One day a little mouse was thirsty(口渴的)．She looked everywhere for water to drink．She climbed up on a table．And she saw a bottle on the table．The mouth of the bottle was 1  ．The little mouse looked inside the bottle．“Aha，there is 2  milk in it．That's great．''She went into it and drank．

    She drank and drank．After a moment she had drunk enough．Her stomach was too big and she couldn't come   3the bottle．She cried for help．Just then a cat came up to the table．  4 he heard the cry the cat jumped onto the table so 5 ，“You'll be my nice lunch．''The little mouse was very clever and she6 for a moment and said，“Brother Cat，you mustn't roll(滚)the bottle．”“ 7  ?”asked the cat．“l would get dizzy(头晕目眩的)，”said the mouse．The cat said that he would let her  8quickly．So he began to roll the bottle．Suddenly the bottle fell down onto the floor and broke into  9 ． The little mouse ran  10 as fast as she could．When the cat jumped off the table and ran after her，the mouse had already gone into her home．

    Sam is a very busy man. He is 60 and he has a lot of 1 . He is a postman (邮递员), a taxi driver, a school-bus driver, a boatman, a cook and a milkman. Also he and his wife, Margaret, 2 a shop and a small hotel.

    Sam lives and works on an island (岛) 3 London. Only 120 people are on the island, 4 in summer 150 tourists (旅游者) come on Sam's boat every day. So Sam gets up at six and makes breakfast for the people in the hotel. At eight, he drives the island's 5 to school. At nine, he sends (送) 6 to all the houses on the island. He also sends milk to 7. Then he helps in the shop. He says, "Margaret likes to be 8, too. We are busy and we don't like watching TV in the shop." He says, "I cook the dinner and Margaret 9. At ten, we have some milk and then we go to bed. Perhaps (可能) our life 10 very interesting, but we like it."

    I sat with my friend in a well-known coffee shop in a town of Italy.

    As we enjoyed our coffee, a man entered and sat beside us. He called the waiter over, saying, "Two cups of coffee, one of them there on the  1."

    We heard his order with  2  and noticed that he was served one cup of coffee  3 he paid for two.

    When he left, the waiter put a piece of paper on the wall saying "A Cup of Coffee".

    While we were still there, two other men entered and  4  three cups of coffee, two on the table and one on the wall. They had two but paid for  5. This time also, the waiter did the same thing. It was  6 unusual for us.

    After a few days, we had a chance to enter this coffee shop again. While we were enjoying our coffee, a man  7  appeared homeless entered. He looked at the wall and said, "One cup of coffee from the wall."

    The waiter served a cup of coffee to this man with  8. The man had his coffee and left without  9. We were amazed to watch all of this as the waiter  10  a piece of paper off the wall and threw it into the bin.

    Now it was no surprise for us – the matter was very  11  . The people of this town showed great respect for those people who needed help.

Just think about  12 this man wanted. He didn't have to lose his face to ask for a(n)13 cup of coffee.  14 asking or knowing who was giving him this cup of coffee, he only looked at the wall, made an order for himself,  15  his coffee and left.

    It's a truly beautiful thing – probably the most beautiful wall anywhere in the world.

    A group of boys gathered around a tree. "What a tall tree!" they said to each other. "It would be 1to climb to the top!"

    The group of boys then decided to play a game to see who could climb to the top of the tree2. Their mothers were sitting not far away, looking on at their children as they 3.

    One of the climbers was an 8-year-old boy named David. He was the shortest child in the group. Nobody thought he would4 the competition.

    Then the game started. All of the boys tried their best to climb as5 as they could. Although they all made it halfway up the tree before David did, he reached the top of the tree fastest6.

    His mother was proud to see this. She asked him, "David, how did you 7to reach the top of the tree so quickly?"

    "It was easy," David said. "The other children kept looking down as they climbed. When they realized how high they were, they got scared(恐惧的) and were afraid of    8down. I, however, looked only 9. When I saw how close I was, I kept going higher and higher until I reached the top."

    It is true in life that if we just keep going forward without looking back, we are more likely to reach our goals(目标).

    One day in class, the teacher held up an apple. She stood on the platform (讲台) and said, "Please 1 it in the air, and…"

    One student 2 his hand and said, "I can smell it. It is the smell of an apple."

    The teacher stepped 3 the platform, passed by each of the students and said, "Smell 4 to see if the smell of the apple is still in the air."

    Half of the students put up their hands to show that they could smell it. The teacher returned to the 5 of the classroom and asked again who else could smell the apple. The rest raised their hands except one boy. The teacher came to the boy and asked, "You really can't smell the apple?"

    The boy answered, "No, I can't smell it. I don't think it's a 6 apple."

The teacher 7 at the boy and said to the class, "He's right! It's not 8 to get the apple smell from this apple."

    All of the other students had been tricked. Some may have thought that perhaps the apple didn't have the apple smell, 9 they didn't dare to speak up. They just 10 the first student blindly and went along with him.

    An old man went to India. When he got there, he saw a lot of fruit for sale, but much of it was very 1. Only a big basket of red fruit was cheap.

    "How much per kilo?" the old man asked. "Two rupees(卢比，印度货币单位), "the shopkeeper answered. Two rupees in India is almost2, so the old man bought a whole kilogram and started eating it.

    However, as soon as he started eating, his3began to burn, his eyes began to water, and his whole face became as4 as the fruit. As he coughed and struggled to breathe(呼吸), he5up and down, screaming(尖叫)："Ah！Ah！Ah！"

    And yet he6to eat the fruit！

    Some people saw him and said, "Those are chili peppers(红辣椒)！You can't just eat them by the handful！"

    The old man said, "I7for them, so I must eat them."

    This old man must seem pretty stupid. But are we much smarter？All of us have8money, time and effort(努力)into something maybe a relationship, or a business, or a job-and sometimes, 9we know there's no hope that things will change, we still continue with it. Why？Because we've put in all that money, time and effort.

    What we can learn from the old man is this：If you've lost a lot for something that doesn't work, let it go and10. It's better than continuing to lose.