Shopping is an important part of Christmas preparations. ________ find it more exciting than us grown-ups so they participate in Christmas shopping with special ________.

One little girl was doing just that when she ________ saw Santa walking by. Or, that's at least what she ________! Thinking the tall stranger with a grey beard was Santa Clause, she ________ him and asked what he got for her for Christmas.

“Santa? I've been told many times,” the man said as he knelt and ________ the little girl. “Have you been a good girl this year?” he asked her, upon which she ________ proudly.

The ________ that unfolded was sweet and heartwarming. Having stepped into the ________ of Santa, the man asked the girl if she was ________ for Christmas, which she undoubtedly was!

In her ________, Santa came straight from the North Pole, with Rudolf and his reindeers, and was not a ________ she met at the supermarket! So she was surprised to meet Santa and she told him her Christmas wishes. The man was ________ to help and soon they began talking about what she was going to prepare for Santa and Rudolf!

“Can I ________ them all?” Santa asked, eagerly expecting to try the cookies the girl ________ to prepare for him.

The girl cheerfully said “yes” and then she told Santa that reindeers ate grass. Santa then ________ his little friend of the fact that grass was hard to find at the North Pole. Some details having been ________, it was now time for Santa to return to his hard work of preparing ________ with his countless Christmas elves, up far in the North Pole.

For now, she and Santa had to go their ________ ways until Christmas Eve, when Santa would return to pay her a visit and make her ________ come true.

Within a minute’s walk of my house there was a wild stretch of unspoiled woodland, where there were blackberry plants, squirrels and their young. I _________ walked in this park with Rex --- a friendly, harmless little dog; and _______ we rarely met anyone in the park, I took Rex along without a leash(狗绳).

One day we met a mounted policeman in the park, a policeman eager to show his _______.

“What do you mean by letting that dog run _______ in the park without a leash and a muzzle(口套)?” he shouted at me angrily. “Don’t you know it’s against the law?”

“Yes, I know it is,” I replied softly, “but I didn’t think he would do any _______ out here.

“You didn’t think! You didn’t think! The law doesn’t know about what you think. That dog _______ kill a squirrel or bite a child. Now, I’m going to _______ this time; but if I catch this dog out here again without a leash, you’ll have to tell it to the _________.”

I humbly _________ to obey.

And I did obey --- for a few times. But Rex didn’t like the muzzle, and neither did I; so we decided to take a __________. Everything was lovely for a while, and then we got into ________. Rex and I raced over the hill one afternoon and there, suddenly --- to my __________ --- I saw the majesty of the law, riding on a horse. Rex was out in a front, heading straight for the officer.

I was in for it. I knew it. So I didn’t ________ until the policeman started talking, I beat him to it. I said: “ Officer, you’ve caught me ________. I’m guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses. You ________ me last week that if I brought the dog out here again without a muzzle you would fine me.”

“Well, now,” the policeman responded in a soft tone, “I know it’s a ________ to let a little dog like that have a run out here when nobody is around.”

“Sure it is,” I replied, “____________ it is against the law.”

“Well, a little dog like that isn’t going to harm anybody,” the policeman protested.

“No, but he may kill __________,” I said.

“Well now, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously,” he told me.

“I’ll tell you what you do. You just let him run over the hill there where I can’t see him --- and we’ll forget all about it.”

That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of ________; so when I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his self-esteem was to take the kind and generous attitude showing __________.

He came from somewhere south of Rome. One Sunday evening I found him standing in the driveway, extremely thin.

“My name Tony and I mow (割) your lawn (草坪).” he said. It was hard to understand his _______ English. I told him I couldn’t afford a _______. “I mow your lawn,” he said again and walked away. When I got home the next evening, the lawn had been mowed, the walks _______. My wife and I thought it strange that he had not asked for _______. The next few days were busy, and I _______ about him. But on Friday, saw him again, behind my garage and busy around.

I _______ to work out some small weekly pay for him. Summer passed into fall and winds blew cold. “Mr. Craw, when winter come, let me clean the snow in the factory.” Tony _______. Well, how could I resist such determination? _______, Tony got his job.

“I want to be an apprentice (学徒),” he said one day. _______ we had a good apprentice school training laborers, I doubted whether he could even read blueprints (图纸). However, I decided to give him a try. To his __________, he graduated as a killed grinder.

After about two years, Tony turned up at our usual meeting spot, much __________ than he used to be and taking on a look of __________. He had his own house and a cute family!

Tony came to America seeking the American Dream. But he did not find it — he __________ it himself. Tony didn’t begin on the first __________. He began in the basement. All he had were 24 hours a day. He __________ none of them and succeeded finally.