Delia and Jim Young, the main characters in “The Gift of the Magi,” are a young couple with very little . Jim has suffered a thirty-percent pay cut, and the two must scrimp for everything. On the day before Christmas, counts the money she has painstakingly saved for months. She is dismayed to find she has less than two , hardly enough to buy anything at all. After a good long cry, Delia determines to find a way to buy Jim the he deserves. As she looks into a mirror, an idea comes to her.

Jim and Delia have two of which they are both proud. One is Jim’s gold , which has been handed down from his grandfather. The other is Delia’s , lustrous, shining, and falling past her knees. Before she can lose her nerve, Delia races out of the apartment to a wigmaker, Mme. Sofronie, to whom she sells her hair for dollars. With the money in her hand, Delia goes to the stores, trying to find something worthy of . At last she finds it: a platinum watch .

Once home, Delia attempts to her shorn hair. She heats a frying pan for and waits nervously by the front door for Jim. When he comes in and sees Delia’s hair, he says . His face shows no anger, surprise, disapproval, or horror — none of the sentiments Delia was expecting. Instead, he only .

Delia goes to him, explaining that she her hair to buy his gift. Jim has a difficult time understanding, but suddenly he snaps out of his . He draws from his pocket Delia’s present. She opens it and finds a set of for her hair, which she had been admiring in a store for a long time. She now understands why Jim was so stunned. Delia gives Jim his present, but he does not pull out his watch to fit to the chain, for he has sold his to buy Delia’s combs.

The explains that the wise men, or , brought gifts to the Jesus and so invented the giving of Christmas gifts. Because these men were , they no doubt gave wise gifts. Delia and Jim, the narrator asserts, have unwisely sacrificed their most precious possessions. Yet, because they gave from the heart, they are wise: “They are the magi.”