sao mẹ con không như mẹ của những bạn khác?"
Bob May liếc nhìn quanh căn hộ tồi tàn chỉ có 2 phòng của mình. Trên giường bệnh, người vợ trẻ Evelyn đang đau đớn vì căn bệnh ung thư, Đã hai năm rồi cô nằm liệt giường. Hai năm mà tất cả thu nhập ít ỏi của Bob cùng tiền tiết kiệm nhỏ nhoi của họ đều phải dành cho việc điều trị, thuốc thang.
Bob May biết quá rõ cái gọi là " khác biệt". KHi còn bé, ông là một đứa trẻ rất bé con và ốm yếu. Với sự ngây thơ đến tàn nhẫn của bọn trẻ con, những đứa cùng lớp ko ngừng trêu chọc thân hình còi cọc, gầy nhom của ông cho tới khi ông phát khóc. Và sau này khi mà ở Dartsmouth_nơi Bob May tốt nghiệp năm 1936, ông trông bé tới mức mọi người luôn nhầm ông chỉ là người em bé bỏng của ai đó. Giờ đây, Bob bất ngờ nhận ra niềm hạnh phúc trong hoàn cảnh hiểm nghèo khi thấy sự lớn lên của đứa con gái bé bỏng...... Ông lướt ngón tay mình qua tóc bé Barbara, cố gắng tìm một câu trả lời thích hợp cho thắc mắc của con. Vào cái đêm tháng 12 trong căn nhà tồi tàn ấy, Bob áp đầu con vào vai mình, bắt đầu kể một câu chuyện...
" Ngày xửa ngày xưa có một chú tuần lộc tên là Rudolph, là chú tuần lộc duy nhất trên thế giới có cái mũi to màu đỏ." Mọi người đương nhiên gọi chú là "Rudolph_ chú tuần lộc mũi đỏ". Khi Bob kể về Rudolph, ông cố gắng truyền đạt cho Barbara biết rằng, cho dù những người được sinh ra khác biệt and lập dị, họ thường có khả năng kì diệu đem lai niềm vui cho mọi người.
"Rudolph í," Bob giả thích, " đã xấu hổ kinh khủng vì chiếc mũi có một không hai của mình". Những con tuần lộc khác chế nhạo chú. Bố,mẹ, chị em Rudolph cũng lấy làm xấu hổ. Chú thương hại cho chính bản thân mình...
"Sao mình lại sinh ra với cái mũi khủng khiếp thế này?", chú khóc.
"Thế rồi..", Bob tiếp tục kể " vào một đêm Giáng Sinh, ông già tuyết sẵn sàng cho cuộc hành trình hàng năm của mình khắp thế giới trên cỗ xe cùng những chú tuần lộc to khỏe _ Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen, và những con khác. Toàn bộ những chú tuần lộc khác tụ tập lại hoan hô những chú tuần lộc anh hùng giỏi giang trong cuộc hành trình. Nhưng suơng mù khủng khiếp nhấn chìm mặt đất vào đêm đó, sương dầy quá tới mức ông già tuyết không thể tìm nổi một cây đuốc.
Bất ngờ Rudolph xuất hiện, cái mũi đỏ của chú sáng hơn bao giờ hết. Ôn g già tuyết tìm được câu trả lời tức khắc cho vấn đề rắc rối của mình. Ông để cho Rudolph đứng đầu chiếc xe, thắt chặt yên rồi trèo lên. Họ lại đi được! Rudolph dẫn đường thận trọng như 1 ngọn đuốc vào đe^m ấy. M­ưa và sương, tuyết hay mưa tuyết _ chẳng gì đáng bận lòng vì chiếc mũi đỏ của chú tuần lộc Rudolph xuyên qua như chiếc đe`n hiệu soi sáng.
Thế rồi, Rudolph của chúng ta trở thành chú tuần lộc được yêu quí và nổi tiếng nhất. Cái mũi đỏ trước đây là điều xấu hổ thì bây giờ là điều ghen tị của những chú tuần lộc khác.
Ông già tuyết kể cho mọi người hay Rudolph đã cứu nguy cho đêm Noel ấy và cũng từ đó, Rudolph sống rất hạnh phúc cà thanh thản. Và tối nay là sinh nhật Rudolph của chúng ta, chú tuần lộc mũi đỏ. Cô con gái nhỏ rất thích câu chuyên của người cha tới mức đòi nghe lại vào mỗi tối. Vì thế, Bob quyết định làm câu chuyện thành một bài thơ như món quà Noel dành cho đứa con gái yêu dấu. KHông lâu sau Barbara hò reo lên sung sướng với món quà tự làm của bố vào buổi sáng ngày lễ Noel. Ông xin nghỉ buổi tiệc dành cho công nhân tại Montgomery Wards. Ông không muốn đi, nhưng nhữg người bạn cùng làm cứ khăng khăng bảo Bob phải đi. Cuối cùng ông cũng đồng ý, ông mang cả bài thơ của mình và đọc nó trước mọi người. LÚc đầu mọi người vui vẻ nghe. Rồi tự dưng họ trở nên im lặng, và cuối cùng bỗng dưng tất cả đều vỗ tay. Đó là vào năm 1938.
Ngày nay hàng triệu trẻ em trên khắp thế giới đều yêu quí chú tuần lộc mũi đỏ Rudolph. Câu chuyện về chú tuần lộc đáng yêu chiếm được lòng yêu mến của những trẻ em nhỏ tuồi, đó cũng là bài học rất có ý nghĩa. Hi vọng bạn cũng thích nó và chúc bạn có một ngày Giáng Sinh vui vẻ.

