When the man's wife died，their youngest baby was 2 years old．They had six other children一three boys and three girls．aged from 4 t0 16．

    The man's parents and his wife's parents came to visit them．

‘‘We've been talking about how to make this work，"they said．"There's no way you can take care of all these children and work to make a living．So，we've decided to place each child with a different uncle and aunt．"

     The man refused．Over the next few weeks，he moved the family to a tiny town and his business developed quickly．People came from far away to do business with him．And the children helped him both at home and at work．

The children grew up and got married．Five of the seven went off to college．The children's success was a source of pride to the father．

    Finally，the youngest daughter，who was 2 years old when the mother died，got married．With his life's work done，the father died．

This man's work had been the lonely but joyful task of raising his family．This man was my father．I was the 1 6-year-old，the oldest of seven．

    It takes a lot of skills and hard work to set a world record in pumpkin-carving(雕刻南瓜). Steve Clarke, a sixth-grade teacher from Pennsylvania, is a famous carver(雕刻师). Clarke has set many world records for carving pumpkins quickly. When he competes, he must cut our two eyes, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, and two ears as fast as possible. But Clarke knows something else about pumpkin-carving. It's easier to get a record than to keep it.

    He took the title in 2000 when he carved a pumpkin face in 74.8 seconds. That time was 19 seconds faster than what Jerry had set. From then on, Clarke broke his own records five times. In 2006, he set his best time in Florida. His winning time was 24.03 seconds!

    The only problem is that someone finally beat that mark. On October 7, 2010, David set the new record with 20.1 seconds. Clarke was not able to break that record this year, but he has planned to break the record. After Halloween, he will go to local pumpkin farms to practise designs and new skills.

    Clarke is popular because of his super pumpkin-carving skills. In 1999, he carved more than 30 pumpkins at the Halloween party for then vice-president Al Gore.

    O. Henry was a pen name of an American writer. He wrote short stories. His real name was William Sydney Porter. He was born in North Carolina in 1862. As a young boy he lived an exciting life. He did not go to school for very long, but he tried to teach himself everything he needed to know. When he was about 20 years old, O. Henry went to Texas. There he tried different jobs. He first worked on a newspaper, and then had a job in a bank. When some money was lost from the bank, others believed O. Henry took it. So people sent him to prison﹡. He stayed in prison for three years. There he learned to write short stories. After he got out of prison, he went to New York and went on writing. He wrote mostly about New York and the life of the poor there. People liked his stories, because they always finished with a sudden change at the end, to the reader's surprise.

    Mary was afraid of the dark. She thought there were terrible monsters（怪物） in the dark. One day her aunt Valerie came to visit. Valerie was a brave woman. Mary wanted to be like her. So Mary asked her aunt, "Are you afraid of the dark?"

    "A lot of times" answered her aunt. "When I was small, I was afraid of staying in the dark."

    Hearing this, Mary felt better.

    "I know a secret not to be afraid of the dark. Some blind children told it to me."

    "Can you tell me?" asked Mary.

    "Of course! The secret is to change your eyes. Because blind children can't see, and their hands are their eyes. At night, if anything makes you afraid, close your eyes, get out of bed, and try to see what it is. But use your hands as eyes..."

    That night when Mary felt afraid of something in the bedroom, she closed the eyes of her face and opened the eyes of her hands. She went to touch it with her hands...

    The next morning, Mary ran into the kitchen.

There was a big smile on her face. "The monster is so lovely," she cried. "It's my toy dog!"

    Jack thought himself a basketball fan. He watched quite a lot of American NBA basketball games. Not only did he watch them, he spent much of his free time playing on the court too. Then came the final year of his middle school. All of his regular teammates stopped showing up on the court because they were simply too busy preparing for the high school entrance exam to play. He was, of course, under much stress himself, like everyone else. A good exam result meant a good high school; a mediocre(平庸的) score meant a mediocre school. Much was at stake. However, he loved basketball so much that he still found time to play, this time with a group of guys who were said to have skipped classes(逃课) before.

    Some of his teachers started worrying about him. They asked his mother to go to school to let her know that Jack was hanging out with problem kids. When his mother returned home that day, she wanted to talk to Jack. Knowing the purpose of her visit to the school, Jack thought his mother would punish him for befriending those bad guys. To his surprise, his mother was not angry with him at all. She wanted to hear her son's side of the story. So Jack told his mother about what he knew of Simon and Peter. Simon's parents were badly ill; Peter's father had lost his job. They both seemed to Jack to be normal kids. Jack's mother thought for a moment, then went on to say that she was OK with her son playing with them and that she and her son should think of ways to help these kids. Soon Jack's mum introduced some part-time jobs to Simon and Peter, which they accepted. She believed in her son and cared about those who were less lucky.

    Jack's basketball friends and he have left for different places, but they still keep in touch. He knows Peter is now a manager of a local bank.  Simon is currently a freshman at a university. Sadly, it is impossible to get together to play basketball again, but whenever they get on the phone, they talk about it all the time.