The gifts 

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas. She could not afford a present, so she sat down and cried.

Jim and Della had two possessions which they were both proud of. One was Jim’s gold watch that was from his father and his grandfather. The other was Della’s beautiful hair. It fell about her, and reached below her knee.

Della put on her old brown jacket and her old brown hat. Then she went out of the door and down the stairs to the street. 

She stopped at a store. The sign in front of the store read “Hair Goods”.

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“Twenty dollars,” the woman said.

Then Della searched through the stores looking for a present for Jim.

She found it at last. It was a watch chain. The bill was twenty-one dollars.

At seven o’clock, the coffee was made and dinner was ready.

Jim was never late. Della heard his steps on the stairs.

The door opened and Jim walked in. He stopped inside the door. His eyes were fixed on Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read.

“Jim,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I sold my hair to buy you a Christmas present.”

Jim drew a box from his pocket and put it on the table.

Della opened it. There lay the set of combs that she had always wanted. Now they were hers, but her hair was gone.

She smiled and held out Jim’s present. “I hunted all over town to find it. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim sat down, put his hands behind his head and smiled.

“Della,” he said, “I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs.”

The last leaf

At the top of a house Sue and Johnsy had their studio. In November, Johnsy became very ill, and was lying on her bed and looking through the window at the wall of the next house.

“Her only chance,” the doctor said, “is for her to want to live.”

After the doctor had gone, Sue came into Johnsy’s room. Johnsy was looking out of the window and counting.

“Six,” said Johnsy. “There goes another one. There are only five left now.”

“Five what, dear?”

“Leaves. On the ivy vine. I want to see the last one fall. Then I’ll die.”

“Johnsy, dear, ” said Sue, “try to sleep. I must go and ask Behrman to be my model.”

Old Behrman was a painter. He was past 60 and earned a little money by being a model. Sue found Behrman and told him what Johnsy had said. Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. They looked out of the window at the ivy vine. A cold rain was falling.

The next morning, there stood on ivy leaf.

“It’s the last one, ” said Johnsy. “It’ll fall today, and I’ll die.”

At night, the wind began to blow. The next morning, the leaf was still there.

“Something has made the last leaf stay there. It’s wrong to want to die,” said Johnsy to Sue. “Please bring me a little soup now.”

A few days later, the doctor said to Sue, “She’s out of danger.”

That afternoon, Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay.

“Mr Behrman died today,” she said. “He was wet and icy cold from being out all night. Do you know why the leaf never moved? Behrman painted it on the wall the night that the last leaf fell.”

White elephants

In ancient Thailand, white elephants were thought to be a gift from the gods. When a king had many white elephants, people believed that the country would have peace and wealth. However, white elephants were not allowed to work, and the cost a lot of money to keep. For this reason, the king might give a white elephant to a person who made him angry. That person would have to spend all his money taking care of the elephant, and get nothing return.

Today whenever we have something which costs us a lot of money and which we do not want or which is useless, we call it a white elephant.