Bags of Love

      Last year, I worked in a middle school near my mother's house, and I stayed with her for a month. During that time, I helped her do some

 housework and buy some food.

      After the first week, I noticed that the food was eaten up very quickly. Then I began keeping an eye on my mum. To my surprise, I found

that she would put some of the food into a paper bag and go out with it at about nine every morning. And finally, I decided to follow her. I saw her taking the food to the street children. She would also spend a lot of time talking and playing with them.

      One day, I talked to a neighbour and found out that my mum was well-known in the area. The children were very friendly with her and even thought of her as their own mother. Then it hit me – why wouldn't she want to tell me about it? Was she worried that I would stop buying food if I found out?

  When my mum got home, I gave her a big hug (拥抱). I told her she didn't need to keep it a secret from me. And she told me something about the children. Some of them lived with an old lady in a small house. Others slept on the street. For years, she was helping the poor street children by giving them food. After she told me everything, I was so moved by how selfless (无私的) she was. She helped others in need. As her son, I was so proud of my mum.

      I continued to buy food for my mum after that. But I always added one more bag for her other children.

    John Smith is an old porter. He works at the railway station. Every day he is busy carrying heavy things for passengers（乘客）. He is kind to everyone and always ready to help others.

    One morning, John stood in the station. A train was coming. He was waiting for it. Just then he saw a man running in the station with a big bag in his hand.

    “No train is starting. Why is he in such a hurry?” the old man thought to himself.

    John went up to the man and asked, “May I help you?”

    As soon as the man saw the old porter, he stopped running.

    “Can I catch the 10:35 train to London?” the man asked. He looked worried.

    John looked at him for a few seconds and said, “Well, sir. I'd like to help you, but I can't answer your question because I don't know how fast you can run.” Then he continued, “The 10:35 train to London left five minutes ago. Can you run fast enough to catch it?”

    Every year hundreds of people try to climb the world's highest mountain or walk through rainforests(雨林). Let's take a look at two of the 21st century's(世纪的) greatest adventurers(冒险家).

    A mountain climber

    Do you know that more than 4，000 people have climbed Mount Everest? Gerlinde is one of them. She is one of the world's greatest climbers and has climbed all the mountains over 8，000 meters in the world. It's difficult to climb mountains in cold weather, but Gerlinde loves it. She started climbing the mountains near her home as a teenager. When she left school, she became a nurse but always went climbing in her free time.

    An Amazon adventurer

    Ed Stafford is the first person to walk along the Amazon River from the mountains of Peru to the mouth of the river in Brazil. His journey took two years and four months. There are many dangerous animals in the rainforest. But Ed was lucky and he was only bitten(咬) by small insects(昆虫). On his trip, Ed had to look for fruit or catch fish each morning. Sometimes food was hard to find and Ed was often tired and hungry. So he used a radio to ask the people of the rainforest for food and help.

    Once there was a boy. He loved candies very much. He always asked his father for candies. The boy's father thought hard about how to stop (阻止) the child from asking for so many candies. A great man lived nearby (附近). The boy's father wanted to take the boy to him. He could make the child give up (放弃) candies. So they went to the great man. The father asked the great man to help him. But the great man liked candies himself. He told the father to bring his son back after a month.

    In this month, the great man tried to give up eating candies. At last he did it. When the boy and his father came back after a month, the great man had a talk with the boy. From then on, the boy did not ask for candies any more. The boy's father felt surprised, "Why didn't you ask my son to give up candies when we came to you a month ago?" The man answered, "How could I ask a boy to give up candies when I loved candies myself? In the last month I gave up eating candies."

    A person's example (榜样) is always more important than (比) words. We should not ask others to do what we can't do ourselves.