When I was a kid in Minnesota, watermelon was expensive. One of my father's friends, Bernie, was a rich businessman, who owned a large store in St. Paul.

    Every summer, when the first watermelon arrived, Bernie would call. Dad and I would go to Bernie's place. We'd sit on the edge of the dock (码头), feet dangling (摇晃), and got ready for a big meal.

    Bernie would take his knife, cut our first watermelon, hand us both a big piece and sit down next to us. Then we'd bury our faces in watermelon, eating only the heart—the reddest, juiciest, firmest, sweetest, most seed-free part—and throw away the rest.

    Bernie was my father's ideal of a rich man. I always thought it was because he was such a successful businessman. Years later, I realized that it was not Bernie's wealth itself but his way of dealing with it that my father liked. Bernie knew how to stop working, get together with friends and eatonly the heart of the watermelon.

    What I learned from Bernie is that being rich is a state of mind. Some of us, no matter how much money we have, will never be free enough to eat only the heart of the watermelon. If you don't take the time to dangle(悬荡) your feet over the dock and enjoy life's small pleasure, your work is probably hurting your life.

    For many years, I forgot that lesson I'd learned as a kid on the loading dock. I was too busy making all the money I could.

    Well, I've relearned it. I hope I have time left to enjoy the success of others and to take pleasure in the day. That's the heart of the watermelon. I have learned again to throw the rest away.

Father is always busy with his work. He knows nothing about housework. He never eats if everyone doesn’t cook for him.

One day, Mother was ill in bed. Father had to cook himself. First， he had to go shopping. But he didn’t know what to buy. So Mother wrote all these things on a piece of paper：

（1）cake（2） egg （3） tomato （4） fish （5） milk （6） salt （7） chicken

Father went out with the paper in his hand. Half an hour later he returned home, with a smile on his face. He brought out all the things: ONE cake, TWO eggs, THREE tomatoes, FOUR fish, FIVE bottles of milk, SIX bags of salt and SEVEN fat chickens. Mother was very surprised and she couldn’t say a word.

Once upon a time, a fox was walking along a road. He saw some beautiful grapes hanging over a high wall. He stopped to look at the grapes. They looked nice to eat .The fox wanted to eat the grapes very much, but he cou1d’t reach them. So he jumped as high as he could. Sometimes his nose touched a grape, but his mouth could not reach it. The fox jumped and jumped until he was very tired．

    Finally he stopped jumping and walked away with his nose held high. He said, “I don't need those grapes. They look nice but I'm sure they are sour.”

    In our daily life, when people can't get something they want, they may say, “The grapes are sour.”

Justin was excited because his class would visit the fire station. His uncle Frank was one of the firemen and would show the class around during the visit.

    The next day, Justin’s class left for the fire station and waited for Uncle Frank to come and start their visit. They began by looking at the big fire trucks. “Being a fireman is a hard job,” said Uncle Frank. “You need to be in good health and get enough rest.” The kids got to try on some fire hats and climbed on the trucks. After looking at all the trucks, the class went inside, and Uncle Frank showed them where they stay when they are not fighting a fire. Uncle Frank told them that when there is a fire, the alarm rings. Just as he finished showing them the alarm, it rang! All the men ran to get ready to leave for the fire. “I am sorry,” said Uncle Frank to the class. “We need to leave now, but Mr. Martin will stay with you.” The firemen ran quickly to the fire trucks and left the station. Mr. Martin showed the class around inside the station.

    That night Justin told his parents about the great trip to the fire station. “We learned some ways to prevent fires and what to do if our house ever had a fire,” said Justin. “It sounds like you learned a lot of good information,” said Dad. “We sure did,” said Justin. “I think I’m going to be a fireman when I grow up.”

There was once a professor of medicine, who was very strict with the students. Whenever he took the chair on the exam committee (委员会), the students would be in fear, for he was seldom pleased with the answers they gave. A student would be lucky enough if he or she could receive a good mark from him. At the end of the term, the students of medicine would take their exam again. Now a student entered the room and got seated before the committee. This student was a little nervous as he knew it would not be so easy to get through the exam at all.

   The professor began to ask. The student was required to describe a certain illness, his description of which turned out to be OK.

   Then the professor asked about the cure (治疗) for illness, and the student also answered just as right.

   “Good,” said the professor, “and how much will you give the patient?”

   “A full spoon,” answered the student.

   “Now you may go out and wait for what you can get,” said the professor. At the same time the committee discussed carefully the answers the student had given. Suddenly the student noticed that there was something wrong with his last answer. “A full spoon is too much,” he thought to himself. Anxiously, he opened the door of the room and cried, “Mr. Professor, I’ve made a mistake! A spoon is too much for the patient. He can take only five drops.”

   “I’m sorry, sir,” said the professor coldly, “but it’s too late. Your patient has died.”

