The Christmas stories: The gift of Maja.
Chapter 1: Only one dollar and eighty seven cents.
Della sat at her kitchen table. She was counting something: One penny, two pennies, three pennies, she counted. She was saving pennies. Now she had one dollar and eighty seven cents. She worked hard to save that money. Every time she went to the grocery, she said: Oh, it's too expensive. Please give me a discount. She did this for many, many months. She counted the money again and again. But there was only one dollar and eighty seven cents. She cried out: No, there must be more money. I saved for so long.
Life was not easy for Della. She lived in a very small apartment. It cost eight dollars a week. She had to spend her money very wisely. At the entrance of the apartment, there was a doorbell, but this didn't work anymore. There was also a letter box, but it was too small for letters. It really wasn't a very good apartment. On the letter box there was the name, mr James Dillingham Young. This was Della's husband.
A long time ago, mr James Dillingham Young was proud of his name. Once his salary was thirty dollars a week. Now it was only twenty dollars. Twenty dollars never bought very much, but sometimes that didn't matter. When he came home, his wife always greeted and hugged him. He was her Jim.
Now, Della still sat at the kitchen table and cried. She wiped her tears and stood up. Tomorrow was Christmas. She only had one dollar and eighty seven cents to buy her husband a present. She saved for a long time, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to buy something very nice for him.
She walked to another window. As she walked, she passed a mirror. It was between two windows. It wasn't a very good mirror, of course. It was a mirror in an eight dollars a week apartment. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.
Then she got an idea. Her hair was tied up, but now she pulled it down. She had a lot of very long, beautiful hair. There were two things that she and her husband valued very much. One was a gold watch. Jim received it from his grandfather. He loved it very much.
The other was Della's hair. Della's hair was envied by many people. Some people said to della: Your hair is more beautiful than the Queen of Sheba's jewels. Jim's watch was also very wonderful. Some people said to him: Your watch is good enough for a king. So Jim and Della were very proud of these things.
Della continued looking at her hair. It fell around her shoulders, down her back, and to her knees. It was very, very long hair. Her hair was almost like a dress.
She tied it up again. She did it quickly, but she suddenly felt very sad. A couple of tears rolled down her cheeks.
She quickly put on her old brown coat and her old brown hat. She locked her apartment and hurried down the stairs and out of the apartment building. She walked down the street to look for a special store. After a few minutes, she found it and looked at the sign. Madame Sofroni, hair goods of all kind