C

    A young man once went into town and bought himself a pair of trousers. When he got home, he went to his bedroom and put them on. He found that they were about two inches too long. He went to the kitchen. His mother and sisters were washing up the tea things there. "The new trousers are too long," he said. "They need shortening by about two inches. Could one of you do it for me, please?" His mother and sisters were busy and none of them said anything.
    After his mother finished washing up, she went to her son's bedroom and shortened the trousers by two inches.

    Later on, after supper, the elder sister remembered her brother's trousers. She was a kind-hearted girl, so she went quickly to his brother's bedroom without saying anything to anyone, and shortened the trousers by two inches. The younger sister went to the cinema, but when she came home, she also remembered her brother's trousers. "I nearly forgot that." She thought. Then she shortened them by two inches.
    The younger sister went to the cinema，but when she came back，she，too，remembered what her brother had said．So she ran upstairs and took two inches off the legs of the new trousers．

    A mother planted many kinds of vegetables in her garden. One morning she said to her daughter. "Betty, come here. Look at all these little yellow marks on the leaves of the cabbages. They are eggs of a kind of insects. They are very beautiful but very bad for cabbages. This afternoon you must find all the eggs on the leaves and kill them. In this way, you will help us have better greener and bigger cabbages.

    Betty didn't think she should do it at once and in the end she forgot all about it. Her mother was ill for a few days and couldn't work in her garden. When she was well, she took Betty to the garden to see the cabbages. To their surprise. the insects had eaten up every leaf. When Betty saw this, she was upset and began to cry. Then her mother said to her, "We should never put off what we have to do today till tomorrow. And you must learn to deal with the things while they are small. or it will turn into a big problem."

    Teenager Jake Deham was skiing(滑雪) with his family in the USA when he fell over and lost one of his skis. His family didn't know that he had a problem. They kept on skiing. When they got to the foot of the mountain, there was no sign of Jake.

    Jake couldn't find his ski anywhere. In the end, he decided to take off his other ski and walk down the mountain. But he couldn't work out the right way to go.

    It was now getting dark and he was a long way from any place of safety. He knew that he might die that night in the cold temperatures. But Jake kept calm(镇定). At home, Jake watched a lot of programs about living in difficult situations. He remembered the advice from these programs and knew that he should build a hole in the snow. He made a hole and pointed it up the hill so the wind couldn't blow into it. Outside his hole, the temperature fell to a dangerous﹣15℃that night, but inside it Jake was safe from the cold.

    But he had to get down the mountain. The TV programs always said, "If you are lost, you should find someone else's tracks(足迹) through the snow and follow them." "I wanted to live my life." remembers Jake. "So I got up and I found some ski tracks and I followed those." He walked and walked and finally he saw lights. Nine hours after he lost his ski, he found a team of worker who came to save him. He was safe!

    His mum was very happy when she heard the news. Amazingly, Jake didn't even have to go to hospital. He got through the terrible experience without any injuries.

    So, the next time someone says that watching TV is a waste of time, think of Jake. Sometimes TV can save your life!

    A man came home from work late, tired, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door.

    "Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?"

    "If you must know, I make $20 an hour."

    "Oh," the little boy answered, with his head down. He thought for a moment, looked up and said, "Daddy, could you lend me $10?"

    The father was angry, "If you asked for the money to buy a toy or some other things, then go straight to your room and think about why you are being so selfish (自私的)!"

    The little boy quietly went to his room and closed the door. After about an hour or so, the father calmed (平静) down, and started to think, "Maybe he really needs to buy something and he didn't really ask for money very often." So he went to the little boy's room.

    "Sorry! Maybe I was too hard on you just now." said the man, "Here's $10."

    "Oh, thank you, Daddy!" he said happily. Then, the boy took out some coins. When the father found that the boy already had money, he got angry again.

    "Why do you want more money since you already have some?" the father shouted angrily.

    "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do." the little boy said, "Daddy, I have $20 now. Could I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you."