Chapter 6

The week that Ellen Vail Montgomery came to town was a busy one for Miss Larrabee. We turned over the whole fourth page of the paper to her for a daily society page, and charged the Bee Hive and the White Front Dry Goods store people double rates to put their special advertisements on that page while the "National Vice," as the Young Prince called her, was in town. For the "National Vice" brought the State President and two State Vices down, also four District Presidents and six District Vices, who, as Miss Larrabee said, were monsters "of so frightful mien, that to be hated need but to be seen." The entire delegation of visiting stateswomen--Vices and Virtues and Beatitudes as we called them--were entertained by Mrs. Worthington at Cliff Crest, and there was so much Federation politics going on in our town that the New York _Sun_ took five hundred words about it by wire, and Colonel Alphabetical Morrison said that with all those dressed-up women about he felt as though he was living in a Sunday supplement.

The third day of the ghost-dance at Cliff Crest was to be the day of the big event--as the office parlance had it. The ceremonies began at sunrise with a breakfast to which half a dozen of the captains and kings of the besieging host of the Pretender were bidden. It seems to have been a modest orgy, with nothing more astonishing than a new gold-band china set to dishearten the enemy. By ten o'clock Priscilla Winthrop and the Whist Club had recovered from that; but they had been asked to the luncheon--the star feature of the week's round of gayety. It is just as well to be frank, and say that they went with fear and trembling. Panic and terror were in their ranks, for they knew a crisis was at hand. It came when they were "ushered into the dining-hall," as our paper so grandly put it, and saw in the great oak-beamed room a table laid on the polished bare wood--a table laid for forty-eight guests, with a doily for every plate, and every glass, and every salt-cellar, and--here the mosque fell on the heads of the howling dervishes--forty-eight soup-spoons, forty-eight silver-handled knives and forks; forty-eight butter-spreaders, forty-eight spoons, forty-eight salad forks, forty-eight ice-cream spoons, forty-eight coffee spoons. Little did it avail the beleaguered party to peep slyly under the spoon-handles--the word "Sterling" was there, and, more than that, a large, severely plain "W" with a crest glared up at them from every piece of silver. The service had not been rented. They knew their case was hopeless. And so they ate in peace.

When the meal was over it was Mrs. Ellen Vail Montgomery, in her thousand-dollar gown, worshiped by the eyes of forty-eight women, who put her arm about Priscilla Winthrop and led her into the conservatory, where they had "a dear, sweet quarter of an hour," as Mrs. Montgomery afterward told her hostess. In that dear, sweet quarter of an hour Priscilla Winthrop Conklin unbuckled her social sword and handed it to the conqueror, in that she agreed absolutely with Mrs. Montgomery that Mrs. Worthington was "perfectly lovely," that she was "delighted to be of any service" to Mrs. Worthington; that Mrs. Conklin "was sure no one else in our town was so admirably qualified for National Vice" as Mrs. Worthington, and that "it would be such a privilege" for Mrs. Conklin to suggest Mrs. Worthington's name for the office. And then Mrs. Montgomery, "National Vice" and former State Secretary for Vermont of the Colonial Dames, kissed Priscilla Winthrop and they came forth wet-eyed and radiant, holding each other's hands. When the company had been hushed by the magic of a State Vice and two District Virtues, Priscilla Winthrop rose and in the sweetest Kansas Bostonese told the ladies that she thought this an eminently fitting place to let the visiting ladies know how dearly our town esteems its most distinguished townswoman, Mrs. Julia Neal Worthington, and that entirely without her solicitation, indeed quite without her knowledge, the women of our town--and she hoped of our beloved State--were ready now to announce that they were unanimous in their wish that Mrs. Worthington should be National Vice-President of the Federation of Women's Clubs, and that she, the speaker, had entered the contest with her whole soul to bring this end to pass. Then there was hand-clapping and handkerchief waving and some tears, and a little good, honest Irish hugging, and in the twilight two score of women filed down through the formal garden of Cliff Crest and walked by twos and threes in to the town.

There was the usual clatter of home-going wagons; lights winked out of kitchen windows; the tinkle of distant cow-bells was in the air; on Main Street the commerce of the town was gently ebbing, and man and nature seemed utterly oblivious of the great event that had happened. The course of human events was not changed; the great world rolled on, while Priscilla Winthrop went home to a broken shrine to sit among the the potsherds.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

(Written by Mr. White especially for this book.)

I was born in Emporia, Kansas, February 10, 1868, when Emporia was a pioneer village a hundred miles from a railroad. My father came to Emporia in 1859 and my mother in 1855. She was a pioneer school teacher and he a pioneer doctor. She was pure bred Irish, and he of Yankee lineage since 1639. When I was a year old, Emporia became too effete for my parents, and they moved to El Dorado, Kansas. There I grew up. El Dorado was a town of a dozen houses, located on the banks of the Walnut, a sluggish, but a clear and beautiful prairie stream, rock bottom, and spring fed. I grew up in El Dorado, a prairie village boy; went to the large stone school house that "reared its awful form" on the hill above the town before there were any two-story buildings in the place.

