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Season 2 Episode 7

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 02:00 and the tiny lessons begin at 20:00

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons.

Well, it’s Christmastime. It’s not Christmas yet, but it’s ChristmasTIME. And in my house, that means one thing: Christmas Movies. All December. Home Alone and Gremlins and Die Hard and this absolutely horrifying Korean movie called The Tower. And it also means it’s time for Christmas stories. So let’s start out with one that I still remember from elementary school. It’s by an author named O. Henry, who was a very famous short story writer from the USA in the 20th century. This story is from 1905, and there is some wild vocabulary, but honestly don’t even stress about it. The plot is easy to follow. And beyond that, I’m not going to tell you anything about it. Let’s just get started.

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: “Mme. 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 of saying a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

And that’s where we will stop for tonight.

I honestly am starting to cry.

I’m certain that I will cry by the end of the story. This is a really special story. And again, there’s some crazy vocabulary because O Henry wanted to sound smart. But, it’s not really important. To be honest, I don’t know what “meretricious” means. I’ve never heard that word before. But I get the idea. It means fancy. It’s talking about fancy watchchain. So, If you’re confused go back and listen again And just listen to the story. Also, maybe I can help you with

Three Tiny Lessons

Can you see the Big Picture?

What does Della do with her hair? And although it’s not stated in the story, why would that lady give her $20 for it (which is about $600 in today’s money)?

It’s all about making wigs. At that time, in 1905, there was no fake human hair. So they had to use human hair to make wigs. Della sold her beautiful hair, so some rich lady could wear it around. Awful.

And the Dictionary Disco? How’s it sound?

There is SO MUCH old vocabulary in this story. So maybe you wanna spend some time with a actual dictionary, looking up words. Don’t forget, there is a transcript in the show notes. But I’ll help you with two of them.

First is Falter, As in “for a moment, she faltered.” It means to lose strength or momentum. So Della allllmost didn’t have the strength to sell her hair. But she did in the end.

The second word is “ripple,” as in “Down rippled the brown cascade.” Ripples are the little waves in water when there is some wind or a little current. Or if you drop a rock into a still pond. So her hair, moves like water. It flows. Beautiful.

What about a Melody Moment?

Let’s talk about “L” This is the sound that’s written with an L. I’m not sure where you are or what your first language is, but here in Japan, people have a lot of trouble with L. And there’s a pretty simple reason for it. In the Japanese language, you never, ever, ever touch your teeth with your tongue. And to say “L” properly, you have to tap the end of your tongue against your front top teeth. Try it. Tap Tap La La La! Now move your tongue back like one centimeter so it doesn’t touch teeth any more. Different, right? Not the same sound. So that’s the lesson. You gotta touch your teeth!

Let’s do the credits!

Thank you for listening to Season 2 Episode 7 of A Little English.

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Hiroshima, Japan.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it.

The stories I read are in the public domain, and I get them from standardebooks.org, which is a really good website and you should check it out.

Again, thank you so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other.

Mentioned in this episode:

Listener Survey

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons.

h century. This story is from: 1905