One year, a college in the United States announced that it would offer a lot of money for the pure white marigold(金盏花). The high reward attracted so many people, but in the nature, besides golden, the marigold is brown, and it is not easy to get the white one. So after they were excited for a time, many people had forgotten the announcement.

    One normal day after 20 years, the college received a letter and 100 seeds of pure white marigold. It was an old woman of over 70 years old. Some experts in the college doubted it, but in order not to let her down, those seeds finally took root (根）in the earth. The miracle appeared after one year; the field was covered by pure white marigold.

    Therefore, the old woman who was always unknown to the public became a new focus.

    The old woman was a flower-lover. When she read the announcement 20 years ago, she got very excited like others. But her eight children were totally against her decision. After all, a woman who never knew the seed genetics(遗传学) couldn't complete what the experts could never do, so her thought was only a day dream.

    Still, the old woman didn't change her mind and went on working. She planted some of the most common seeds and took good care of them. A year later, when the marigold came out, she chose one faintest(最暗淡的) from those golden and brown flowers and got the best seed. The next year, she again grew them and chose...Day after day, year after year, through many seasons, the old woman's husband died, her children flew far, a lot of things happened in her life, but only the wish to grow the pure white marigold took root in her heart.

    Finally, after 20 years on the day we all know, in the garden she saw a marigold, which was nearly white, but as white as silver or snow.

    A problem even experts couldn't deal with was solved by an old woman who didn't understand genetics. Was it a miracle  (奇迹）?

To take root in the heart, even the most common seed, can grow into a miracle!

    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.

    Our family went to the Yellow Stone National Park last summer vacation. Our son, Tom, wanted to see bears there. And what an experience(经历)it was!

When we got there, we put up our tent(帐篷) and went to explore(探险). As we returned, we heard our daughter Susie cry out. And then we saw a bear go into our camp.

    Tom wanted his father to chase(追赶)him away. His father said, “No. It's dangerous to chase a bear. And don't let him chase you. ”Susie said, “What shall we do? Maybe we should climb a tree. ”Tom said, “No. We have to get him out of there. He might go to sleep in our tent. ”“Maybe we could make him leave if we put some honey outside for him to eat. ”Susie suggested. Then I said, “How are you going to get the honey? It's in the tent. ”We watched the bear go into the tent and heard him upset(翻倒; 弄翻)everything inside. “It's foolish for us to try to chase him away. ”said my husband, “Leave him alone and wait for him to come out. ”We waited, but the bear stayed inside. We had to sleep in the car that night.

    A 50-year-old American officer(官员)came back to his school. The teacher asked him to give a talk to the small boys and girls there. The talk was about the love of their great country. All the little ones were sitting in a large meeting-room. The old officer went up and began speaking. He said, "Boys and girls, I studied in the school forty years ago. When l was your age, we were not as happy as you are today. Think about it and answer me, why are you so happy now?"

    No sound came from the children. The old marl waited for a long time. Then a short boy in the front put up his small dirty hand. "Good boy! Please answer me, dear, "said the officer.

    With a big smile on his face, the boy stood up and said. "If you speak long enough, we won't have math and biology(生物)lessons this morning."

Prince Caspian's parents died. He lived with his uncle, Miraz, the King of Narnia and his aunt. Though he had wonderful toys, he liked best the last hour of the day when the toys had all been put away and Nurse would tell him stories.

He didn't care much for his uncle and aunt, but about twice a week his uncle would ask him to come and have a walk together.

One day, while they were doing this, the King said, "Well, boy, we must soon teach you to ride and use a sword. You know we have no children, so it looks as if you might have to be King when I'm gone. How shall you like that, eh?"

"I don't know, Uncle," said Caspian. "What do you wish?" asked the King. "I wish-I wish—I wish I could have lived in the Old Days," said Caspian.

Up till now the King had been talking in a tiresome way, which made it quite clear that he wasn't really interested in what they were saying, but he suddenly gave Caspian a sharp(锐利的) look.

"Eh? What's that?" he said. "What old days?"

"Oh, don't you know, Uncle?" said Caspian. "Once there was a White Witch(女巫) and she made herself Queen of the whole country. And she made it so that it was always winter. And then two boys and two girls came from somewhere and killed the Witch and they were made Kings and Queens of Narnia. And so they ruled for a long time and everyone had a lovely time, and it was all because of Aslan."

"Who's she?" said the King. If Caspian had been a little older, the tone(语气) of his uncle's voice would have warned him it would be wiser to shut up. But he talked on...

I'm Nancy. I live in a small but nice {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. In the center of our town is a hotel. It's on Center Street. The police station is on the{#blank#}2{#/blank#}, too.

 There are all kinds of shops in town. I {#blank#}3{#/blank#} buy food in Alan's food shop. And {#blank#}4{#/blank#} from the food shop, there is a pet shop. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} the pet shop is a shoe shop. We also have a bank. It's near the pet shop. People can keep their {#blank#}6{#/blank#} in it. And next to the bank, there are two {#blank#}7{#/blank#}, Their food is very delicious and we can have {#blank#}8{#/blank#} drinks there. The clothing shops and the post office are in the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} of the town.

There is a small library near my home. Every weekend, my sister  {#blank#}10{#/blank#} going there to read books.

I love my beautiful town!