"Listen carefully to what I say,"  the time traveler said, "I shall tell you something that you will not agree."

    "Why will we not agree?" I asked.

    "Because the science and mathematics you know are not correct," he said. "You believe there are only three dimensions(三维空间)-length, breadth(宽) and thickness."

    "There is nothing to argue with that, "  the youngest member of our little group said.

    "Exactly!"  the time traveler answered, "But there is also a fourth dimension - time."

    "We all know about time, " another member of the group said. "Time passed."

    "I do not agree,"  the time traveler said, "Length, breadth and thickness do not pass. They stay in the same place in space.  We move about them. I can prove that time is the same. It does not pass. We move in time the same way that we move in breadth, length and thickness."

    None of us believed the time traveler, and we argued with him for many hours.

    "If we could travel back in time,"  the scientist said, "We could do things to change the future."

    "If we could travel forward in time," the doctor(博士) said, "we could do things that change our present."

    The time traveler smiled, "It is clear," he said, "that there is only one way I can show you that I am right. We must do an experiment. Please wait here."

    He left the room and soon returned, carrying what looked like a clock.

    "This is a model of a time machine. It took me two years to make it," the time traveler said. "I want all of you to understand that when I start the machine, it will immediately travel in time and disappear from the present."

    He turned to the youngest of all. "Give me your hand," he said.

    The young man put out his hand. The time traveler took it and placed it on the machine. Immediately, there was a sudden wind, and the little machine disappeared.

    I was certain this was not a trick, but the doctor was not so sure.

    "Are you asking us to believe," he said, "that the machine is now in a different time?"

    "Certainly! In my laboratory, a full-size machine is almost complete. As soon as it is complete, I shall send myself on a journey through time. Would you like to see my machine?"

    "Are you serious about this?" the doctor asked.

    "I have never been more serious about anything," the time traveler said, "Come."

    We followed him to his laboratory. There, we saw the actual machine, not quite complete, but large enough for a man to sit in.

My dear son,

    Your letter of last week reached us yesterday, and I only have $13 left at present, which I will send to you with this letter. I may sell the other pig next week and meet the need of what you wanted. I will probably have to wear the old overcoat to meetings again this winter, but that doesn't matter as long as you are getting education(教育).

    I want you to be well educated so that you can go anywhere and spell the hardest word. I want you to be able to go among the Romans or the Medes and Persians and talk to any of them in their own language. I never had any advantages when I was a boy, but your mother and I decided that we would support(支持) your learning no matter how much it may take though it means cutting down our daily living costs.

    I hope you will get your education as cheap as you can, for it is a big job for your mother and me to pay the school fees. I knew education comes high but I didn't know the clothes also cost so much. Now look at that basketball suit, and that bathing suit, and that lawn-tennis suit, I don't care about the money, because you say a young man can't really educate himself successfully and completely without them, but I wish you'd send home what you get through with this fall, and I will wear them through the winter under my other clothes. We have much colder winters here than we used to, or else I am failing in bodily health. Last winter I tried to go through without underclothes, the way I did when I was a boy, but a Manitoba wave came down our way and picked me out of a crowd.

    I am not much of a mean man, so you will have to excuse this letter. We are all quite well, except your old grandpa, whose shoulders badly hurt, and hope this will find you enjoying the same great blessing.

Your father

    Ben lives in a big house in the country with his family. His house is not near a town. It is twenty miles away from the nearest town. There are a lot of people in his family. They are Ben, his two sisters, his brother and his parents. His house has two floors. There are four bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and two bathrooms. He'd like to have his own bedroom but he shares a bedroom with his younger brother, Simon. His two sisters, Gina and Annie have their own bedrooms. Their house has a big yard with lots of flowers. He likes playing in the yard with his brother and sisters. At weekends his school friends often come to visit. They play in the yard, or in his room if it rains. Their house is a nice place to live in. He has a lot of fun with his family and friends in his house.

    Long ago, Bluebird's feathers were the colour of dust. She did not like her ugly colour. She was attracted by the colour of the lake near her home. It was as blue as the sky after a storm. Bluebird wanted to be the colour of that beautiful lake very much. Flapping her wings one morning, Bluebird flew from her tree to the blue lake. Then she bathed in the water three times. After each bath, she sang, "Blue water. Still water. I went in. I am blue." Bluebird repeated this every morning. On the third day, she came out of the lake with beautiful blue feathers.

    Now Coyote was a trickster(骗子)—and hungry too. He stayed behind Bluebird's tree for a long time every day and watched her go to the lake. He pretended(伪装)to be interested in everything she did. He wanted Bluebird for lunch, but he was afraid of the blue water. On the third morning, Coyote saw Bluebird come out of the lake with beautiful blue feathers. Impressed, he sat next to Bluebird's tree and waited for her. When she returned, he asked, "How did you get blue feathers? I want to be blue like the mountains too." Bluebird didn't believe Coyote, but she taught him how to bathe three times each morning and how to sing her song. Coyote did what she said, and after three days of bathing in the lake, his white fur turned deep blue.

    Convinced(确信的)that blue fur was even more beautiful than blue feathers, Coyote forgot all about being hungry. He ran as fast as he could to the top of the hill. Standing on his back legs, he raised his front legs off the ground and howled. But Coyote slipped(滑倒)and rolled down the hill. He couldn't stop himself, and the dust and dirt covered his new blue fur. He rolled and rolled until he hit into Bluebird's tree heavily. No matter how much he tried, foolish Coyote could not shake the dust from his fur. And so the fur of all coyotes had the dull colour of dust to this very day.