The pennies were counted, a hundred and eight,
And three times she’d saved them to challenge their fate.
Next morning was Christmas, the festival bright,
But Della sat weeping in gray, winter light.
Her Jim made but twenty small dollars a week,
And lines of subsistence were pale on her cheek.

She stood by the mirror and let down her hair,
A cascade of ripples, brown, brilliant, and rare.
It fell past her knees like a garment of grace,
The ultimate pride of their impoverished place.
For Jim held a watch that his grandfather bore,
But Della’s bright hair was the wealth she adore.

She put on her jacket, she ran to the street,
With wings on her heels and a plan so discreet.
She stopped at a shop where the hair-goods were sold:
“Will you buy my tresses for silver and gold?”
The Madame looked cold as she lifted the mass:
“Twenty dollars,” she said, and it cut like the glass.

[…]

For two golden hours she tripped through the stores,
In search of a gift behind high-windowed doors.
She found it at last, simple, chaste, and refined,
A platinum chain of a beautiful kind.
It was made for his watch, stripped of vanity’s flare,
To replace the old leather he used with such care.

She ran back to their flat with her cropped, curly head,
And looked in the mirror with sudden, cold dread.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she whispered in fear,
“He’ll say I’m a chorus girl, ruined and queer.”
She fixed up the coffee and heated the pan,
And waited in terror to welcome her man.

The door opened wide and step-Jim entered the room,
He stopped like a statue inside of the gloom.
His eyes fixed on Della, entirely dead,
Not anger, nor horror, but something instead—
A blank fascination she could not divide,
That terrified Della and shattered her pride.

[…]

“Don’t look at me so, Jim!” she cried in her pain,
“I sold it for Christmas, to buy you this chain!
It grows back so fast—oh, be good to me, dear,
For my love for you runs so deep and so clear.”
Jim woke from his trance and he folded her tight,
And drew a small package right into the light.

“You’ll see why I stared when you open the thread,
No haircut could change how I love you,” he said.
She tore at the paper, and gave a wild scream,
Then burst into tears at the loss of her dream:
There lay the grand Combs she had craved from afar,
With jewel-rimmed borders that shone like a star.

They were meant for the hair that had vanished away,
But she pressed them to heart in a tender display.
Then she leaped up to give him his beautiful prize,
The platinum chain with the spark in her eyes.
“It’s lovely, dear Jim! Give me your watch for the chain!”
But Jim flipped back down on the couch to explain.

He smiled a soft smile that was weary and wise:
“Let’s put them away, they’re too nice for our eyes.
I sold my gold watch just to purchase your combs—
And that is the spirit that hallows our homes.”
The Magi brought gifts to the Babe in the stall,
But these two poor children were wisest of all.