As a young man, Tom was a famous artist with a wife and two fine sons. One night, his older son was ill. Tom and his wife thought it was nothing serious. But the boy died suddenly that night..

    After his son died, Tom always felt very sad. To make matters worse, his wife also left him later, leaving him alone with his six-year-old younger son, Emie. Sadly, he turned to alcohol(酒) for help.

As time went by, Tom began to lose everything he had——his land, house, etc. A few months later, Tom passed away alone in a small bar. Hearing of Tom's death, I thought,"What a complete failure!"

   But later, I began to change my earlier opinion. I knew Tom's now adult son, Emie. He is one of the kindest, most caring men. I saw the love between Emie and his children. And I thought that kindness and caring had to come from somewhere.

One day, I asked him what made him become such a specia1 person. Emie said quietly, "My father came into my room every night, give me a kiss and said,"love you, son."

     Hearing his words, I understood everything. Tom didn't leave many things behind. But he had been a kind loving father, and left behind his best love.

      Betty and I are best friends. Our birthdays are on the same day, so every year we have a birthday party together. But this year, we had a costume party instead.

      While we were writing the invitations, my mum came in and asked, "Why not invite John?" John had been in our class for only a few months, but he was already getting better grades in Maths than anyone else in class. I wrinkled (皱起) my nose, “Mum, he wears the same pants to school every day. How could he even afford a costume?" Mum said nothing. The next day, mum gave me an envelope with a shopping certificate (凭证) in it. "I thought it would be nice for you to give this to John" Mum said. But how? We didn't want to make John embarrassed. We discussed it for a long time. Finally, Betty and I had a good idea.

      On the day of our party, kids arrived, dressed differently. John arrived, in an old sheet (床单), but still in the same brown pants as usual. We danced, ate snacks and played games in groups. Before eating the birthday cake, Betty said in a loud voice, “Now it is time for the great prize game.  It is the following riddle……". It was a maths game. None of us was surprised when John came up with the right answer first and walked off with the envelope.

      Everything went on well as we planned. John wore a new pair of pants and a new shirt the next week. He felt happy. So did we.

When we help others, we need to find a proper way, or we may hurt them in another way.

At the age of 16，Julia left school and worked at a restaurant. For many years, she was only interested in making money. Then one day she had a serious car accident which changed her life.“I had a terrible car accident in August 1996.It took me 10 months to recover （康复) from the accident. During that time，I realized I wanted to find a more meaningful reason for being here in this world，”said Julia.

    As soon as she recovered，Julia gave up working at the restaurant and traveled to California. One day she found a big company wanted to cut down part of a forest. In the forest there were lots of redwood trees. One of the trees was more than 1,000 years old.

Then Julia learned a group called Our Earth was trying to save the redwood forest from the company. They decided to find someone to live in a redwood tree and hoped this would stop the company from cutting the trees down. Julia volunteered.

    Julia lived in the tree for over two years without ever going down. It was cold and wet in a redwood tree. There were even very serious winter storms while Julia was in the tree.

Finally the company decided to protect the tree Julia lived in. They agreed never to cut down the big redwood tree or the trees around it. When Julia put her feet on the earth，she began to cry. But she continued to do other things to protect the environment.

Washing the Apples

    Mrs. Smith has a shop in the town. There are all kinds of fruit in her shop. She's friendly to the customers and never fools^① anyone. So the customers like to buy fruit in her shop, and she gets more and more money.

    One day, the apples she sold were all fresh and nice. She remembered her son Steve liked them best, so she brought some home for her son. After lunch, she went out and left the apples on the table. That afternoon Steve came back from school, he felt very hungry. He looked for something to eat and found some apples on the table. “Great! They are my favorite.” he cried and ate a lot. Mrs. Smith got home after she closed her fruit shop. When she saw Steve, she asked him, “Did you have the apples? ” Her son answered, “Yes. And I ate lots of them.” “Did you wash them? “Oh, I forgot. I was too hungry^②. What should I do? ”

    A few minutes later, Mrs. Smith found her son kept on drinking water.

    “Are you thirsty? Why are you drinking so much water?” asked the mother.

    “No, Mom.” answered the boy, “I want to wash the apples in my stomach with the water.”

    Max is one of my good friends. I first met him two years ago when he knocked on my door (敲我的门)."Hello," he said warmly. "My name is Max, and I've just moved in next door, so I'm your new neighbor."

    Max is a handsome, well-dressed young man in his twenties. He is quite tall and thin with brown eyes and black hair. He likes wearing sports clothes. He works in a hospital and goes to work early every day.

    He has a great sense of humor (幽默感). I love to listen to his interesting stories. What's more, he is a very kind-hearted person, and is always ready to help people in need. He often does volunteer work (志愿者工作) in an old people' s home. Because of him, more and more young people in our neighborhood want to help there.

    He enjoys dangerous sports such as bungee jumping (蹦极跳). He is a great dancer, too. He goes to the dance club every Tuesday and Saturday.

    All in all, life is never boring when Max is around. Who wouldn't be happy to have him as a friend and neighbor?

    Little Bob was born in a poor village in New York. His father has been ill for a long time and can not do any housework at all. Bob's mother is very busy with the housework besides working. Bob understands how hard his mother works, and he always helps her with some housework. Though he has too much housework to do, his mother is still very strict with him. There are some family rules for Bob.

    He must take good care of his things in his room and keep them tidy. If he makes them dirty, he must clean them up at once.

    He is allowed to keep a parrot, a cat and a dog, but he must feed them often and give them water by himself every day. After school, he is allowed to play with his pets for a short time.

    As for his clothes, he isn't allowed to choose his own clothes. When his clothes are dirty, he should wash them by himself.

    On school nights, he can't go out alone and only on weekends, he is allowed to watch TV. Sometimes Bob hates the rules so much that he wants to break them, but he thinks the rules his mother has made are good for him, so he faithfully obeys them.

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