Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

    Roger, a young man from China, has taught Chinese in a primary school in England for 3 years. A lot of children like his class and he enjoys teaching them very much. All the pupils are quite interested in what Roger teaches them. They learn quickly and do everything carefully.

    One day he said to the children, “People in a lot of Asian countries wear white clothes at funerals(葬礼), but people in America and in Europe wear white in the weddings because white means purity and happiness. What color does an English woman wear when she gets married?”

    Mary said, “White, sir, because she is happy.” “That is good, Mary,” Roger said. “You are quite right. She wears white because she is happy.”

    But then one boy in the class put up his hand. “Yes, Dick?” Roger said, “Do you have a question?” “Yes,” Dick said. “Why do men wear black in our country when they get married, sir?”

    An old man went to live with his son, his daughter-in-law, and a four-year-old grandson. The old man's hands trembled(颤抖)，his eyesight was very poor, and he couldn't walk steadily(平稳地).The family ate together nightly at the dinner table.  But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating rather difficult. Rice often dropped on the floor.

    The son and the daughter-in-law became angry with the old man，so they put a small table in the corner. There，the grandfather ate alone, while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner at the table. Since the grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was put in a wooden bowl.

    The four-year-old son watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with a piece of wood on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, "What are you making?" The boy answered, "Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and mama to eat your food from when I grow up." The four-year-old son smiled and went back to work. The words struck the parents so that they were in silence. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the man took his father's hand and gently led him back to the family table.

    Frank was clever, but he never liked to work hard. He often said to his friends, "If you work hard, you will make a lot of money, but it is not so good. I want easy work and a lot of money. That's the most interesting thing in the world. "So he could only be a thief. But he still thought it was too much work, so he only told his friends what to do and got money from them.

    One day, Frank sent one of his friends to a very large and beautiful house. He told him to get money from that rich family. It was evening, and a man and a girl were in the room. They were playing a duet(二重奏)on a piano. Then the thief came into the house.

    When he returned, Frank asked him what he had got. But he said, "I didn't take anything. That family can't have much money. You know, two people were playing on the same piano there. They did not have money to buy another piano."