It was a green and gold volume of short stories, one that she had read many times before, but she never grew tired of them.
The one she liked best was "Marguerite's Wonder-ball," and she turned to that first, because it was the story of a happy birthday.

Marguerite was a little German girl, learning to knit, and to help her in her task her family wound for her a mammoth ball of yarn, as full of surprise packages as a plum cake is of plums.

Day by day, as her patient knitting unwound the yarn, some gift dropped out into her lap.

They were simple things, nearly all of them.

A knife, a ribbon, a thimble, a pencil, and here and there a bonbon, but they were magnified by the charm of the surprise, and they turned the tedious task into a pleasant pastime.