Question

Why did Rob choose getting the milking done as a Christmas gift to his father over the nice tie that he had brought from the ten-cent store?

Accepted Answer

One of the most wonderful things to happen to Rob as a young boy was his discovery that his father loved him. Rob's parents weren't usually very demonstrative when it came to expressing their feelings towards him, so this came as a very pleasant surprise.
One morning Rob is in bed and hears his father tell his mother how much he hates to wake him up. From that moment on that Rob realizes how much his dad loves him and always gets up in the morning bright and early no matter how tired he may be.
As Christmas approaches Rob wishes he could buy his dad a nicer gift than the cheap tie he bought for him at the ten-cent store. It's a nice enough gift, to be sure, but as he lies wide awake in bed the night before Christmas he reckons he can do a whole lot better.
So he comes up with the idea of getting up nice and early and creeping out to the barn, where he plans to do all the milking, which will save his old man a lot of trouble. The inspiration for this idea inadvertently came from Rob's dad, who told him that the word stable, as in the stable where the baby Jesus was born, was a kind of barn. Just as the baby Jesus was given gifts by the Magi in a stable, Rob wants to give his father his own very special gift in the barn.

Pearl S. Buck

Why did Rob choose getting the milking done as a Christmas gift to his father over the nice tie that he had brought from the ten-cent store?

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