Short Story

The Lesson for Our Lives

The short story, “The Tidy Drawer,” written by Mo McAuley, tells us that if you do something idly, you cannot get what you want. I think this is the theme of this story because there is this phrase twice, “Things get broken or lost when they're all willy-nilly like this.” In addition, this story teaches us that a reward sometimes doesn’t play an important role in whether or not something gets done.

First, the mother tells her daughter, Abby, to clean her room because her room is such a mess. However, she doesn’t want to do clean up her room, so the mother says to her that if Abby does a good job, she will give her extra money. This is a kind of reward, and occasionally most mothers occasionally use this method to ask their children to do something. Because of a reward, some children work fast. Likewise, Abby also finishes cleaning up her room.

              Meanwhile, the mother herself cannot find her own purse in a drawer because there are too many things in it. In this situation, Abby says to her mother that things get lost or broken when they're all willy-nilly. In this case, the mother has been disorderly, so she cannot find what she wants.

In like manner, Abby too has been disorderly in her own way. For instance, later, mother and daughter go to Abby’s room to look at her clean room. It looks clean, but in fact, Abby has stuffed a lot of things under her bed. Abby has just pretended to clean her room, so she cannot get extra money. Similarly, if we do something idly, we cannot get what we want.

              Abby cleans her room just because she wants extra money. She doesn’t understand well what her mother says, so giving reward doesn’t help. When parents tell children to do something, they need say why a responsibility is important or necessary.

In conclusion, I learned two lessons from this short story. First, we shouldn’t do something idly.  Second, just giving a reward won’t really change behavior. If Abby had always cleaned her room, she would have never been told to clean her room by her mother. Moreover if parents explain why it is necessary to do something, children won’t do idly. These lessons are valuable in our lives.

Work Cited

McAuley , Mo. "The Tidy Drawer." short stories. N.p.. Web. <http://www.short stories.co.uk/>.

Book Report 1

Ragged Dick

              I read Ragged Dick or Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks written by Horatio Alger, Jr. In this story, he wrote about a boy called Ragged Dick. He grows up and succeeds by the influences of cultured people in this story although he was alone, poor, dirty, and uneducated. Finally he gets a position. I agree with his success. There are three reasons. First, he was very honorable. Even though he was poor and wears dirty clothes, he never stole, cheated or imposed. He was very polite. Because of his characteristic, the people around him were attracted and helped him succeed. For example, he returned the money to one of the cultured characters, Mr. Grayson, because he paid too much for his bootblack. Mr. Grayson admired him and proposed him to be educated at Sunday school in church. Second, he was a hard worker. He earned  money as a bootblack than others. Moreover, after he met a cultured boy, Frank, he really wanted to change himself and studied hard. At first, he couldn’t read and write, but finally he was able to write a letter to his friend. In my opinion, hard workers have more potential to succeed than lazy people. Actually there were some lazy boys in this story, but they do not succeed like Dick. Dick made as many efforts as he could. Third, he was very kind. When people had a problem, he gave a hand to them. In chapter 15, he let Henry  live with him instead of teaching Dick because Henry didn’t have a house where he could sleep comfortably. In conclusion, I agree with his being able to succeed because he was very honorable, hard worker and kind. He gets opportunities by himself.