I was a boy of nine in 1960. I used to mow the lawn for Mrs. Long. She paid me little for the job, but ____1____ to give me a Christmas present.
I spent much time ____2____ what it would be. Many boys had baseball gloves or ice skates and I was ____3____ to have any of these. “It would ____4____ be a baseball glove,” I ____5____ with myself. “She wouldn’t know much about baseball.” So I was ____6____ that she would give me ice skates. I even ____7____ myself upon the skates.
As Christmas approached, it was with ____8____ that I stopped myself from reporting to Mrs. Long and demanding my present. On December 22, I ____9____ myself at the door of the house. Mrs. Long sat me in a chair and handed me a small box which under no circumstances could ____10____ a pair of skates. I was ____11____. When lifting it from her, I was curious about the ____12____ of the present. It weighed almost nothing.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A kind of magic,” she said. Her words were enough to set my mind dancing with new ____13____. There were other presents of normal dimension and weight. But Mrs. Long’s box dominated all, for it had to do with ____14____.
On Christmas morning, before the sun was up, I had this box on my knees. With great ____15____ I opened the box to find inside ten sheets of black paper, each labeled in colorful letters, Carbon Paper Regal Premium. “What is it?” I asked. Mum took two pieces of white paper, placed between them one of the black paper, and wrote my name on the upper sheet. Then she handed me the second sheet, which her pencil had in no way touched. There was my name!
It was a miracle to my ____16____ mind. In that one moment, I ____17____ the ideas about the duplication (复制) of words and the printing and the mystery of spreading ideas. Thank Mrs. Long for her ____18____ to guess that a boy might profit from a present totally outside the realm (领域) of his ____19____ experience.
The average present ____20____ satisfies a temporary desire; the great one lights up all the years of life that remain.