We spent a day in the country and picked a lot of flowers. Our car was full of flowers inside! On the way home we had to stop at traffic lights, and there my wife saw the bookshelf. It stood outside a furniture（家具） shop. "Buy it," she said at once. "We'll carry it home on the roof-rack（车顶架）. I've always wanted one like that." What could I do? Ten minutes later I was twenty dollars poorer, and the bookshelf was tied on to the roof rack. It was tall and narrow, quite heavy too.  As it was getting darker, I drove slowly. Other drivers seemed more polite than usual that evening. The police even stopped traffic to let us through. Carrying furniture was a good idea. After a time my wife said, "There's a long line of cars behind. Why don't they overtake（超车）?" Just at that time a police car did overtake. The two officers（警官） inside looked at us seriously when they went past. But then, with a kind smile they asked us to follow their car through the busy traffic. The police car stopped at our village church（教堂）. One of the officers came to me. "Right, sir," he said. "Do you need any more help now?" I didn't quite understand. "Thanks, officer," I said. "You've been very kind. I live just down the road." He was looking at our things: first at the flowers, then at the bookshelf. "Well, well," he said and laughed. "It's a bookshelf you've got there! We thought it was--er, something else." My wife began to laugh. Suddenly I understood why the police drove here. I smiled at the officer. "Yes, it's a bookshelf, but thanks again." I drove home as fast as I could.

    Seven years ago, Kevin Stephan, then aged 11, was playing baseball when a player accidentally hit him with a bat (球棒).

    Kevin fell down and his heart stopped. Penny Brown, the mother of another player, was watching the game. Penny usually worked in the evenings as a nurse, but luckily that evening she wasn't working. Penny ran to help Kevin and saved his life.

    Nearly seven years later, Kevin was washing up in the kitchen of the Hillview Restaurant in Buffalo, New York State. Normally, 18-year-old Kevin had classes in the afternoon, but that week there were exams and he didn't have any classes. At about 2 p. m. , Penny Brown was having lunch with her family in the restaurant. She was eating when some food got stuck in her throat. She was very frightened because she couldn't breathe.

    Kevin was a volunteer firefighter in his free time and he ran to help. A waitress tried to help her, but the food was still stuck in Penny's throat. Kevin pulled his hands quickly into her stomach and saved Penny's life. He didn't know it was Penny, but his mother, Lorraine Stephan, was also having lunch in the restaurant. She realized that Penny was the woman who saved Kevin's life, seven years ago, at the baseball game. Both Penny and Kevin were completely amazed by the coincidence (巧合)!

    A friend's grandfather came to America from Britain. He went into a cafeteria in Lower Manhattan to get something to eat. He sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to take his order. Of course nobody did. At last, a woman with a plate full of food sat down in front of him and told him how a cafeteria worked. "Start out at one end," she said. "Just go along the line and pick out what you want. At the other end they'll tell you how much you have to pay."

    "I soon learned that's how everything works in America," the grandfather told a friend. "Life is like a cafeteria here. You can get anything you want only if you like to pay the money. You can even get success, but you'll never get that if you wait for someone to bring it to you. You have to get up and get it yourself."

    "Can I see my son?" the happy new mother asked. She couldn't wait to open the swaddling(襁褓) clothes. But when she saw his tiny face, she was shocked! The boy had been born without ears.

    Although the boy's hearing was perfect, he was often laughed at because of his strange appearance. It was only his appearance a little bit different. One day, he rushed home from school and threw himself into his mother's arms, burst into tears, "A big boy called me a monster!" Sad tears flowed down the boy's face, also into the mother's heart.

    The boy's father asked a famous doctor for help, "Could nothing be done to help my son?" "I believe I could put a pair of ears on him if they could be found," answered the doctor. Two years went by. One day, his father said to the son, "You are going to the hospital, son. Someone will donate the ears you need. But it's a secret." After the successful operation, a new person appeared! The boy's life became beautiful since then. The boy often asked his father, "Who gave me the ears, dad? Who gave me so much? I could never do enough for him or her." "It's a secret," answered his father quietly. The years kept their secret, but the day did come. It was the darkest day for the son. He stood with his father over his mother's casket棺材). Slowly and gently, the father raised the mother's long thick hair to show that the mother had no ears! "Mother said she was happy that she never had her hair cut," he said, "And nobody had ever thought Mother less beautiful than before, had they?" After mother had died, the boy finally knew the truth.