Joe Read studied in this school for four years. When he finished school, he was already eighteen years old. And then his father said to him, “You finished school, and you are a good student. Now you may go to town and get a good job. They need some clever people to work in the office. The people there can get a lot of money now. If you stay at home, you can't get money from our family.” A few weeks later, Joe went to the office and asked for a job there. A man took him into a small room and gave him some questions on a piece of paper. Joe answered the questions quickly, and he gave the paper to the man. The man looked at the paper for a few minutes and then asked, “You were born on Sep. 23. But which year were you born in?” Joe answered, “Oh, every year.”

    Imagine moving to a new country. There you know almost no one and you don't speak the language. Eighty years ago, my grandmother, Jean Rizzi, did just that.

    Like so many immigrants from Europe, her first stop in America was Ellis Island, in New York. The immigration station on Ellis Island opened 125 years ago. From 1892 to 1954, over 12 million foreigners entered America through Ellis Island.

    My grandmother's journey started near Naples, Italy. Her father got a job in New York years earlier. After he saved enough money, he sent for his family to join him. In November 1936, his wife and three kids got on a ship to New York. At just 8 years old, my grandmother didn't know what to expect. "I was nervous," she says. "But I was also excited about finally getting to see my new home in big city."

    For nearly two weeks, they were at sea and couldn't see any land. They all stayed in one small room on the boat.  When the boat arrived at Ellis Island, my grandmother thought the journey was over. But she and her family still had to be examined by doctors. Finally, they were off to their new home in Queens, New York. My grandmother still lives there.

    Ellis Island is now a popular tourist attraction in New York. More than 3 million people visit it each year. To immigrants like my grandmother, the island is a symbol of freedom and the American dream.

    A rich man had only one son. The man loved his son very much. He sent his son to the best school in his city. But the son fell into the bad company at school. He developed many bad habits.

    The man was much worried about his son. He tried his best to mend his habits but he did not succeed. One day he thought of a plan to teach his son a lesson.

    He went to the market and bought some fresh apples and a rotten(腐烂) one. He came back home and asked his son to put all the apples along with the rotten I one in a box.

    The son did the same. After some days the father asked his son to bring the apples. As he opened the box he was surprised to notice that all the apples had become rotten. He felt very sad.

    Looking at this, his father told him to see how one rotten apple had spoiled all the rest. In the same way one bad companion (同伴) could spoil all the others. The father's advice had the expected effect. The boy gave up the bad companion and became good again.

    When he was a teenager, Hunter Adams was very unhappy, and he spent many years in the 1960s and 1970s hospital for people with mental (精神的) health problems.

    When he left hospital, Adams decided to become a doctor, so he went to Medical School in Virginia, USA. But when he was there he did things in a different way. For example, he didn't like the doctor's white coats. He preferred to wear shirts with flowers on them when he visited his patients, and he tried to make them laugh. The doctors at the medical school didn't like Adams very much because he was too different.

    But Adams believed that people in hospital need more than medicine. He saw unhappy and lonely people, and he tried to help them as patients, but as people too. He spent a lot of time with children in the hospital, and often put a special red nose on his face to look like a clown and to make the children laugh.

    When he finished medical school and became a doctor, Adams opened his own hospital, called "the Gesundheit Institute", together with some other doctors. They wanted it to be a place in a different way of working with sick people.

    Hunter Adams became famous during the 1980s, and in 1998, Universal Pictures made a film about his life. It was very successful. In the film (called Patch Adams), Robin Williams played Adams. Williams said, "Hunter is a really warm person, who believes that patients need a doctor who's friend. I enjoyed playing him."

    It was Mother's Day. Chatham was driving his new blue car and enjoying the beauty of nature. A flower shop by the road came into his eyes. So he stopped his car and took a look at some of the flowers. Just then he found a small, cute girl standing next to the shop. She was counting the money in her hand. It seemed that she was a little unhappy.

    He went up to her and asked, "Can I help you?"

    "I want to buy some red flowers for my mother. But I have only eighty rupees(卢比)," said the girl.

    Chatham smiled and asked her to take him to the shop. He bought a big bouquet(花束)for her and said, "I can take you to your mother." The girl was very happy.

    Finally they got to a grave. "Thank you, Uncle." Then she ran to the grave and put the roses in front of it.

    Chatham stood there without words in a minute. He then made a U-turn(掉头)and drove back to the same flower shop. He picked some pink roses and drove down two hundred miles to meet his old mother.

    His mother was happy to see him. But she said, "Why do you drive down all the way? You could talk to me over the phone. "

    He just kissed his mother and said, "Happy Mother's Day!"