Earl was looking at the wall outside the pub（酒馆）. The pub's name, The Old Swan, was on the wall. Next to the name was a wooden ship's wheel and in the middle of the wheel was the name of a ship, HMS Swan. The wheel was old, Earl could tell.

   The next morning, Earl asked to see Tony Thatcher. The Old Swan was Tony's pub. He took Earl to his office while Candy had a coffee outside by the river. Earl said he could give Tony a lot of money for the ship's wheel. He told Tony that Benjamin Cooper, his grandfather, went to America on the ship HMS Swan. But Tony said no at first. After all, the wheel was very old and it was part of the pub's past.

    "You can think of the past, Mr. Thatcher - can I call you Tony? - or you can think of today. And with the money, Tony, you can buy a good car. Maybe a new Jaguar? And, as I've told you, the wheel is part of my family's past too. So you could say it's going back home, in a way. So, what do you say?"

   A month later, Earl and Candy were smiling as they looked at the wall of their house in Houston, Texas. Earl thought to himself that, at last, he had a piece of his family's past. He was happy.

    In Portsmouth, Tony Thatcher was happy, too. He was putting his new Jaguar into his large garage（车库）. He was careful not to drive into any of the six ship's wheels in the garage. A friend of his made the wheels for him. They were just like the one that Earl bought. And there was another wheel on the outside wall of The Old Swan now. Old or new - Tony thought there was no way that a tourist could ever know which was which. Never in a hundred years.

A teenage girl couldn't stand her parents' family rules, so she left home.
She wanted to be famous. But she had poor education and several years later she had to ask for food on the street for a living. Now her father has died. Her mother is an old woman. But she is still looking for her daughter. She has been to every corner of the city. Everywhere she goes, she puts up a big photo of herself on the wall. At the lower part of the photo she writes,“I still love you . . . , come back home!”
One day, the daughter saw one of the photos. The face was familiar（熟悉）. “Is that my mother?” she moved closer and read the words“I still love you ...” She cried. When she got home, it was early morning. She knocked on the door. The door opened itself. She rushed to her mother's bedroom. Her mother was sleeping. She woke her mother up,“It's me! Your daughter is back home!” The mother and daughter held each other, full of happy tears. The daughter asked, “Why is the door not locked? A thief could get in.” The mother answered softly, “The door has never been locked since you left.”
The door of parents' love for their children will never be closed.

The Man of Many Secrets

    Harry Houdini was one of the greatest American entertainers(表演者·演艺人员) in the theater this century. He was a man famous for his escapes－from prison cells(囚室), from wooden boxes floating in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

    Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had ability to move his toes as well as to move his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in a New York club. They called themselves the Houdini brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant, but for a long time they were not successful. Then Harry performed his first prison escape, in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspaperman to watch. It was the publicity(名声) that came from this that started Harry Houdini's success.

    Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs(手铐) and toes trained to escape from ankle chains（脚镣）, but his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck－and a small skeleton key（万能钥匙）, which is a key that fits many locks passed quickly from her mouth to his.

    Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local jail of every town he visited. In the afternoon the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? Worldwide fame, and a name remembered today.

    A 2-year-old boy is being described as a hero after using Face Time to save his mother after she was badly hurt.

    According to a report from KGUN, Laura was trying to stop a fight between two dogs when one of the dogs bit(咬) part of her middle finger almost completely off.

    Laura tried to call 911 herself, but she said her hands were too badly hurt to make the call. "I asked my daughters to call 911, and they're four, and they were quite afraid to even touch the phone, because it was covered in my blood(血) ," Laura told KGUN.

    The mother continued to lose a lot of blood and thought she would go into a deep sleep--until her 2-year- old son Bentley came up with a dishcloth from the kitchen. After cleaning some of the blood off his mother's iPhone, Bentley continued to use Face Time to call Laura's friend Connie.

    "All I could see was his little forehead. I said 'Hi Bentley' and it was quiet for a little bit. Then I heard Laura shouting," Connie told KGUN.

    Connie then called 911, and Bentley unlocked the door to let firefighters into the house.

    Laura told KGUN she is very thankful for her little hero and has since taught all of her children how to call 911.

    Margaret Hilda Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister and served three terms in office. She is one of the greatest political figures of 20^th century Britain.

    Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on October 13, 1925 in Grantham, England She studied chemistry at Oxford University and was made chairwoman of the Oxford University Conservative Association(保守党协会). In 1951, she married a wealthy businessman, Denis Thatcher, with whom she had two children.

    She often stated that she was brought up very strictly, "I owe everything in my life to two things: a good home, and a good education. My home was ordinary, but good in the sense that my parents were passionately interested in the future of my sister and myself. At the same time, they gave us a good education—not only in school, but at home as well. "

    In 1970, Thatcher was appointed secretary for Education and Science. Five years later, she challenged Heath for the leadership of the Party and, to the surprise of many, won. In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives came to power and Thatcher became Prime Minister.

    In foreign affairs, Thatcher had a close political and personal relationship with US president Ronald Reagan. She was nicknamed the "Iron Lady" by the Soviets. She visited China four times and made a great contribution to Hong Kong's returning to China.

    Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in 1990. She remained in the House of Commons until 1992. In the same year, Thatcher was made a Baroness(贵族) by the queen and became a member of the House of Lords.

    Reading Thatcher's whole life, it seems that she always knew what she wanted, and then she would put all her efforts into it to live her dream. She had a quick mind and an even quicker tongue. Her sense of self confidence and ambition(雄心) ruled her life from the time she was a small child, through her Oxford years and during her early years in politics.

    "With one more world championship, I can apply for the Guinness World Records (吉尼斯世界纪录), "said Chen Yongning, a 93-year old ping pong lover in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Red Star News reported on April 2^nd, 2019. With 80 years of experience and a racket that he bought from a stationery shop for 15 yuan, Chen won World Veteran Championships in 2016 and 2018.

    "I'm not tired. I play with my hands and arms, and my feet don't move," said Chen after playing ping pong for 40 minutes with a younger player Ye. "Chen is physically strong. He can usually play several games with us," said Ye, explaining that Chen is energetic, though he is troubled by backache.

    Chen started to play ping pong when he was 13 years old. While he was playing with friends in his school playground, the headmaster saw Chen very carefully follow the rules of a game he was playing, while the other children tried to play tricks on each other. The headmaster called him over, gave him a ball and rackets, and asked Chen to play with him. Chen didn't know how to play ping pong at that time, so he just followed the headmaster's lead. Ever since that moment, Chen said, he had fallen in love with it.

    As he grew up, Chen worked in Shanxi Agricultural College (now Shanxi Agricultural University), where there were excellent ping pong facilities. He sharpened his skills and took part in various competitions in his spare time, winning a number of local medals.

    Chen has a son and a daughter. Both of them love their father and are successful in their own fields. One of them will go with Chen to the 20th World Veteran Championships which will be held in France next year.

    Chen has already decided he won't stop playing ping pong unless he is 100 years old.