When was the last time you saw three men running down a forest trail（小径）in the rain wearing flip-flops（拖鞋）？That's what my friend Brandon, Josh and I were doing last autumn. We were looking for a waterfall（瀑布）.We didn't have much time to get to the waterfall and back, so we were running. We were wearing flip-flops to prevent our shoes getting dirty.

    It was raining, but lightly. It kept us cool as we climbed over giant stones and through a shallow（浅的）stream. We followed red arrows（箭头）and crossed that stream several times, walking on toward the promised waterfall. Time was not on our side, however, and we were forced to turn around. As we started back, we looked at the shallow stream we had just crossed. Where did this rushing river come from? That was when we realized a flash flood was around!

    In the few minutes the water rose at a fast speed. Now there were no big stones to be seen-only what looked like lumps（隆起）covered with rushing water. We had no choice but to move our way back carefully in the rushing water -in flip-flops. We had crossed the stream not once or twice, but six times in search of a waterfall that we never even reached!

    With most of the crossings, we needed each other's help if we didn't want to be washed away by water. Wet all over, we felt relaxed after we made the last crossing.

    "My dad always told me to keep off a river when travelling in the rain." Josh said as we hurried back down the path.

    "Why didn't you tell us that earlier?" I laughed.

    "Would it have made a difference?" came the reply.

    He had a point.

B

    An old man was going home late one night with his horse and cart after a day's hard work. When he was not far away from his house, the light on the cart went out. He tried but could not repair it. He was near his home, and so he went along the road without a light. When a policeman saw this, he stopped the old man.

    "Where is your light?" asked the policeman. "No man may take a cart along the road at night without a light. You know that. You have broken the law." "I had a light, but it has just gone out," said the old man.

    "I don't believe that story. What's your name and where do you live?" asked the policeman. "Please don't write down my name," said the old man. "My home is just there. You can see it from here. I had a light nearly the whole way."

    "You came all the way without a light. What's your name?"

    The old man quickly took the policeman's hand and put it down on the top of the light. The light was still hot and burnt the policeman's hand. The policeman jumped and he was very angry. "Now, what do you think?" said the old man. "Did I come all the way without a light?"

    Mr Black is a football fan. Every morning he goes to work by train. As he has a long trip, he always buys a newspaper. It helps to make the time pass more quickly. One Wednesday morning, Mr Black turned the important football matches. He knew the Football World Cup would be held in his city soon. He decided to go to watch the football game.

    While Mr Black was excited to be at the Football World Cup, he was disappointed（失望的）at the location of his seat. Peering（仔细看）across the stadium through his telescope（望远镜）he saw an empty seat far away and made his way there. Mr Black asked the man in the next seat, “May I sit here?” “Sure,” the man replied. “This was my wife's seat. She was a super football fan, and we used to come to the games together all the time until she passed away.”

    “I am sorry for your loss,” Mr Black said. “But I am curious（好奇的）. Why didn't you give the extra（多余的） ticket to a friend or a relative?” The man replied, “They are all at the funeral（葬礼）.”

    Once, Einstein gave a lecture in a university. After his speech, the audience started asking questions.

    A girl asked, "Do you think you're a giant of science？" Einstein said with a smile, "A giant is a person who is tall in height. You see I'm so small, how can I be a giant? Maybe I see a bit farther, only because I stand higher！"Then a boy asked, "You mentioned you stand higher than the others. It reminds me that you had a talk with a lady on the top of the Alps (阿尔卑斯山).I don't want to ask what you talked, but I want to know whether you realised you have been a top in the history of science when you stood on the top." Looking at the boy carefully, Einstein replied, "Well, my height cannot become a top. And there is no top that no one can get to, so we don't want to be a top, but we want to be a person to climb the top!"

    Then he took up a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard, "Standing on the top, you are not tall, but even smaller！"Then he said, "Though I stand tall, in the eyes of the world I'm still small! Finally, I can tell you a sentence, which was the last one I told the lady on the top of the Alps, 'Any top can be reached, for there is no giant in the world but the one who stands higher！'"A storm of applause(掌声) sounded. The lady who listened to Einstein's instruction on the Alps that year was no other than Madam Curie!