Mary's dime(一毛钱)
It was Sunday afternoon. I decided to clean up the room nicely so that my parents would feel
1 when they returned from a long ride! Then, I sat in the room, having nothing to do.
What else could I do? Then, with no reason, I suddenly
2 the pale face of that little beggar(乞丐) girl. I could see the glad light
3 her eyes when I put the dime in her little dirty hand.
How much I
4 that dime, too! Grandpa gave it to me a whole month ago, and I had kept it ever since in my red box upstairs, but those sugar apples looked so attractive, and were so
5 — only a dime a piece — that I wanted to have one.
I could imagine the little girl stood there in front of the
6 in her old dirty dress, looking at the
7 that were put all in a row in the window. I wonder what I should say, “Little girl, what do you want?” I gently asked. She felt
8and looked straight at me, just as if(似乎)nobody had spoken so
9 to her before. She realized what I had meant, so she said seriously and sadly. “I was thinking how good one of those delicious hamburgers would
10 . I haven't had anything to eat today.”
Now I thought to myself, “Mary Williams, you have had a good breakfast and a good lunch today,
11 this poor girl has not had a mouthful yet. You can give her your
12. She needs it a great deal more than you do.”
I could not run away from that little girl's sad,
13 look — so I dropped the dime right into her hand. How
14 the girl was! I am so glad I gave her the dime,
15 I had to go without the apple lying there in the window.