I live in Mentone, a quiet, simple, restful place, where the rich never come. I met Theophile Magnan, a retired, rich, old man from Lyons yesterday. In the Hotel des Anglais. Theophile looked sad and dreamy, and didn't talk with anybody else. Which brought me back to the past.

A long time ago, Francois Millet. Claude, Carl and I were young artists — very young artists — in fact.

    Yes, Francois Millet. The great French artist, was my friend.

Millet wasn't any greater than we were at that time. He didn't have any fame, even in his own village.

    We were all poor though we had stacks and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in Europe painted. Once a person ever offered four francs for Millet's "Angelus", which he intended to sell for eight.

    It was a fact in human history that a great artist would never be acknowledged* until after he was starved and dead. His pictures climbed to high prices after his death.

    Then we made a decision that one of us must die, to save the others and himself.

    Millet was elected to die.

    During the next three months Millet painted with all his might, enlarged his stock all he could, not pictures, not sketches, studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, of course, with his cipher *  on them.

    They were the things to be sold.

    Carl went to Paris to start the work of building up Millet's name. Claude and I went to sell Millet's small pictures and to build up his name as well.

    We made Millet a master. I always said to my customer, "I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all, for he is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

    Claude and I took care to spread that little fact as far as we could.

Carl made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere.

    The sad end came at last, Millet died, not really.  He became Theophile Magnan.

    The pictures went up. There's a man in Paris today who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid us two million francs for them. Do you still remember the "Angelus"? Carl sold it for twenty—two hundred francs. And as for the bushels of sketches and studies which Millet produced in the last six weeks, well, it would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowadays.

    We are no longer artists and Millet dead.

    My name is Sam. I joined a club called" passing help" last month. Now let me tell you why I joined it.

    One evening this May, on my way home my old car was broken. It was 25 miles from my home. I wanted to take a taxi, but there was no car. I decided to take a bus home. I went to a bus stop nearby.

After a while, a bus came, but it did not go to my town. The bus driver was a young woman. She was kind and she told me which bus I should take. I waited there for about thirty minutes, but no bus came. At last a car came to me and a woman came out of the car. She was just the bus driver.

    "When I reached the bus station, I got to know that the bus to your town couldn't come, so I returned here. I just can't leave you here," she said," Get in my car and I will take you back to your home."

    "It is a long way." I said.

    "Come on, sir, "she said," Let's go."

    On the way she told me a story. A few days ago, there wasn't gas(汽油）in her car. An old man drove her up to a gas station and then back to her car.

    When we got to my home, I wanted to give her some money to thank her, but she didn't accept it." I only want to help others and do something nice for somebody. Pass it along." She said.

    There are many kinds of ants in America. One kind is very strong. People are afraid of it and the other animals are afraid of it, too.

    These ants are often in big groups, they eat all the animals on their way. They can kill and eat elephants. And they can eat horses, too. Sometimes they can even kill people and eat them.

    When the ants come near, people leave their homes. But people are sometimes happy after the ants pass by. Because they can see no insects(昆虫)or snakes.

    There is an elephant and a monkey. They're friends. But one day they want to know who is stronger(更强壮的). A rabbit says. The one who can get apples from the tree across the river is stronger. The monkey says, "I can't swim." The elephant says. "I can swim. Please sit on my back. So they go across the river. The apple tree is very high. The elephant can't reach the apples on the tree. The monkey climbs up the tree and gels many apples. Then they know they should help each other.