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.”

Blake threw the toy across the room. It broke into pieces. “Blake!” his mom shouted. ”  (1)   did you do that?” She took him to the corner of the room and made him face the wall. “You have to stay here for fifteen minutes and think about what you did. The broken pieces can   (2)  someone.”

When fifteen minutes had passed, he turned around and said sorry to his mom, and then he was  (3)   to go out to play. His mom walked over to the corner where Blake had faced and   (4)   her hands on the wall. “A frog,” she said in surprise. She smiled and   (5)   to do something surprising.

While he was gone, his mum got busy with her  (6)  . The hours passed quickly and soon Blake was home again. It was supper time. His mom put the plates of food on the table. Blake just   (7)   his. “I don’t like salad. I hate it.” He wasn’t   (8)  .

“Just try it. I didn’t give you much.”

“No, I don’t want salad.”

Mom was   (9)  . “You go and stand in the corner for five minutes and think about how lucky you are to have  (10)  .”

When Blake got to the corner, he started to smile. “Frogs!” He looked at the wall. His mom had   (11)  the green frogs on the wall, each sitting on a lily pad, their long tongues sticking out, trying to   (12)   flies. Blake laughed. When it was time for his coming back, he still stayed at the corner.

“Why hasn’t Blake come back to eat his supper?” Dad wondered.

“He must be  (13)   the frogs.” Mum laughed. “Go and look.”

They both got up and went into the other room. “He   (14)   to spend so much time these days facing the wall. I thought it might make it a little less   (15)   for him.”

“That’s a gift of love,” Dad said, smiling.

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

Much meaning can be carried clearly, with our eyes, so it is often   (1)  that eyes can speak.

Do you have such kind of   (2)  ? In a bus you may look at a stranger but not too long. And if he   (3)  that he is being looked at, he may feel uncomfortable. The same in daily life. If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down, to see if there is

  (4)  wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel   (5)  toward the person who is looking at you that way. Eyes do speak, right?

      Looking too long at someone may seem to be impolite. But sometimes things are different. If a man looks at a woman for more than 10 seconds, it may mean that he wishes to attract her attention, to make her understand that he   (6)  her. When two people are in a conversation, the speaker will only look at the listener from time to time,   (7)  make sure that the listener does pay attention to   (8)  he or she is saying. Lovers will enjoy looking at each other or being

looked at for a long time, to show something that   (9)  cannot express.

      Clearly, eye contact should be done according to the   (10)  between two people and the place where you stay.

Many people likeanimals. So theykeep(饲养)  (1)   as pets. Usually people like tokeep dogs, cats, fishes and   (2)   animals as their pets.Many young people keep animals  (3)   they think these animals are   (4)  . Some old people keep petsbecause  (5)  children don’t live   (6)   them and they   (7)   lonely(孤独的).

Mr. Li is an old man.He is apetdoctor (医生). He is friendlyto all people and their pets. Peopleinthe neighborhood love  (8)   very much.People usually call him “The Pet Doctor”. Whenpeople’spets are sick(生病的),they oftenask Mr. Li for   (9)  . Mr. Li can always help the sickpets get well soon. So he is   (10)   popularin the neighborhood.