In 1884, I was graduated from the town high school, and went to the College of Emporia for a year; worked a year as a printer's devil; learned something of the printer's trade; went to school for another year, working in the afternoons and Saturdays at the printer's case; became a reporter on the _Emporia News_; later went to the State University for three years. After more or less studying and working on the Lawrence papers, I went back to El Dorado as manager of the _El Dorado Republican_ for State Senator T. B. Murdock.

From the _El Dorado Republican_, I went to Kansas City to work for the _Kansas City Journal_, and at 24 became an editorial writer on the _Kansas City Star_. For three years I worked on the _Star_, during which time I married Miss Sallie Lindsay, a Kansas City, Kansas, school teacher. In 1895 I bought the _Emporia Gazette_ on credit, without a cent in money, and chiefly with the audacity and impudence of youth. It was then a little paper; I paid three thousand dollars for it, and I have lived in Emporia ever since.

In 1896, I published a book of short stories called _The Real Issue_; in 1899, another book of short stories called _The Court of Boyville_. In 1901, I published a third book of short stories called _Stratagems and Spoils_; in 1906, _In Our Town_. In 1909, I published my first novel, _A Certain Rich Man_. In 1910, I published a book of political essays called _The Old Order Changeth_; in 1916, a volume of short stories entitled _God's Puppets_. A volume half novel and half travel sketches called _The Martial Adventures of Henry & Me_ filled the gap between my two novels; and the second novel, _In the Heart of a Fool_ was published in 1918.

I am a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters; the Short Ballot Association; the International Peace Society; National Civic Federation; National Academy of Political Science; have honorary degrees from the College of Emporia, Baker University, and Columbia University of the City of New York; was regent of the Kansas State University from 1905 to 1913. Politically I am a Republican and was elected National Republican Committeeman from Kansas in 1912, but resigned to be Progressive National Committeeman from Kansas that year. I am now a member of the Republican National Committee on Platforms and Policies appointed by the National Chairman, Will S. Hays. I am a trustee of the College of Emporia; a member of the Congregational Church, and of the Elks Lodge, and of no other organization. WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

To the above biography a few items about Mr. White's literary work may be added. It was through an editorial that he first became famous. This appeared in the _Emporia Gazette_ in 1896, with the title, "What's the matter with Kansas?" It contained so much good sense, and was written in such vigorous English that it was copied in newspapers all over the country. Perhaps no other editorial ever brought such sudden recognition to its author. In the same year he published his first book, _The Real Issue_, a volume of short stories. Some of them pictured the life of a small town, some centered about politics, and some were stories of small boys. These three subjects were the themes of most of Mr. White's later books.

_Stratagems and Spoils_, a volume of short stories, dealt chiefly with politics, as seen from the inside. _In Our Town_, from which "The Passing of Priscilla Winthrop" is taken, belongs to the studies of small-town life. His first novel, _A Certain Rich Man_, was published in 1909. Its theme is the development of an American multi-millionaire, from his beginning as a small business man with a reputation for close dealing, his success, his reaching out to greater schemes, growing more and more unscrupulous in his methods, until at last he achieves the great wealth he had sought, but in winning it he loses his soul.

This book was written during a vacation in the Colorado mountains. His family were established in a log cabin, and he set up a tent near by for a workshop. This is his account of his method of writing:

My working day was supposed to begin at nine o'clock in the morning, but the truth is I seldom reached the tent before ten. Then it took me some time to get down to work. From then on until late in the afternoon I would sit at my typewriter, chew my tongue, and pound away. Each night I read to my wife what I had written that day, and Mrs. White would criticise it. While my work was redhot I couldn't get any perspective on it--each day's installment seemed to me the finest literature I had ever read. She didn't always agree with me. When she disapproved of anything I threw it away--after a row--and re-wrote it.

In his next book, _The Old Order Changeth_, Mr. White turned aside from fiction to write a series of papers dealing with various reform movements in our national life. He shows how through these much has been done to regain for the people the control of municipal and state affairs. The material for this book was drawn largely from Mr. White's participation in political affairs.

In 1917 he was sent to France as an observer by the American Red Cross. The lighter side of what he saw there was told in _The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me_. His latest book is a long novel, _In the Heart of a Fool_, another study of American life of to-day.

All in all, he stands as one of the chief interpreters in fiction of the spirit of the Middle West,--a section of our country which some observers say is the most truly American part of America.

A PAIR OF LOVERS

_The typical love story begins by telling us how two young people fall in love, allows us to eavesdrop at a proposal, with soft moonlight effects, and then requests our presence at a wedding. Or perhaps an elopement precedes the wedding, which gives us an added thrill. The scene may be laid anywhere, the period may be the present or any time back to the Middle Ages, (apparently people did not fall in love at any earlier periods), but the formula remains the same. O. Henry wrote a love story that does not follow the formula. He called it "The Gift of the Magi."_

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 house 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, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as 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. To-morrow 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 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 seven 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 little silent prayers 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 to him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it 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 a 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 awake. 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 for 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 then 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 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. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

O. HENRY