Once upon a time, there lived a rich man. He had a servant (仆人). He and the servant loved wine（酒）and good food very much. Each time the rich man left his home, the servant would drink the wine and eat up all the nice food in the house. The rich man knew what his servant did, but he had never caught his servant doing that.

      One morning, when he left home, he said to the servant, “Here are two bottles of poison (毒药) and some nice food in the house. You must take care of them.” With these words, he went out.

      But the servant knew that the rich man had said was untrue. After the rich man was away from his home, he enjoyed a nice meal. Because he drank too much, he was drunk and fell to the ground. When the rich man came back, he couldn't find his food and his wine. He became very angry. He woke the servant up. But the servant told his story very well. He said a cat had eaten up everything. He was afraid to be punished（惩罚）, so he drank the poison to kill himself.

C

    My daughter Eyen is ten years old. She is in Grade Three in a primary school. She is a cute girl though(虽然) she has some strange ideas sometimes.

    One day she asks me, “Mum, what's your favourite subject?” I think for a while(一会儿) and answer，“It is difficult to tell. I love singing, so music is my favourite. And I am good at English. My history teacher also says I am excellent. Well, I can say I don't like science. But science is important for us, you know. So you must do well in it. What is your favourite subject, Eyen? Tell me something about your subject, dear.”

    “I like Chinese. It is easy. I like English because my English teacher likes me very much. I can't stand maths. It's serious and sad(悲哀的).”

    “Do you mean(意味)your maths teacher is serious and sad?”

    “No, it is maths, not the maths teacher.”

    “Why do you think so?”

    “Because maths has so many problems! Isn't it sad all day?”

    Mark Twain left school when he was twelve. He had little school education. In spite of this, he became the most famous writer of his time. He made millions of dollars by writing. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but he is better known all over the world as Mark Twain, his penname.

    Mark Twain was born in 1835 and he was not a healthy baby. In fact, he was not expected to live through the first winter. But with his mother's care, he managed to survive. As a boy, he caused much trouble for his parents. He used to play jokes on all his friends and neighbors. He didn't like to go to school, and he often ran away from home. He always went in the direction of the nearby Mississippi. He was nearly drowned nine times.

    After his father's death, Mark Twain began to work for a printer, who only provided him with food and clothing. Then, he worked as a printer, a river-boat pilot and later joined the army. But shortly after that he became a miner. During this period, he started to write short stories. Afterwards he became a full time writer.

    In 1870, Mark Twain got married. In the years that followed he wrote many books including Tom Sawyer in 1876, and Huckleberry Finn in 1884, which made him famous, and brought him great fortune.

    Unfortunately, Mark Twain got into debts in bad investments(投资) and he had to write large numbers of stories to pay these debts. In 1904, his wife died, and then three of his children passed away.

    At the age of 70, his hair was completely white. He bought many white suits and neckties. He wore nothing but white from head to foot until his death on April 21, 1910.

    A father and his son went to a kite-flying festival. The son was full of joy when he saw the sky filled with colorful kites. He wanted to fly a kite, too. The father then bought a kite for him.

    The son started to fly the kite. Soon, his kite was high up in the sky. After a while, he said, "Father, it seems that the string (线) is stopping the kite from flying higher. If we cut it, the kite will be free and fly even higher. Can we cut it?" The father cut the string. The kite started to go higher. This made the little boy happy.

    But then, slowly, the kite started to come down. And finally it fell to the ground. The son was surprised to see this. He asked his father, "I thought that after cutting the string, the kite would fly higher. Why did it fall down?"

    The father explained, "The string was not stopping the kite from going higher, but was helping it stay in the sky. You helped the kite go up in the right direction using the string. But when you cut the string, it could no longer support the kite."

    Sometimes, we may feel like there are certain things that are holding us back (阻碍) and stopping us growing. But in fact, these might be the things that support us the most.

    On the morning of the day when he left Compton High School in Los Angeles, 18-year-old Allan Guei asked seven of his classmates to come together. Guei, a star on the basketball team, expressed he was giving away he $40,000 he'd won in a competition and was dividing it among them. The room filled with shouts and cheers. "Everyone went mad with excitement," he says. "They were surprised that I would do something like that for them."

    In November 2000, Guei's family moved from the Ivory Coast to the United States, and he immediately took up basketball." When I first came to California, the Lakers were winning: it was Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal era (时代),"he recalls." I just fell in love with the game."

    A few years later, he was playing for the school. Then, in March, he entered a free-throw competition at the school, and the town saw just how big a team player Guei really is—both on and off the court (球场).

    In the first round, each of the eight contestants (竞争者) took ten shots, and the top four shooters advanced." I was one of the final four, but I really didn't shoot that well," Guei says." I was nervous!"" In the second round, however, he took the winning shot. He went home with the prize of $ 40,000.

    A few months before Guei left school, he was offered a full scholarship (奖学金) to California State University, and he had an idea." I could have kept the prize money, but I was already going to college for free," Guei says. "I know the others were going to have a lot of difficulty paying for school. They needed it for their futures, so I just decided to give it away."

    Now wearing No.25 on Northridge's Matadors basketball team, Guei has little time for anything but training and studying, though he keeps in touch with most of his classmates." I know those kids. Whatever they decide to do in life is going to be something good," he says." It was just the right thing to do."

    As for his own future, Guei is still learning. "I work really hard at everything I do," he says. "But whatever happens in my future, I'm just happy that I was able to help somebody else along the way."