01 The Gift of the Magi
This story focuses on Jim and Della, a loving but impoverished couple in an apartment, who both sell their most valuable things in order to buy each other their most beloved gifts - Jim sells his prized pocket watch, and Della sells her long, proud hair. Yet the gifts they buy for each other require exactly these things as a foundation - Della buys a long chain for Jim’s pocket watch for decoration, and Jim buys a comb for Della’s hair. One is struck by the unexpectedness of the situation, but also by their true love.
02 The Last Leaf
This story is mainly about a girl with Pneumonia, Johnsy, because the leaves of the vines outside of window are about to fall off, touched the feelings, and lost the confidentce in life, but did not expect that even after a night of wind and rain, the last leaf is still not blown off, thus regained the courage to live, after getting well, and found that the original leaf is downstairs, the painter who is also suffering from Pneumonia, Mr. Behrman, in order to encourage Johnsy to paint.
03 After Twenty Years
This story is mainly about two old friends who agree to meet after 20 years. One of them become police officer, but realizes that his old friend has become a wanted man in Mexico, and cannot bear to arrest him, so he asks his other plainclothes colleague to do it for him.
04 The Cop and the Anthem
The story is mainly about Soapy, a social marginalized man, who tries a various ways to commit crime intending to be caught and imprisoned, hoping to get through the cold winter, all of which end in failure. Just as he was sitting on a park bench, disheartened, he heard a beautiful song coming from the church, envoking the goodness of his heart. However, as he was planning to get a proper job and change his life with his own hands, he was arrested for loitering and sentenced to three month in prison.
05 A Service of Love
The story is about a poor couple, Joe and Delia, who came to New York City to pursue their dream of making art, but are unable to beat the reality of making a living through art. On the one hand, they don’t want their other half to give up their dream easily, on the other hand, they have to keep to live, so they hide the truth from each other, pretending they are still doing art-related work on the one hand, and doing other jobs to make a living on the other, until Delia gets sick one time before revealing the truth to each other, which makes people sigh for their love.
06 While the Auto Waits
This article is mainly about a man stumbles upon a women sitting on a bench while wandering in a park. The woman claims to be an aristocrat who wants to experience life as a commoner, and that luxury automobile parked around the corner of the park is hers. The man claimed to be a cashier at a restaurant. Their true identities are reversed: the woman is a restaurant cashier, the the man is an aristocrat, and the car is belong to him, which is very ironic.
07 The Romance of a Busy Broker
The article focuses on Maxwell, a stockbroker who has a very busy schedule, but takes time out of his busy schedule to propose to his stenographer subordinate, Leslie, only to find out that they were married at 8:00 p.m. last night in a church. The article explores the possible consequences of being too obsessed with work - neglecting or forgetting important aspects of life such as family and relationships.
08 Furnished Room for Rent
This story is about a man who travels from city to city in search of his missing beloved. At a hotel, he realizes through some clues that his current room may have been occupied by his beloved, so he goes to ask the landlord about it, but to no avail. Feeling that hope is lost and that he has lost his motivation for life, he take his life in the room. The next day, the landlords got together to discuss that a girl in the man’s room had also committed suicide a while ago. This essay discusses the main idea that people are prone to mental breakdown when they are lonely and helpless.
09 Confessions of a Humorist
This article follows a man as a former humorist through his journey from discovering a talent for humor, to becoming a professional humorist, and then out of humorist status. After becoming a humorist, the man had to think of funny things every minute of every day, take material from other people, and stop doing it for the sake of making people laugh, which caused him to have poor relationships with those around him as well as those in his family. After a certain conversation with a man in a solemn profession, he came to his senses and went back to his old style of acting and writing and became naturally light-hearted again, and as a result, improved his relationship with his neighbors and family. This article reveals the price that can be paid for what the public sees as humor, and shows the pain that comes when a hobby becomes a profession.
10 Springtime à La Carte
This story is about a girl, Sarah, who is a menu typist at a restaurant, who pines for her beloved farmer, a man who has expressed his true feelings for her, but is terrified of their future because of the lack of contact they have had in recent days. One day at work, Sarah is distracted by her thoughts and types the wrong name for a menu item, “Dandelion Eggs”, but it is this mistake that Sarah’s date, who happens to be in town looking for Sarah and eating at the restaurant, sees and recognizes.He asks the owner of the restaurant for Sarah’s address, and the two lovers are reunited after a long time.
11 The Mammon and the Archer
This article is mainly about a retired rich businessman Anthony’s son Richard fell in love with a girl Landry, but the girl is going to study in Europe tomorrow, and although he can have 6 ~ 8 minutes to spend with Landry before she meets her mother, he can not make his feelings clear in this short time, which makes him feel very helpless. So he confided this to his father. His father, Anthony, thought that money could solve everything, while Richard thought that money could not buy love. However, the next day, as they are traveling together to their starting point, a miracle occurs: there is an unprecedented traffic jam in the city, which gives Richard the opportunity to express his feelings, and the girl responds, and the lovers are united. But it turns out that the instigator of this event turns out to be Anthony’s father. He used money to get the head of the street to arrange the big traffic jam. The archer in the title refers to Cupid, the god of love. This ending can’t help but make people reflect deeply on the relationship between love and money.
12 By Courier
The story of this article unfolds in a dilapidated park and focuses on a couple who are estranged due to a misunderstanding, resulting in the woman being distant and unwilling to communicate with the man, but ultimately resolving the misunderstanding through a young boy who acts as a messenger(courier), relaying messages to each other.