Summer was coming and it was getting hotter. Mrs, King got {#blank#}1{#/blank#}early one morning and went to the market after she {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (have) breakfast. She knew that everything was cheap there before eight o'clock. She wanted to buy many {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (vegetable) for her family. Suddenly she saw there were a {#blank#}4{#/blank#} of people around a farmer. She hurried there and found that he was selling some beef.

    "How {#blank#}5{#/blank#} does it cost? "a woman asked.

    "Two dollars a kilo."

    "Oh, how cheap it is!"Mrs. King said to herself. "John {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (like) beef very much. I'd better buy some here,"

    When she got {#blank#}7{#/blank#} with five kilos of beef, her son was happy but her husband got angry.

    "What a silly woman!" said Mr. King.↑"How shall we keep it fresh in such hot weather?"

    "Your aunt is very rich," said Mrs. King. "Why not go and borrow some money{#blank#}8{#/blank#} her? Then we'll be able to buy a fridge."

    Mr. King agreed and they began to teach their five year-old son what {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(say) when they were at his aunt's house.

    "John," Mr. King said, "how can we keep the beef fresh?"

    "That's easy," the boy said{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (happy). "By eating it!"

Yang Jiang, the famous woman writer and translator (翻译家), is well- known to us all. 

Yang was born in Beijing in 1911. Her real name is Yang Jikang. She graduated from university and went to Tsinghua University as a postgraduate (研究生) in the 1930s. There she met Qian Zhongshu. They fell in love and got married. In the 1940s, she started to use the name Yang Jiang as her pen name. Since then, she has been commonly known as Madam Yang Jiang. In the 1950s, she worked for Peking University and started to learn Spanish. She began to write short novels in the 1980s. Many of them are famous, such as The Old Wang (《老王》), After Baptism (《洗澡之后》) and We Three (《我们仨》).

Although Madam Yang has passed away, we will never forget the great madam. 

Plunk! I dropped another pecan(山核桃) into my basket. Then a gentle autumn wind blew some more off the tree. I ran to pick them up. Whew! Pecan picking was hard. My basket was only half full.

I was visiting my grandpa's farm in Kansas, and Grandpa sent me into the woods to pick up pecans for us to enjoy later. I wasn't about to let him down.

Then something caught my eye: a squirrel picked up a pecan, climbed up a tree and disappeared into a large hole. A moment later, the squirrel climbed down to the ground to pick up another pecan. Once again, the squirrel took the pecan back to his secret hiding place inside the hollow(洞) of the tree.

Not so secret any more, I thought. I ran over to the tree and found the hollow was filled with sweet pecans. They were right there for the taking. This was my chance. Handful by handful, I took all the pecans from the hollow. Now the basket was full!

I was so proud of myself. I couldn't wait to show Grandpa all of the pecans I'd collected.

"Look, Grandpa," I shouted, "look at all of the pecans I found!" Grandpa took a look at my basket. "Well, well, how did you find so many, Jimmy?" 1 told him how I'd followed the squirrel and taken the pecans from his hiding place. Grandpa congratulated me on finding out something about the squirrel's secrets. Then he did something that surprised me. He handed the basket back to me and put his arm gently around my shoulders.

"That squirrel worked very hard to collect his winter food," he said, "Now that all of his pecans are gone, don't you think that little squirrel will be very hungry when it gets cold?"

"I didn't think about that." I said.

"I know," Grandpa said, "But a good man should never take advantage of someone else's hard work, even the squirrel's."

Suddenly I felt as hollow as that old tree. The image(形象) of that hungry squirrel wouldn't leave my mind.

There was only one thing I could do.