A few years ago, the company I worked for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I've always loved running, so I was happy when I found out the house we lived in was next to Central Park. This means I could go to the park to run every morning before I went to work.

      A lot of people had told me to be careful of robbers in the park, so usually I didn't take any money with me. But one morning, my wife gave me a $10 bill and asked me to buy some bread on the way.

      While I was running through the park, another runner knocked into me. Just as I was wondering what was happening, he said sorry to me and went on running. I thought it was kind of strange, and suddenly I thought of my money, so I checked my pocket and found that my money was missing. Without thinking twice, I ran after that runner. The minute I held him by the arm, I shouted, “Give my money back! Now!” I'm not usually a hot-headed person, but I got really angry this time. He seemed to be afraid and he took out the money and gave it to me. Then he ran away as quickly as he could.

      I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I began to tell my wife my story. “You won't believe what happened to me.” I started. She immediately stopped me, “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”

    Benedict's explorations are often dangerous，but he likes them. One of his favorite explorations was in 2001. He wanted to be the first person to travel alone across the ice from Siberia to Alaska. So he went to Siberia and lived with the Chukchi people. He learned how to live like the Chukchi people and drive a dog team. He traveled 622 miles with only a dog team. The weather was really bad. There was a lot of snow, wind and ice，so the journey was very difficult. Benedict almost lost the dog team，and he almost died，so he ended his journey early. It was scary, but he learned a lot.

C

    It is a true story. Once upon a time, one of Alex's horses was stolen by his neighbor. Alex went to the neighbor's home with a policeman to get his horse back. But the neighbor refused to give the horse back. He said that it was his horse.

    Suddenly Alex had a good idea. He put both of his hands over the eyes of the horse and said to the neighbor, “If this is your horse, then you must tell us in which eye the horse is blind.”

    “In the left,” said the neighbor. Alex took his hand from the left eye of the horse and showed the policeman that the horse was not blind in the left eye.

    “Oh, I have made a mistake,” said the neighbor. “He is blind in the right eye.” Alex then showed that the horse was not blind in the right eye, either.

“I have made another mistake,” said the neighbor.

    “Yes,” said the policeman, “and you have also proved that the horse isn't yours. You must give it back to Mr. Alex. ”

    Jenny Miller was a strange little girl. She liked to spend her time alone eating chocolate. Her parents were worried, so they took all the chocolate away.

    Jenny left her house to look for some chocolate. She found a small house full of glasses.

    Among all the glasses, a blue glass caught Jenny's attention. It was full of chocolate. There was also a card in it, saying," Change tears into chocolate. "

    Jenny was very excited. She took the blue glass and ran out of the house to look for someone crying. First, she met a little boy crying hard, and she collected his tears. The tears were quickly changed into chocolate. While Jenny was collecting the tears, she comforted(安慰)the boy. Finally, the boy stopped crying and they had a fun time together.

    Later, Jenny met a woman who had broken some plates and an old man who couldn't find his dog. They were so sad that their tears could not help falling down. Jenny collected their tears and made them happy again.

    Soon, Jenny realized that making people happy was even more important than finding chocolate. So she stopped collecting tears and began to help sad people. As a result, she became friend with them and lived a much happier life than before.

    Garrison had been treasuring his last piece. All he had left now was a sheet of the beautiful brown paper Pa had brought back from his last sailing trip.

    "You've been quiet," Pa said, "Could I see your picture?"

    Garrison handed over his sketch. Pa studied it, then looked at his son. "You're ten now, eh?" Garrison nodded, hoping Pa wouldn't say that he was too old to be fooling around with pencils and paper.

    "When I was ten, I wanted to work on my father's ship," Pa said, "When Thomas was ten, he asked me to let him plant the corn."

    Garrison's throat (嗓子) tightened. "I know I'm not like either of you." Pa looked at the drawing again.

    "No, you are like both of us. You work hard, like Thomas. And you're like me, too. I have wandering feet, but you have a wandering mind. We need to see things differently.

    Garrison frowned. "I'd rather love the land, like Thomas, or the sea…"

    Pa patted his hand. "Thomas cares about our family very much-that's why he's worked so hard to bring us food. And my love for the sea makes good money. But there's more in life than food and money. There's happiness, for one. Does it make you happy to draw?"

    Garrison nodded.

    "And it makes me happy to look at your drawings. Not many folks can catch happiness on a piece of paper. Some might say drawing's a waste of time, but they don't understand how things are. Why, asking you to stop drawing like asking Thomas to stop farming, or me to stop going to sea. It would be like asking us to stop breathing, wouldn't it?"

    Garrison considered this, then replied, "No, sir. Not quite like breathing. If I couldn't draw any more, it would be… like someone took away my voice." He hung his head. In his mind he could hear Thomas laughing, "It's not like you ever speak up, anyway."

    But Pa patted his shoulder and said, "That would be a pure shame. Your voice is important, Garrison, whether it's out loud or on paper. And speaking of paper…" Pa smiled. "Take a look in my bag."

    Garrison reached into the bag and found a sketchbook. For a moment he was speechless happiness seemed to fill his body and stick in his throat. Then he managed to find his voice. "Oh, Pa-thank you."