One yuan and eighty-seven cents. It's all here, including 60 cents of copper coins. These cents were deducted by grocery store owners, greengrocers and butcher shops, which made them feel ashamed. I deeply feel that this kind of transaction is really embarrassing. Della counted it three times, and it was still 1.87 yuan. The next day was Christmas.

Obviously, there is nothing to do but throw yourself on that shabby nap chair and cry. Della did this, but her spiritual feelings came back to life. Life is crying and laughing, especially sniffling. When the housewife gradually calms down, let's take a look at this home again. Although it is difficult to describe in words, it really deserves the word beggar.

There is a mailbox downstairs at the door, but there is never a letter, and there is also a button. No one has ever rung the bell with his finger. In addition, there is a business card that says "Mr. James dillingham Young".

The name "dillingham" was added temporarily when the shopkeeper was in full swing. At that time, he earned thirty dollars a week. Now, his income has shrunk to $20, and the letter "dillingham" is vague, as if he is seriously considering whether to abbreviate it to the humble and practical letter D.

However, whenever James dillingham Young comes home and walks into the upstairs room, Mrs. Della James dillingham Young, who has just been introduced to you, always calls him "Jim" and gives him a warm hug. Sure, that would be great.

When Della finished crying, she powdered her cheeks. She stood at the window and stared at a gray cat walking on the gray fence in the gray backyard. Tomorrow is Christmas, and she has only one yuan and eighty-seven cents for Jim to buy gifts. It took her months to save it bit by bit to get this result.

Twenty dollars a week is really unbearable, and the expenditure is greater than the budget, which is always the case. I only spent one yuan and eighty-seven cents to buy Jim a present, her Jim. How many happy days she spent planning to give him a lovely gift, a delicate, rare and expensive gift-at least something worthy of Jim's possession.

Source: The Gift of the Magi, a short story from O'Henry.

Extended data:

Creative background:

O Henry was born in a doctor's family in America, and lost his mother when he was a child. When he was young, his family wealth decreased. /kloc-started to make a living in society at the age of 0/5, and shouldered the heavy responsibility of life alone. He worked as a pharmacy apprentice, a shepherd, a bank teller and accountant, and a clerk of the Land Bureau.

Different work and life experiences and lonely wandering in society made young O Henry realize the hardships and hardships of life prematurely. Living in the bottom society, he not only has to worry about trivial things in life, but also the deprivation and oppression of the upper society makes his life poor.

Living in the lower class, O Henry consciously speaks for the little people and pretends to be the representative of more than four million poor people in new york. The novel The Gift of the Magi reflects the author's living environment and class, and the social class and hardships of the protagonist's life are also a personal portrayal of O 'Henry. ?

/kloc-in the 0/9th century, American capitalist monopoly developed rapidly. Capitalists in enterprises and factories have increased their oppression on workers in order to obtain higher profits, and the gap between the rich and the poor in society has become more and more serious. It was during this period that the writer O Henry's wife died. O Henry, with poor financial ability, met and fell in love with his wife estes at a dance.

However, estes's family was very opposed. Estes finally married O 'Henry, regardless of his family's opinions. Despite the hardships, he is happy and sweet. Later, O 'Henry left his seriously ill wife and took refuge in the countryside because he was suspected of defaulting on a sum of money from the bank until his wife died. Maggie's gift is a testimony to his wife's guilt and yearning.

The source of creative power comes from the dissection and reflection of American bottom social life, especially the exposure of the gap between the rich and the poor in America, and links this with every detail of love, affection and life, especially in the overall artistic expression of the work, all of which comes from O. Henry's memory of his wife.