When the man's wife died，their youngest baby was 2 years old．They had six other children一three boys and three girls．aged from 4 t0 16．

    The man's parents and his wife's parents came to visit them．

‘‘We've been talking about how to make this work，"they said．"There's no way you can take care of all these children and work to make a living．So，we've decided to place each child with a different uncle and aunt．"

     The man refused．Over the next few weeks，he moved the family to a tiny town and his business developed quickly．People came from far away to do business with him．And the children helped him both at home and at work．

The children grew up and got married．Five of the seven went off to college．The children's success was a source of pride to the father．

    Finally，the youngest daughter，who was 2 years old when the mother died，got married．With his life's work done，the father died．

This man's work had been the lonely but joyful task of raising his family．This man was my father．I was the 1 6-year-old，the oldest of seven．

    The Man of Many Secrets — Harry Houdini — was one of the greatest American entertainers(表演者) in the theater. He was a man famous for his escapes（逃走；逃生） — from prison cells（囚室）, from wooden boxes floating（漂浮） in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

    Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had the ability to move his toes as well as his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

    Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in club in New York. They called themselves the Houdini Brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant. But for a long time they were not very successful. Then Harry performed his first prison （监狱）escape in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded（说服） a detective（侦探） which to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspapermen to watch.

    It was the publicity(宣传) that came from this that started Harry Houdini's success. Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs(手铐) and toes trained to escape ankle chains. But his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck — and a small skeleton key, which is a key that fits many locks, pass quickly from her mouth to his.

    Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local prison of every town he visited. In the afternoon, the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? Worldwide fame, and a name remembered today.

B

    Once upon a time, a man punished （惩罚）his 5-year-old daughter for using up the family' s expensive gold wrapping (包装 ) paper. Money was always not enough, and he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve, he saw that the child had pasted ( 贴) the gold paper to decorate a shoebox to put under the Christmas tree.

    The next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy!"

    As he opened the box, the father was sorry for his earlier behavior.

But after he opened it, he found it was empty and again he was angry. "Don't you know, young lady," he said, "when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!"

    The little girl looked up at him with tears running from her eyes and said, "Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was all full."

    When the father heard this, he fell on his knees and put his arm around his dear little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

    An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept that little gold box by his bed for all the year of his life. Whenever he was sad or faced difficult problems he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.

    In a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given an invisible golden box filled with love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God. This is the most expensive possession (财产) anyone could hold.

    It started as a game. Wendy and Peter were in River Park. They watched the boats in the river and visited the zoo. They played on the slides and swings. They watched the merry-go-round, but they did not have money for a ride. They ate their sandwiches at a picnic table. Suddenly Wendy jumped up.

    "I know what to do." she said. "Look at all that junk under the tables. Let's pick it up."

    So they picked up paper and empty boxes and cans. They put them in the green cans marked "Litter". Peter's dog Stoopy picked up some paper and ran away with it. Peter called him back and took it from him. Then they taught Stoopy to carry trash for them. They put it in the cans. They worked until there was no trash left on the picnic grounds.

    The next day their friends Mario and Andy came to the park with them. They helped to tidy the picnic grounds again. Then they ran all over the park looking for litter. They tried to see who could find the most. After that, it was a game they played every time they came to the park.

    One day, a man came with a camera. He watched what they were doing. He asked to take a picture for them. Then he took them all for a free ride on the merry-go-round, even Stoopy. The next day their picture was in the newspaper. It said, "Five Litter Lifters at River Park". After that all their friends wanted to be litter lifters. It was the beginning of a club that was a model for others to follow.