[00:00.00]Lesson 11   Christmas Spirit
[00:28.19]  It was two days before Christmas.
[00:32.16]Everything went wrong with me.
[00:35.81]I was due at my post--the toy department at K-Mart--at eight.
[00:41.69]But I was ten minutes late,because I overslept.
[00:46.13]At ten o'clock the front doors of K-Mart opened.
[00:51.10]The flood of shoppers edged along to the toy department.
[00:56.27]Soon they began shouting in my ears,pushing me around or demanding angrily.
[01:03.40]I got used to it.
[01:06.43]It was an unpleasant duty for them to buy Christmas gifts for their kids.
[01:12.67]The Christmas spirit had disappeared.
[01:16.83]And it was the same for me.
[01:20.38]I still had to finish my Christmas shopping that evening.
[01:25.52]Yes!Christmas didn't mean much any more to us,
[01:30.49]except more work and headaches.
[01:34.46]Suddenly I felt a gentle touch on my arm and I turned round.
[01:40.31]  It was one of the two kids I had been keeping an eye on for a while.
[01:46.16]He and his little sister had been looking at the cheapest toys.
[01:51.52]Before I even bent down to listen to him,
[01:56.19]I checked around for his sister.
[02:00.35]I thought he might be playing some trick on me while his sister stole something.
[02:06.59]I didn't see her,
[02:09.54]and the boy also seemed to be looking about to make sure she wasn't around.
[02:15.89]"Excuse me,sir.
[02:19.05]Do you think this would be a good gift for my little sister?"
[02:24.48] pointing at a bottle of soap bubble liquid. he said,
[02:28.61]"I don't want her to know about it,"
[02:32.27]he whishpered before I could even answer.
[02:36.42]He weemed to be sure that she would love it.
[02:40.78]So I just agreed with him and didn't say anything.
[02:45.64]He put his hand in the worn-out jeans and took out a handful of pennies.
[02:52.17]The bottle cost fifty-seven cents and he had forty cents.
[02:58.44]"It looks like you don't have enough money here."
[03:02.80]Then I advised him to try to find something else.
[03:07.77]he looked unhappy and went away to find something else.
[03:12.91]  I watched him form the corner of my eye.
[03:17.04]he looked at other toys,but always came back to the soap bubbles.
[03:22.71]Somehow the boy struck me as different from other troublemakers.
[03:28.46]A few minutes later,I went back to him and asked if he had found anything yet.
[03:34.94]He just shook his head and looked very sad.
[03:39.38]"Well,let's see how much money you have again,"I suggested.
[03:45.65]He dropped the pennies in with the two dimes I had hidden in my hand.
[03:51.50]"Well,look here!"I said.  I must have counted wrong before.
[03:57.17]You have just enough money for those soap bubbles."
[04:01.71]His smile spread out to his ears again.
[04:06.28]  He went out and met his sister at the door.
[04:10.33]He kept the bag closed
[04:13.78]so that his sister couldn't see the modest gift he had bought for her with his last pennies.
[04:20.86]  It seemed to be quite an event in  my life.
[04:25.22]Somehow the rest of the day went much better.
[04:29.66]And when I went to buy Christmas presents that night,
[04:34.34]I looked for gifts instead of just fulfilling a duty.
[04:39.30]For the first time in years I had my Christmas spirit again.
[04:45.18]But I got some strange looks from my family
[04:49.72]when I came home with a bottle of soap bubbles.
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