Tom and his cousin took a boat trip. When they got on the boat, every passenger(乘客)should answer the keeper a question. If the passenger answered "yes", he or she got one gift; if the passenger answered "no", he or she got two gifts. Tom and his cousin saw all about this. Now it was their turn. The keeper came up to them and asked, "Are you a good sailor?" Tom wanted to get two gifts, so he answered "no" loudly, at the same time he said, "I have never been a sailor, how could I be a good sailor?" The keeper gave him two gifts. His cousin gave the same answer, so he got two gifts, too.

    The boat started off. The passengers began to open their gifts. Tom and his cousin did the same. They found that one of the two gifts was a small bottle of drinking water, the other was a seasick tablet(晕船药). Tom had a look at a "yes"-passenger's gift. His was a nice chocolate. Tom shouted at the keeper, "We are never seasick. Why do you give us seasick tablets? "

    Once a traveller came into a village which was suffering from hunger. The villagers asked him to leave, for they feared he wanted them to give him food. They told him that there was no food. The traveller explained that he didn't need any food and that, in fact, he was planning to make a soup to share with them instead. The villagers watched suspiciously as he built a fire and filled a pot with water With great ceremony(仪式), he pulled a stone from a bag, and dropped the stone into the pot of water. After a moment, he smelt the soup and shouted with excitement, “How delicious the soup is!” As the villagers began to show interest, he mentioned how good the soup would be with just a little cabbage in it. A villager brought out a cabbage to share. This episode(情节) repeated itself until the soup had cabbage, carrots, onions, and beets—indeed, a full pot of soup that could feed everyone in the village was ready. This story describes when there are not enough resources(资源), humans will store things. We do not want to share. The story of stone soup helps us realize that, in doing so, we often prevent ourselves and everyone else from having a feast(盛宴).The meaning of this story goes far beyond food. We keep to ourselves ideas, love, and energy, thinking we will be richer, but in fact we make the world, and ourselves, poorer. The traveller was able to see that the villagers were holding back, and he had the ability to inspire(激发) them to give. In this way, they created a large meal that none of them could have created alone. Are you like one of the villagers? If you come forward and share your gifts, you will inspire others to do the same. The reward is a feast that can feed many.

    Once upon a time in a land far away, there was a wonderful old man who loved all kinds of small animals, such as spiders, insects and butterflies and so on.

    One day while walking through the woods, the nice old man found a cocoon（茧） of a butterfly. He took it home.

    A few days later, a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to make its body out of that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared it could go no farther.

    Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then got out of the cocoon easily.

    But it had a swollen（肿胀的） body and small shriveled（枯萎的） wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge to be able to support the body, which would contract（收缩） in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

    What the warm-hearted man in his kindness did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were Nature's way of forcing fluid（体液） from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

    Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were allowed to go through our life without any difficulties, it would be bad for us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

    My father was German, but he worked in England. He married my mother, who was English. Her family name was Robinson, so when I was born in 1632 in England, they called me Robinson, after her.

My father did well in his business and I went to a good school. He wanted me to get a good job, and live a quiet, pleasant life. But I wanted adventure and an exciting life.

    "I want to be a sailor and go to sea", I told my mother and father. They were very unhappy about this.

    "Please don't go." my father said, "You won't be happy you know. Sailors have a difficult and dangerous life." And because I loved him, and he was unhappy, I tried to forget about the sea.

    But I couldn't forget, and about a year later, I saw a friend in town. His father had a ship and my friend said to me, "We are sailing to London tomorrow. Why don't you go with us?"

    On September 1, 1651, I went to Hull and the next day we sailed for London.

    But, a few days later, there was a strong wind. The sea was rough and dangerous, and the ship went up and down, up and down. I was very ill, and was very afraid.

    "Oh, I don't want to die!" I cried, "I want to live! If I live, I will go home and never go to sea again!"

    The next day the wind stopped, and the sea was quiet and beautiful again.

    "Well, Robinson," my friend laughed, "How do you feel now? The wind wasn't too bad."

    "What!" I cried. "It was a terrible storm."

    "Oh, that wasn't a storm," my friend answered, "Just a little wind. Forget it, come and have a drink."

    After a few drinks with my friend, I felt better. I forgot about the danger, and made up my mind not to go home. I didn't want my friend and family to laugh at me!

    I stayed in London for some time, but I still wanted to go to the sea. So, when the captain of a ship asked me to go with him to Guinea in Africa, I agreed. And so I went to the sea for the second time.

    It was a good ship, and everything went well at first, but I was very ill again. Then when we were near the Canary Islands, a Turkish pirate (海盗) ship came after us. They were famous thieves of the sea at that time. There was a long, hard fight, but when it finished, we and the ship were prisoners. The Turkish captain and his men took us to Sallee in Morocco. They wanted to sell us as slaves (奴隶) in the market. But in the end, the Turkish captain decided to keep me for himself, and took me home with him. This was a sudden and terrible change in my life.

When you do not use your arms or your legs for some time, they will become weak. When you start using them again, they slowly become strong again. Everybody knows that. Yet many people do not seem to know that memory (记忆) works in the same way.

When someone says that he has a good memory, he really means that he keeps his memory in practice by using it. When someone else says that his memory is poor, he really means that he does not give it enough chance to become strong.

 If a friend says that his arms and legs are weak, we know that it is his own fault (过错). But if he tells us that he has a poor memory, many of us think that his parents may be blamed (责备 ) , and few of us know that it is just his own fault. Have you ever found that some people can't read or write but usually they have better memories? This is because they cannot read or write but they have to remember things, they cannot write them down in a small notebook. They have to remember days, names, songs and stories, so their memory is being exercised the whole time.

So if you want to have a good memory, learn from the people: practice remembering things in a way as other people do.

Store Guide         Here's a list that shows what is on each floor of a department store.