I arrived at my mother's home for our Saturday family dinner. The smells of food flew over from the kitchen. Mother was pulling out quilt after quilt from the boxes, proudly showing me their beauties. I knew they were all made herself. She was preparing for a quilt show on TV. When we began to fold and put them back into the boxes, I noticed something at the bottom of one box. I pulled it out. “What's this?” I asked.

“Oh?” Mom said, “That's Mama's quilt.”

    I spread the quilt. It looked as if a group of school children had made the pieces together.

 “Grandmother made this?” I asked in surprise. My grandmother was a master at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made.

  “Yes, right before she died. I brought it home with me last year and made some changes,” Mom said, “I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far.”

     I looked at it more closely. She had made a line straight(直的). At the center of the quilt， she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words:    “My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt.”

“Oh, this is so nice, Mom.” I said. I was sure now that by completing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring her own mother. I realized that I held in my hands a family treasure. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and continued with the loving hands of another.

    I can't help thinking about the face of that little beggar girl all the time．I can see the glad light filling her eyes when I laid the dime(一角硬币)in her little dirty hand．

    How much I had thought of that dime，too! Grandpa gave it to me a whole month ago，and I had kept it ever since in my red box upstairs；but those sugar apples looked so beautiful，and were so cheap—only a dime apiece(每个)一that I made up my mind to have one．

    I can see her—the beggar girl，I mean—as she stood there in front of the store，in her old dress，looking at the chocolates laid all in a row．I wonder what made me say, “Little girl，what do you want?''

    How she stared at me，just as if nobody had spoken kindly to her before．I guess she thought l was sorry for her, for she said．“l was thinking how good one of those gingerbread rolls would taste，I haven't had anything to eat today．''

    Now，I thought to myself, “Mary Williams，you have had a good breakfast and a good dinner this day，and this poor girl has not had a mouthful．You can give her your dime；she needs it a great deal more than you do．''

    I could not resist(抗拒)that little girl's hungry look—so I dropped the dime right into her hand，without waiting for her to speak，walked straight away．

C

    My daughter Eyen is ten years old. She is in Grade Three in a primary school. She is a cute girl though(虽然) she has some strange ideas sometimes.

    One day she asks me, “Mum, what's your favourite subject?” I think for a while(一会儿) and answer，“It is difficult to tell. I love singing, so music is my favourite. And I am good at English. My history teacher also says I am excellent. Well, I can say I don't like science. But science is important for us, you know. So you must do well in it. What is your favourite subject, Eyen? Tell me something about your subject, dear.”

    “I like Chinese. It is easy. I like English because my English teacher likes me very much. I can't stand maths. It's serious and sad(悲哀的).”

    “Do you mean(意味)your maths teacher is serious and sad?”

    “No, it is maths, not the maths teacher.”

    “Why do you think so?”

    “Because maths has so many problems! Isn't it sad all day?”

    Four years ago when I was a boy of 11, I got into the biggest trouble as a kid. It was a Saturday morning. Both my parents were out, leaving me and my 10－month－old sister home alone. Anyway, my sister was still asleep in her room. In fact I had the house to myself. I decided to do some drawing. Soon I gave up. Nothing was on TV, so I felt bored and touched the candles on the shelf…I had an idea! What would happen if I set fire to some kitchen paper? Well, of course it went on fire, but it wasn't the tiny flame(火苗) I'd expected, and I couldn't blow it out. I threw it on the floor, and then I got my dad's boots(靴子) and stamped it out.

    But there was a huge hole left on the floor. When my mum came home later, she smelt the smoke immediately. She dropped the shopping bag, luckily for me, over the hole. I thought this meant she would never see it. However, after running round the house checking for a fire, she of course picked up the bag and saw the hole. Next I was grounded(关禁闭)  for months. Even worse though, the hole was still there, reminding me of what I did.

    Do you know the astronaut Chen Dong? He and another astronaut Jing Haipeng stayed in space for more than 30 days from October to November in 2016. During the days, they, did some experiments in space. For example, they tried to plant vegetables there.

    Chen Dong was born in Henan Province in 1978. When he was a child, he wasn't a good student. When he was in Grade 3, he made the vegetables at school dirty for fun. The vegetables were a gift to the teachers from the school, He was very afraid after that. However, his teacher wasn't angry with him. "You have to think about others when you do such things," the teacher only said.

    After that, Chen became a good student. He later became the class monitor, In 1997, he joined the PLA Air Force(中国人民解放军空军). With a safe flight record of 1,500 hours as a pilot, Chen became a member of the Shenzhou-11 mission(任务) in June, 2016.

    Before flying to space, Chen told his twin sons, "Dad is going out. When you look up at the sky and see a shining star, I am probably there, and say hi to me."