The Gift of the Magi
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of
violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening
now. True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the
strange in the darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, host of Kind of Murdery,
a podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket
dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved,
the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long
as it's kind of murdery. Hey everybody, it's true. Just like it
says in the intro. I am Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of
murdery, you know when you host a true crime podcast. And don't get
me wrong, I love the stories that we tell here on Kind of Murdery.
That's why I do it. But every so often I get a little
bit emotionally weary, as twice a week I continue to be your tour guide
through one story of human depravity after another, as we travel together on a
safari of all the worst things that people seem to be capable of. And
now it's December. We've almost made it through another year of kind of murdery
stories. And it just so happens that as the dark hour's length and I
find myself not up to the task of guiding you through another malevolent mystery,
another Charnel house of violence and horror. And so, in honor of the
start of December, today, I'm going to offer you a very different kind
of story. It still has suspense and thrills, but instead of hatred and
violence, it features love, self sacrifice, and compassion. This is my
favorite holiday's story. Please join me as we uncover what truths we can and
solve what mysteries we may. Oh Henry's classic The Gift of the Magi starts
now 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
eight dollars a week. It did not exactly beg her 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 mister James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham had been flung
to the breeze during a former period of prosperity, when its possessor was being
paid thirty dollars a week. Now, when income was shrunk to twenty the
letters of Dillingham looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to
a modest and unassuming d but Whenever mister James Dillingham Young came home and reached
his flat above, he was called Jim and greatly hugged by missus. 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, looked dully out at the gray cat walking on a
gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she
had only one dollar and eighty seven cents 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 one dollar and eighty seven cents 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 bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a peer glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you
have seen peer glass and an eighty dollar 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 grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba
lived in the flat across the air shaft, 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 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 Mademoiselle souffronis hair goods of all kinds.
One flied up. Della ran and collected herself, panting. Madam,
large, too white and chilly, hardly looked the souffronie. Will you buy
my hair, asked Dela. I buy hair, said madam. Take your
hat off, and let's have a sight at the look of it. Down
rippled the brown cascade. Twenty dollars, said Madam, lifting the mass with
a practiced hand. Give it to me quick, said Dela. Oh.
In the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor.
She was ransacking 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 chased 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 eighty
seven 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 to a little 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 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 one 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 for saying silent little prayers about the
simplest 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, the scent of a 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 for 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 throughout 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
nice, nice, beautiful gift I've got for you. You've cut off your
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, aren'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 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 wake. He enfolded
his Della for ten seconds. Let us regard with the discreete 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 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 worshiped
long in a Broadway window, beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, and jeweled
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 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 metals seemed to
flash with the reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. Isn't it dandy,
Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look
at the time one 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, put his hands under the back of his head,
and smiled, Dell, let's put our Christmas presents away and keep them
awhile they're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to
get the money to buy your combs. And now 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 whys of these, let it be said
that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest. Everywhere they
are the wisest. They are the magi. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this
has been kind of Murdery. If you like the show, be subscribe,
review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at Kindamurdery
or email at Kindomurdery at gmail dot com.
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