Two children stood outside the door with old coats. “Any old papers, Lady?” asked one of them.

I was busy. I wanted to say no, but I saw that their shoes were broken and wet. “Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot tea.” They came in, saying nothing. Their shoes left snow on the floor.

      I gave them tea and bread to protect them against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started my housework again.

      The silence in the front room surprised me. I looked in.

      The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked me in a low voice, “Lady, are you rich?”

      Am I rich? Oh, no! I looked at my old things in my room.

      The girl put her cup back in its saucer(茶碟) carefully. “Your cups match your saucers.”

They left then, holding their papers against the wind. They hadn't said thank you. They didn't need to. They had done more than that. The blue cups and saucers were simple. But they said that they matched. The potatoes and meat before me, a roof over our hands, my husband with a job—these things matched, too.

      I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The prints of their small shoes were still wet on my floor. I let them be. I wanted them there to remind (提醒) me how rich I was.

    Mary complained to her father about how hard she thought life was. She didn't know how to make it and wanted to give up.

    Mary's father took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and put each on a big fire. Soon the pots started to boil（沸腾）. In one he put carrots, in the second he put eggs, and in the last he put coffee powder. He watched them boil, without saying a word.

    Mary waited, wondering what he was doing. In about twenty minutes he turned off the fire. He took the carrots and eggs out and put them on different plates. Then he poured the coffee in a cup. He asked, "Mary, what do you see?"

    He asked Mary to touch the carrots. She found that they were soft.  He then asked her to take an egg and break it. She saw a hard-boiled egg after taking off the shell. Finally, he asked her to taste the coffee.  Its rich smell brought a smile to her face.

    Each of them had the same trouble, but each reacted differently. The carrot was strong and hard at first, but it became soft and weak. The egg was weak, too. But after going through the boiling water, its inside became hard. The coffee powder changed the water, and created something new. "Which one is you?" he asked Mary. "When trouble comes to you, are you a carrot, an egg, or the coffee powder?"

    One day, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a letter to his mother. He {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (tell) her, "My teacher gave this letter to me and asked me to give it to my mother only." His {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (mother) eyes were full of tears as she read {#blank#}3{#/blank#} letter out loud to her child, "Your son is a genius (天才). This school is too small {#blank#}4{#/blank#} him and doesn't have enough good teachers to train him. Please teach him {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (you)."

    Many years after Edison's mother had died, Edison became one of the {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (great) inventors of the century. One day, he was going through the old closet (壁柜) and he found a folded letter which {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (give) to him by his teacher for his mother. He opened it. The message {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (write) on the letter was, "Your son is mentally (精神上) ill. We cannot let him attend our school any more, he has to leave the school."

    {#blank#}9{#/blank#} surprised and excited Edison was after reading it! And then he wrote in his diary, "Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child, but his mother turned him into the genius of the century {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(success)."

    Mark Twain, as you know, was famous in his day as a public speaker. In his public speeches he always tell funny stories. He also liked to listen to funny stories and to play jokes on his friends. One day one of his friends lost his wallet and asked Mark Twain to pay his train fare for him. "But I don't have enough money to pay both your fare and mine, "Mark Twain said. The friend didn't know what to do. "We can do this, "said Mark Twain." We can get on the train and when the conductor comes to check the tickets, you can hide under my seat." Later, however, when the conductor came to check the tickets, Mark Twain gave him two tickets, one for his friend and one for himself. Then he explained in a loud voice, "My friend is a strange man. When he travels on a train, he doesn't like to sit on the seat." Of course everybody in the train looked at the poor friend and laughed at him loudly.

    Jack is 10 years old, and i am his pencil. I'm Jack's helper.

    Jack's pencil box is my home. I have some friends here. They are seven crayons, a ruler and a pencil sharpener. Because Jack loves me, I'm the king(国王) in the pencil box. My friends and I are happy every day.

    Today, I am not happy because a pen comes in. It's new and beautiful. It's a music pen. It can not only write but also sing. But I'm old and I can only help Jack to write. Jack likes it so much! The new pen is his helper now. It's the new king. What can I do now? Shall I go to a new home?

    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.