When I was a boy of nine. I used to mow the lawn(草坪) of Mrs. Long, an elderly lady. She paid me very little. But she did promise me, "when Christmas come, I shall have a present for you." I spent much time1what it would be.
"It would not be a2glove," I3with myself. "She wouldn't know much about baseball." Since she was a fragile little person, I also4 the bicycle, for how could she5such a big thing?
As December arrived and ice began to form on the6. I began to imagine myself upon the7, trying my8on the surface of it. On the 22st of December, couldn't wait any more and marched down the street,9myself at the door of the house whose lawn I had10all summer. What she had was a(n)11parcel. When I12 it from her, I found it weighed almost nothing. I was13 disappointed. "A kind of magic. Do open it on Christmas morning." Mrs. Long said. Anyway, her words again set my mind14with new possibilities.
How long the15was! On Christmas morning, with great16, I opened the package and found a17box, in which I only saw ten18of black paper. Was it magic? Aunt Laura who taught school, said "It really is!". She showed me how to write.
That a pencil could write on one piece of paper and mysteriously record on another was a magic which satisfied my childish mind. It reached me at that19Christmas when I was able to comprehend it.
Since then I have received some pretty thundering Christmas presents but none that ever came close to the20of this one.
