TASK # 6 : A CHRISTMAS STORY
GIVEN ON: 15/12/2015
DEADLINE: 20/12/2015
INSTRUCTIONS: Read the story. Then ...
1. Write a 100 summary in your own words in English/Spanish.
It talks about how the boy love his father and how his father love him. He knows it because he heard his parents talking about his growing and that his father hated call him on the mornings.
Some days before Christmas he gave to his father a present and the day of Christmas he get up so early and did the work that he had to do with his father. He
did it and it was the best gift for his father. So fifteen years after
he will do it the same but with her wife, to say how much he loves her.
2. How much did you like the story? Explain in English/Spanish, please.
The story is boring but the final is very poignant because his present is very modest.
CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE MORNING
Pearl S Buck
He woke suddenly and
completely. It was four o'clock, the hour at which his father had
always called him to get up and help with the milking. Strange how
the habits of his youth clung to him still! Fifty years ago, and his
father had been dead for thirty years, and yet he waked at four
o'clock in the morning. He had trained himself to turn over and go to
sleep, but this morning it was Christmas, he did not try to
sleep.
Why did he feel so awake tonight? He slipped back in
time, as he did so easily nowadays. He was fifteen years old and
still on his father's farm. He loved his father. He had not known it
until one day a few days before Christmas, when he had overheard what
his father was saying to his mother.
"Mary, I hate to
call Rob in the mornings. He's growing so fast and he needs his
sleep. If you could see how he sleeps when I go in to wake him up! I
wish I could manage alone.
"Well, you can't,
Adam." His mother's voice was brisk. "Besides, he isn't a
child anymore. It's time he tok his turn."
"Yes,"
his father said slowly. "But I sure do hate to wake him."
When
he heard these words, something in him spoke: his father loved him!
He had never thought of that before, taking for granted the tie of
their blood. Neither his father nor his mother talked about loving
their children--they had no time for such things. There was always so
much to do on the farm.
Now that he knew his father loved him,
there would be no loitering in the mornings and having to be called
again. He got up after that, stumbling blindly in his sleep, and
pulled on his clothes, his eyes shut, but he got up.
And then
on the night before Christmas, that year when he was fifteen, he lay
for a few minutes thinking about the next day. They were poor, and
most of the excitement was in the turkey they had raised themselves
and mince pies his mother made. His sisters sewed presents and his
mother and father always bought him something he needed, not only a
warm jacket, maybe, but something more, such as a book. And he saved
and bought them each something, too.
He wished, that Christmas
when he was fifteen, he had a better present for his father. As usual
he had gone to the ten-cent store and bought a tie. It had semed nice
enough until he lay thinking the night before Christmas. He looked
out of his attic window, the stars were bright.
"Dad,"
he had once asked when he was a little boy, "What is a
stable?"
"It's just a barn," his father had
replied, "like ours."
Then Jesus had been born in a
barn, and to a barn the shepherds had come...
The thought
struck him like a silver dagger. Why should he not give his father a
special gift too, out there in the barn? He could get up early,
earlier than four o'clock, and he could creep into the barn and get
all the milking done. He'd do it alone, milk and clean up, and then
when his father went in to start the milking he'd see it all done.
And he would know who had done it. He laughed to himself as he gazed
at the stars. It was what he would do, and he musn't sleep too
sound.
He must have waked twenty times, scratching a match to
look each time to look at his old watch -- midnight, and half past
one, and then two o'clock.
At a quarter to three he got up and
put on his clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky
boards, and let himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and
surprised. It was early for them, too.
He had never milked all
alone before, but it seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his
father's surprise. His father would come in and get him, saying that
he would get things started while Rob was getting dressed. He'd go to
the barn, open the door, and then he'd go get the two big empty milk
cans. But they wouldn't be waiting or empty, they'd be standing in
the milk-house, filled.
"What the--," he could hear
his father exclaiming.
He smiled and milked steadily, two
strong streams rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant.
The
task went more easily than he had ever known it to go before. Milking
for once was not a chore. It was something else, a gift to his father
who loved him. He finished, the two milk cans were full, and he
covered them and closed the milk-house door carefully, making sure of
the latch.
Back in his room he had only a minute to pull off
his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard his
father up. He put the covers over his head to silence his quick
breathing. The door opened.
"Rob!" His father
called. "We have to get up, son, even if it is
Christmas."
"Aw-right," he said sleepily.
The
door closed and he lay still, laughing to himself. In just a few
minutes his father would know. His dancing heart was ready to jump
from his body.
The minutes were endless -- ten, fifteen, he
did not know how many -- and he heard his father's footsteps again.
The door opened and he lay still.
"Rob!"
"Yes,
Dad--"
His father was laughing, a queer sobbing sort of
laugh.
"Thought you'd fool me, did you?" His father
was standing by his bed, feeling for him, pulling away the
cover.
"It's for Christmas, Dad!"
He found
his father and clutched him in a great hug. He felt his father's arms
go around him. It was dark and they could not see each other's
faces.
"Son, I thank you. Nobody ever did a nicer
thing--"
"Oh, Dad, I want you to know -- I do want
to be good!" The words broke from him of their own will. He did
not know what to say. His heart was bursting with love.
He got
up and pulled on his clothes again and they went down to the
Christmas tree. Oh what a Christmas, and how his heart had nearly
burst again with shyness and pride as his father told his mother and
made the younger children listen about how he, Rob, had got up all by
himself.
"The best Christmas gift I ever had, and I'll
remember it, son every year on Christmas morning, so long as I
live."
They had both remembered it, and now that his
father was dead, he remembered it alone: that blessed Christmas dawn
when, alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his first gift of
true love.
This Christmas he wanted to write a card to his
wife and tell her how much he loved her, it had been a long time
since he had really told her, although he loved her in a very special
way, much more than he ever had when they were young. He had been
fortunate that she had loved him. Ah, that was the true joy of life,
the ability to love. Love was still alive in him, it still was.
It
occured to him suddenly that it was alive because long ago it had
been born in him when he knew his father loved him. That was it: Love
alone could awaken love. And he could give the gift again and
again.This morning, this blessed Christmas morning, he would give it
to his beloved wife. He could write it down in a letter for her to
read and keep forever. He went to his desk and began his love letter
to his wife: My dearest love...
Such a happy, happy Christmas!
