I think the most terrible thing in life for my little brother is getting up in the morning. He is almost sick when my mother calls, "Herbert! It's seven o'clock! Get up!"

    Herbert answers, "I'm coming!" and goes right back to sleep. I'm not at all like my brother. I don't like to go to bed at night but I don't mind getting up in the morning.

    I usually wake up before my mother calls me. I jump out of bed and go into the bathroom to take a shower. I great dressed, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and get ready to go down stairs for breakfast as soon as my mother calls.

    But not Herbert. He just sleeps. A military band (军乐队) in our bedroom could not wake him up. I call him and say, "Get up!" Mum will be up here to pull you out of bed if you don't get up quickly.

    But he just sleeps. After calling a few more times my mother has to come upstairs and pull Herbert out of bed. It's that way every day with my little brother. Perhaps some day he'll learn to get up on time, but I really don't think so.

    One day, my father and I were in line to buy tickets for the circus(马戏表演). And a family was standing in front of us.

    The family had eight children. Their clothes were not expensive but clean．The children talked about the clowns(小丑), elephants, monkeys and other things excitedly. It was their first time to go to the circus.

    The ticket lady asked the father how many tickets he wanted. He proudly answered, “I want eight children's tickets and two adults' tickets, so I can take my family to the circus.”

    The ticket lady said the price. The man's wife lowered her head and there was no smile on the man's face. He quietly asked, “How much did you say?”

The ticket lady said the price again. The man didn't have enough money. How could he tell his eight kids the bad news? My dad put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the ground．(In fact, we were not rich!) Then my dad said, “Excuse me, sir, this dropped out of your pocket.”

The man knew what was going on. He looked into my dad's eyes, held my dad's hand in his, and took the $20 bill. “Thank you, sir, thank you. This really means a lot to me and my family.”

    My father and I went back home. We didn't go to see the circus that night, but we didn't care.

    Whenyou enter my home for the first time, you will always be impressed with a smalland white envelope（信封）. No name, no address. Ithas hung on our Christmas tree for about 10 years.

    Itall began because my husband Mike hated Christmas. He didn't hate the truemeaning of Christmas, but the commercial（商业的） way ofit, spending too much on the usual Christmas gifts, such as rushing into astore to buy a tie for Uncle Harry.

    Knowinghe felt this way, I decided not to buy the usual gifts, such as shirts andsweaters. I reached for something special for Mike. The idea came in an unusualway.

    Ourson Kevin, 12, was wrestling（摔跤） at the school. BeforeChristmas there was a match against a team helped by a city church, mostly poorkids. As the match began, I was surprised to see the other team wrestling onlywearing the old clothes because they couldn't afford the wrestling uniforms, whileour boys in their blue and gold uniforms. Of course, we ended up with beatingthem.

    Mike,seated beside me, shook his head sadly," I wish just one of them couldhave won. In fact, they could if they had worn the uniforms. They have talentfor wrestling, but losing like thiscould take the heart right out of them."

    Mikeloved kids-all kids and he knew them, having trained kids football andbaseball. At that time, I thought of the idea for the gift.

    Thatafternoon, I went to a store and bought some wrestling uniforms and sent themto the city church for the kids without leaving my name.

    OnChristmas Eve, I put the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mikewhat I had done and telling him that this was his gift from me. His smile was thegreatest thing about Christmas that year and the next years.

    Yousee, we lost Mike now. But every Christmas Eve I would put an envelope on thetree, and in the morning, three more joined it. Each of our children hadsecretly put an envelope on the tree for their dad.

    Mike'sspirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.

    There is a famous American writer called Jack London. He was born on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California. His family was very poor, and Jack had to leave school to make money. He worked very hard in many different jobs.

    Later Jack returned to school, but he didn't stay there. In 1897, he went to Alaska (阿拉斯加) to look for gold. He didn't find any gold. Instead (代替), he found ideas for his books and stories. He returned home and started to write. His writings were so successful that he became rich and famous in his twenties.

    But Jack London was not a happy man. In poor health he took his own life in 1916. He was only 40 years old.