It's Sunday afternoon. It's my son's eighth birthday tomorrow. I go into a cake shop to buy a big birthday cake for him.

      When I get there, the shop is full of people. When I am looking for a cake, I find a little boy watching the cakes for a long time. He is in poor clothes. At last he picks a cake. Then he gives money to the salesgirl and says to her, “I want the small cake.”

  “Sorry, the cake is 20 yuan, but you only pay 10 yuan.” says the salesgirl.

  “I …I have no more money.” says the little boy and he begins to cry. “Oh , my boy. Who would you like to buy the birthday cake for?” I ask.

 “My mom, madam.”

“Why doesn't she come and buy one?”

“My father left us a few years ago,” the boy says. “we don't have money. My mother has to work from morning to night every day. She celebrates my birthday every year, but she never celebrates her birthday. It's her birthday tomorrow. I want to buy a small cake for her. But I don't have enough money…”

“Oh, my boy! I'm your mother's friend,” I say. “I will buy her a nice birthday cake.”I give the money to the salesgirl and leave the shop.

    Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. Once at midnight, an old lady in her 80s took my taxi. She gave me an address, and then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?"

    "It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly.

    "Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice (临终关怀医院）. I don't have any family left. The doctor says I don't have very long time."

    I quietly shut off the meter. "What route would you like me to take?" I asked.

    For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked, the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived, the place where she danced as a girl. As the sun was rising, she asked me to go to the address she had given me.

    "How much do I owe you?" she asked, reaching into her purse.

    "Nothing," I said.

    "You have to make a living," she answered.

    "There are other passengers."

    "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said. "Thank you."

    I drove into the fine morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I drove aimlessly（漫无目的地），lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run?

    It was Tom's birthday, and he was five years old. He got quite a lot of presents from his family. His grandpa gave him a beautiful big drum(鼓). Of all the presents, Tom liked his drum best. He made terrible noise with it, but his mother didn't mind. His father was working in the daytime and Tom was in bed when he got home in the evening. So he didn't hear the noise. But one of his neighbors didn't like the noise. So one morning she took a knife and went to Tom's house when he was hitting his drum. She said to him, “Hello, Tom, do you know there is something very nice inside your drum? Here is a knife. Open the drum and let's find it.”