Jean McLeod is a schoolteacher in Chinatown. After suffering disappointment from her own family and community growing up, she has adopted the community as her own even though she is not Chinese. She is fond of all her students but holds a special place in her heart for Chee Ping, nicknamed "Little Me."While the children offer Miss McLeod presents in honor of the Chinese New Year, Little Me does not offer his teacher anything. His family cannot afford the more opulent gifts that the children of the rich families offer, and he is too prideful to offer a more modest gift like wild flowers or pebbles. Miss McLeod does not want the children to think that she values some gifts over others, so she tells the story of Christmas: “The greatest of all gifts was beyond price. They must remember the story she had told them at Christmas time of the giving of a darling and only Son to a loved people. All the money in the world could not have paid for that dear little boy. He was a free gift” (56). This speech gives Little Me an idea.

On the second day of the Chinese New Year, Miss McLeod visits the home of Little Me.