A farmer had a faithful（忠诚的） horse who was old and couldn't do much work. So the farmer no longer wanted to give him anything to eat and said, “If you can bring me a lion here, I will keep you.”

    The horse was sad, and went to the forest. There he met a fox. After the fox heard the story, he said. “I will help you. Just lie down, as if you were dead, and do not move."

    The horse did what the fox asked, and then the fox went to the lion and said, “A dead horse is lying out there. Just come with me, and you have a rich meal.”

    The lion went with him, and they were both standing by the horse, the fox said, “Now let me tie the horse to your tail and you can take it home and eat it.”

    The fox's words made the lion very happy. But the fox tied the lion's legs together with the horse's tail. When the fox finished his work, he said to the horse, “Pull the lion to the farmer.”

    Then the horse pulled the lion away with him at once. The lion was very angry but he couldn't do anything. When the farmer saw the lion, he was in a good mood（心情）, and said to the horse, “ You can stay with me." And he give him enough food to eat until the horse died. 

    One day when Jack was walking in the park, he saw a woman, who lived a few miles away, sitting on a bench(长凳) with a dog beside her. The dog was looking up at the woman.

    Jack walked up to the woman and said, "Hello, Sue, how are you? May I sit and talk with you for a while?" "Of course, please sit down," Sue said. Jack sat down next to Sue on the bench, and they talked quietly together. The dog continued to look up at Sue, as if waiting to be fed.

    "That's a nice dog, isn't he?" Jack said, pointing(指着) at the animal.

    "Yes, he is. He's handsome. He's a bit of a mixture(杂交品种), but that's not a bad thing. He's strong and healthy."

    "And hungry," Jack said. "He hasn't taken his eyes off you. He thinks you've got some food for him."

    "That's true," Sue said. "But I haven't."

    They both laughed and then Jack said, "Does your dog bite?"

    "No," Sue said, "He's never bitten anyone. He's always gentle and friendly."

    Hearing this, Jack decided to hold out his hand and touched the animal's head. Suddenly it jumped up and bit him.

    "Hey!" Jack shouted. "You said your dog didn't bite."

    Sue answered in surprise, "Yeah, I did. But this is not my dog. Mine's at home."

A

    Yao Ming is a very good basketball player in the world. He is 25 years old. He was born in Shanghai, but he lives in the USA with his parents now. Yao Ming is quite tall. But he isn't so strong. He was in the Rockets Team after he left (离开)China. He plays very well in the NBA. Many people come to his match(比赛) in America. Lots of Chinese young men watch the matches on TV. Yao Ming wants to be a superstar one day.

    Many years ago, there was an old man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge(判断) things too quickly. So he told them to go and look at a pear tree. It was far away from his home.  The first, son went in winter, the second in spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in autumn.

    When the sons came back, the old man asked them to say what they had seen.

    The first son complained the tree was ugly. The second son said the tree was covered with buds and full of hope. The third son said the tree was full of green leaves. The youngest son said that the tree, bent down with heavy fruits.

    The old man explained that all of his sons were right, but each of them had seen just one season of the tree, He told them that they couldn't judge a tree or a person by only one season. "If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the hope of your spring, the beauty of your summer, and the harvest of your autumn." said the old man.

    It is true that we shouldn't let the hard season break the happiness of other seasons. Never give up during the difficult days and better times are sure to come some day.