On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.

      “Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?” the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by the stranger. “I'm from Mississippi too.”

      Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty party. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair

      “They began telling me all the news of Mississippi,” Welty said. “I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking.”

Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.

      “My friends said: 'Now we believe your stories,'” Welty added. “And I said: 'Now you know. These are the people that make me write them.'”

      Sitting on a sofa in her room, Welty, a slim figure in a simple gray dress, looked pleased with this explanation.

      “I don't make them up,” she said of the characters in her fiction these last 50 or so years. “I don't have to.”

Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets of her native Jackson, Miss., from conversations overheard on a bus. It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story.

    If anyone knows what makes a great children's book,it must be Sussex author and illustrator(插图家) Jane Hissey. Her " Old Bear" books have achieved classic status in a variety of formats.

    I caught up with Jane at her home in the East Sussex countryside and asked her what she thinks is the secret of a classic children's book. "That's a difficult one. I suppose it's got to be relevant to the child's stage of development-for young children, pictures on a page that are familiar, for older children, an experience. The book should be familiar,but hold some surprises too to keep the interest. It must inspire and delight, but there are the things that happen every day. "

    After the birth of her first child,she gave up teaching and worked on her own artwork, drawing pictures of teddy bears. An editor from a publishing company saw her work and invited Jane to do a children's book. Over the years, from the first " Old Bear" book in 1988,her children have made a huge contribution-not least in terms of plot. She said, "I used to give my children the toys to play with-and they had tea parties and so on. One of my bear characters,"Little Bear",is the same age as Ralph, my youngest, who's seven now. All the children have joined in my work and,in years to come, they will realize how much. "

    "I hope I'll know when people are getting tired of the characters. If ever they did, I think I'd go on drawing them for fun," Jane continued," My own children have been very useful to me in my work, but as they are older now, I'll just have to hope that other people's children can inspire me. "

    When you need to see a doctor, surely you will want to see a good one. But there is one important thing you may never have thought about: Has your doctor rested enough?

    Doctors in our country often have to work 34 hours or longer without sleep. Most of them work 104 hours a week, and some even 150. (There are only 168 hours a week!) One report said that a doctor who works such long hours cannot think more clearly than a drunk driver. Another found that doctors who sleep 5.8 fewer hours than the week before might make 22% more serious mistakes. Surely no one wants to get in a car that is driven by a drunk driver. So, how safe would you feel when you are under the care of a tired doctor?

    Sadly this problem has been around for a long time. There are no laws about it yet and hospital bosses don't look like they care either. And that is why we doctors are asking you to join us on the street this Sunday. Fight together with us on the street so we can fight better for your life in the hospital.

Time: 1 p. m. July 15            Place: City Hospital Square

    When most of us look at our hands, we might notice that we need to clean, or stop biting our fingernails, and that's about it. But if you ask a doctor, he can see a whole lot more. Everything from poor diet and stress to serious kidney (肾) problems can be revealed by a glance at your fingernails.

    There are about 30 different nail signs that can be associated with medical issues, though may indicate more than one problem, according to Dr. Amy Derick, a clinical instructor of dermatology at Northwestern University.

    Here are five of the things a doctor can tell about your health based on your fingernails.

    ⒈People who aren't eating well and lack vitamin or dietary may have thinner than normal nails, which are more likely to break.

    ⒉Horizontal lines are associated with serious physical stress. They frequently occur in people who have gone through chemotherapy(化疗).They can also occur after some illnesses, injuries, or with severe malnourishment(营养不良).Interestingly, there may be an altitude connection too. They've also been found in people who dove 1,000 feet and others who participated in an Everest exploration.

    ⒊Vertical lines, however, are generally not such a big deal. Some people are more genetically prone to them than others, but they're commonly associated with aging.

    ⒋When people lack iron, their nails can turn spoon-like. Instead of curving down and covering the finger normally, they'll start to rise up on the sides and front, like the part of a spoon that holds liquid.

    ⒌Kidney and liver problems can create “half-and-half nails”, where one part of the nail is white and the other part dark or pink, according to Derick.

    Doctors note that because disease diagnosis is complex and some symptoms can be associated with different diseases, you should always see a medical professional if you are concerned about something you notice.

    When the tornado(龙卷风) passed, Lewis returned to her house after that awful night, and the Bible was the first thing she looked for. She had bought it 35 years earlier, at the start of her marriage. Like many folks, she'd used it to preserve the family's history: decades-old photos, newspaper obituaries(讣告) of loved ones, a handkerchief from her great-grandmother, even a piece of a scarf her uncle had brought back from the Korean War.

    The Bible was not where she'd last seen it, on top of an antique dresser in her bedroom. The only thing left was the solid pieces of marble that had been on the top of the furniture. After an hour of searching, one of the volunteers ran up to her and found the Bible while clearing through ruins. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. It had flown about ten feet from the dresser. Surprisingly, while many books had been destroyed beyond recognition, the Bible was still intact, even though it had sat in the rain for days. "It was a miracle," says Lewis.

    A few of the Bible's treasures did go missing. Yet ever so slowly, they, too, began reappearing in Lewis's life. Days after the Bible was found, volunteers discovered one of the newspaper obituaries outside the home. Two weeks later, a neighbor found another newspaper clipping(剪辑) by her house. "It was a shock," says Lewis.

    Now the Bible already has its well-deserved place of honor, on the dresser. She knows that while every good book tells stories of disastrous weather and unlikely survival, this one actually lived it.