Britneybritney post phần nguyên bản từ đâu vậy? thiếu nhiều quá. Nếu tôi nhớ không nhầm thì trong tập "Wild Flower" của Erskin Caldwell, câu chuyện "The Christmas presents" mà bạn dịch có tên là "The savants' gifts" thì phải, đọc từ hồi lớp 8 nên không nhớ chắc tên chuyện, nhưng nội dung thì tôi nhớ là thiếu nhiều lắm, trong đó dài nhất là đoạn kết nói về nghệ thuật tặng quà, và những người tặng quà cho Chúa lần đầu trong máng cỏ Hài đồng là những người biết cách tặng quà nhất, "họ là những nhà thông thái". Britneybritney thử xem lại xem nhé!
KUMITE'

Britneybritney post phần nguyên bản từ đâu vậy? thiếu nhiều quá. Nếu tôi nhớ không nhầm thì trong tập "Wild Flower" của Erskin Caldwell, câu chuyện "The Christmas presents" mà bạn dịch có tên là "The savants' gifts" thì phải, đọc từ hồi lớp 8 nên không nhớ chắc tên chuyện, nhưng nội dung thì tôi nhớ là thiếu nhiều lắm, trong đó dài nhất là đoạn kết nói về nghệ thuật tặng quà, và những người tặng quà cho Chúa lần đầu trong máng cỏ Hài đồng là những người biết cách tặng quà nhất, "họ là những nhà thông thái". Britneybritney thử xem lại xem nhé!
KUMITE'

Đấy là chuyện Chị chocolatemilk gửi đấy chứ, chắc bạn không đọc kĩ. Brit chỉ dịch thôi, vì nhân dịp giáng sinh mà. Còn bản chính của chuyện hình như Brit cũng có, để post sau vậy. Nhưng chắc chuyện chị Chocolate gửi là bản tóm tắt


Forever trust in who you are




And nothing else matter!

Đấy là chuyện Chị chocolatemilk gửi đấy chứ, chắc bạn không đọc kĩ. Brit chỉ dịch thôi, vì nhân dịp giáng sinh mà. Còn bản chính của chuyện hình như Brit cũng có, để post sau vậy. Nhưng chắc chuyện chị Chocolate gửi là bản tóm tắt


Forever trust in who you are




And nothing else matter!

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 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, though, they were thinking seriously 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.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow 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. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps 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 color 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 shining 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 the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. 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 he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
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.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer 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 and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, 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.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold 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. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful 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 adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"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."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"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. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
không biết chuyện này đã đủ chưa?


Forever trust in who you are




And nothing else matter!

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 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, though, they were thinking seriously 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.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow 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. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps 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 color 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 shining 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 the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. 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 he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
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.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer 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 and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, 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.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold 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. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful 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 adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"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."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"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. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
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Forever trust in who you are




And nothing else matter!

Chỉ có một câu : Hay quá ta
Tặng britneybritney 5 sao nha
Have fun ~~~> click here to :

INTERNET & CHAT club​

Prince at midnight

Chỉ có một câu : Hay quá ta
Tặng britneybritney 5 sao nha
Have fun ~~~> click here to :

INTERNET & CHAT club​

Prince at midnight

Thanks Britney2, there is no available 6-star, so gotta give U a 5-one, wot a gift of a magi!
KUMITE'