Paul: Hi, Bill! Have a look atmy house in the country. I'm sure you can enjoy yourself.

Bill: I'd love to.But I hear that the food is not delicious, and your house is not good. Is it so?

Paul: No, that's not true. Go and see!

Then Bill goes to the countryside with Paul.

Bill: Why do you live in a hole in the field? You should come and live in the city. You would live in a nice house made of stone. You would have better food to eat. You must come and see me at my house in the city.

Paul: Thanks! Maybe you are right. I'll visit your house one day.

Several days later Paul goes to Bill's house in the city. The house is big and beautiful. They are sitting in the sitting-room, having a big dinner comfortably. Suddenly, there a great noise.

Bill: Run! Run! The cat is coming!

Paul: Oh, no! It's terrible! Both the house and the food are nice, but I do not like living in the city. I enjoy living in my hole in the field, for it is nice to be poor but happy than to be rich but afraid.

    When our son Bradley was ten, the new bicycle he had received earlier that year was stolen. Owning a bicycle was a big deal to our children when they were little. They spent hours and hours, day after day, on their bicycles, riding up and down the footpath, and at the front of the house. We also rode together as a family a lot. Bicycling was a great way to get the kids out of the house and into the fresh air without spending any money.

    Bradley had discovered that his bicycle had been stolen from our backyard in Campbell town, South Australia, when he and his sister went outside for a morning ride. He couldn't believe that someone would do this.

    He got a large piece of cardboard, painted a sign begging for the bicycle to be returned, and tied the sign to the letterbox. The following morning, when I went out to collect the mail, I found a white envelope with the magical words," Buy yourself a new bicycle". There was a $100 banknote inside.

    We were very touched that someone had the heart to do this. We've never been able to thank the person but we suspect（猜想）that it may have been one of our wonderful neighbors. Bradley painted a big"             !" on the sign and we left it outside for a couple of weeks afterwards, hoping the kind stranger would drive down our street.

    A delighted Bradley was able to buy a new bicycle. As the years went on, the bicycles became bigger and more expensive but remained just as important for those family bicycle rides. Now Bradley is 25. Sometimes I miss the days when receiving a bicycle was the best thing in the world to them.

    All these years later we are still thankful for the stranger's kindness. We were a young family with three little children and it meant a lot to us. We still talk about it and, even now, wonder who the kind stranger was.

    In 1909 an English newspaper offered £ 1,000 to the first man to fly across the English Channel in an aeroplane. Today, modern jets cross it in minutes. But at that time it still seemed a good distance. The race to win the money soon became a race between two men. Both were very colourful.

    One was Louis Bleriot. He owned a factory in France that made motor car lamps. He was already well known as a pilot because he had had accidents several times. Some people laughed at him. One man said, "He may not be the first to fly across the Channel but he will certainly be the first to die in an accident!" But Bleriot was really a good and brave pilot. He also had many good ideas about aeroplane design.

    The other man was Hubert Latham. He was half French and half English. He took up flying when his doctors told him he had only a year to live. "Oh, well," he said, "if I'm going to die soon, I think I shall have a dangerous and interesting life now." Latham was the first to try the flight across the Channel. Ten kilometres from the French coast, his plane had some trouble. It fell down into the water and began to sink under the water. A boat reached Latham just in time. He was sitting calmly on the wing and was coolly lighting a cigarette. Bleriot took off six days later. He flew into some very bad weather and very low cloud. He somehow got to the English side and landed in a farmer's field. When he did so, a customs (海关) officer rushed up to his plane. Planes have changed since then, but customs officers have not. "Have you anything to say?" The officer asked.

    Years ago I worked at a factory in a small county. Every day I got up very early and often did much extra work at night. I was so tired and exhausted. My whole life was hopeless. Then one day I read the following article from a magazine：

    "A woman went to live with her husband in camp on the Mojave Desert（沙漠）during the war. She simply hated the place: the heat was almost unbearable, 125degrees in the shade, the wind blew incessantly, and there was sand-sand everywhere. Finally, in desperation（不顾-切地）she wrote her parents in Ohio that she couldn't stand it another minute and was coming home.

    Quickly came the reply by airmail from her father just two lines：

    'Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw the mud, the other saw stars.'

    The daughter did some real thinking, not only with the intellect（思维）but also with her heart. She decided to stick to her post.

    She made friends with the natives, learned to love the country, and eventually wrote a book about it. The desert hadn't changed, but her attitude had. Because she listened with her heart to the words her father sent, a whole new world opened up to her. "

    A change of attitude could change everything. After reading the article, I was deep in thought（陷入沉思）.

    Do you go to school every day by bike or in your parents' car? The American English teacher Margaret tells her story about taking a school bus in America.

    When I'm a primary school student, I love taking the school bus. It is interesting to talk to my friends and play games on the bus. It is like children-only party every morning and afternoon. On the school bus there is only one adult（成年人）—the driver. Most of the time, we are well-behaved because we like the driver and don't want to make him unhappy. But one day, one of the boys makes a face at a policeman driving behind our bus. The policeman makes our bus driver stop. Then he scolds（训斥）the naughty boy loudly. We all behave well after that!

    It isn't comfortable for young people to wait for the school bus in winter（冬天） because it is very cold, especially when there are strong winds（风）. Some students in cities have bus shelters（遮挡）, but country children have to jump（跳）up and down to warm up. Hurry up, spring!