Policemen do cry. Movies and television show that policemen are tough and hard. But policemen do cry.

           Ken Knapcik had been a policeman in Chicago for 20 years when one of his fellow policeman was shot during a drug arrest, and died. Shortly after, he returned home after work to find a note from his 15-year-old daughter on the dining table.

Dad

 This poem came directly from heart. I love you so much. It scares me that you go out every day and risk everything to provide us with all that we have. I am also very proud of you. I wrote this to express how much I love you and how lost I’d be without you.

Laura

P.S. Hey, be careful out there.

           Laura’s poem was called “The Best Policeman.” It was dedicated (献给) “To all the policeman in the world who have daughters who love them with all their hearts, especially to my father had been shot. Part of the poem reads: “ Daddy, my Daddy, can you hear me? Oh, God, I need my Daddy. Please don’t let him die!”

           Knapcik stood alone as he read the poem. “It took me several minutes.” he said. “ I’d got through part of it and have to stop before I could go on. I was weeping（哭泣）. She had never told me she was scared.” He took the poem to work the next day and showed it to his fellow officers. “I ‘ve never seen so many grown men cry. Some couldn’t even finishing reading it.”

           Knapcik keeps Laura’s poem in the pocket of his police jacket. He takes it with him every time he leaves the house to go to work. “I don’t want to be out there without it,” he said. “I’ll probably carry it with me forever.”

Piggy banks have been around for a long time, but did you ever wonder why people liked to make their banks in the shape of a pig?

Pigs have nothing to do with money. They don’t store food like a camel or a squirrel. So how did we end up using a pig as the style of a bank? Believe it or not, it happened by mistake.

During the fifteenth century, metal was very expensive. Dishes and pots were made of a type of inexpensive orange clay called pygg, which was pronounced just like pig. At this time, there weren’t banks like we have today, so people would store their money at home.

When people had extra coins to save, they would place them in clay jars or pots. Since the type of clay was called pygg, people called the jars pygg banks. Over time this evolved （发展）into piggy banks.

After a few hundred years, people forgot that the word pygg referred to the clay the banks were made from. The English language was also changing and the word pig was more commonly used. So in the nineteenth century, when English potters began to make piggy banks, they thought their customers were asking for banks in the shape of pigs, not banks made from pygg.

Today piggy banks are made from all kinds of materials, and they also come in a variety of shapes and animals. But the term piggy bank is still used.

①materials     ②price    ③colour      ④shapes

Once upon a time，a hippo（河马）lived in a river next to a big tree．

One day，a bird came and nested（筑巢）in the tree．The songs of the bird filled the hippo with so much envy（羡慕）that he couldn’t think of anything else．Every day he would think why he wasn’t born to be a bird even though the bird told him many times he was so lucky to be so big and such a good swimmer．

Finally，the hippo made up his mind that he would come out of the river，climb the tree and start singing．However，when he tried to climb the tree，it was very clear that the hippo didn’t have wings，nor claws to climb with．

Realizing that he would never climb up the tree，he angrily hit the tree until it came crashing to the ground．Then he stepped onto the leaves of the fallen tree，and began singing．

Unfortunately，hippos can’t sing，either．All that came from his mouth were terrible noises，and when the other animals heard this，they all came around to make fun of the hippo．

He was so ashamed by this．He also felt bad about having knocked the tree over．He used all his strength to raise the tree back up again，and look after it until it completely recovered．（康复）．

This is a tale of two friends --- one is blind, the other has no arms. On their own, the two are “disabled”. But together, they are a powerful team that has changed part of their village in North China’s Hebei Province into a rich, green forest. Meet 53-year-old Jia Haixia and Jia Wenqi!

Their story began in 2000, when Haixia, who was already blind in his right eye, lost his left one after an illness. Wenqi lost his arms in an accident when he was just three. Neither could find a job, so the two decided to team up. They rented some poor land and began to plant trees. In return, the local officials paid them a small fee.

Haixia and Wenqi never imagined that they would end up creating an environmental paradise. Their forest now has over 10,000 trees, hundreds of birds and many other wild animals. In addition, it saves the village from river flooding during the rainy season.

When the friends work together, they focus on their strengths not their disabilities. Their day begins at 7 a.m. when the sightless Haixia carries Wenqi across the river to get to their worksite. Since they cannot afford to buy young trees to plant, the two use branches from existing trees. Haixia climbs to the tree-top and with Wenqi’s direction, selects the perfect branch. He then digs a hole and carefully plants it. Finally Wenqi waters the area.

Though hard-working, the men don’t make much money. But as Wenqi puts it, “We stand on our own feet, so the fruits of our work taste sweeter.”

Neither Haixia nor Wenqi cares about money. Together, they already have everything they need --- a perfect pair of eyes, two strong hands, and the best friendship in the world!