There once was a wise man who was very respected for his wisdom. This great man was called the Wise Circle Maker. His people believed that he had special powers to make it rain.

    But the Wise Circle Maker did not know everything about life often, when he saw things that he did not understand, he would ask questions, hoping to find the answers.

    One day, he noticed a man panting a fruit tree. He asked the man, "When will this tree bear fruit? How long will it take?"

    The man said that it would take 70 years for fruit to come to the tree.

"And how old are you now?" asked the Wise Circle Maker.

    "I am almost 50 years old" replied the man.

"And do you think you will live to taste the fruit from this tree?" asked the Wise Circle Maker.

    "I am already old and will never taste the fruit from this tree I plant. But when I was born, I saw many fruit trees like this planted by my father, and his father. And I ate the fruit from those trees." replied the man.

    "This tree is for my children, my grandchildren and for their children too. They will taste the fruit of this tree. That is why I am planting it not for me, but for them."

The Wise Circle Maker was impressed. He could easily see the meaning He walked away happily, knowing that he still had much to learn about life.

Miguel finally sees Dad. He's just back from a working trip. "How's your chess game, Miguel?"

"Mrs. Lambert says I'm the best chess player in the school! She says you teach me well."

"We'll play after dinner," Dad says.

At night, Miguel wants to help Dad clean out his suitcase (手提箱). "Wait, Miguel. I'll take my next trip next morning." "Oh, Dad!" Miguel cries. "But you just got here!" Miguel eyes the suitcase. When he was little, he got into the suitcase, thinking Dad could take him to work as well. Sometimes Dad traveled really far and it was day there when it was night for Miguel. They couldn't even talk by phone.

"I'll miss you," Dad says. He then pets a box from his suitcase and hands it to Miguel.

Miguel opens it. A beautiful chess set!

"Thank you, Dad!" Miguel cries. "It's so nice!"

It's an exciting game of chess. When Miguel's bedtime comes, it's still not over. "Keep it. We'll continue the game when we meet again, OK?" says Dad. 

Miguel carefully takes the chessboard to his bedroom. He looks at it, wishing the game could continue.

"Oh, that'll be a great idea!"

The next morning, when Miguel wakes up, Dad's gone. After studying the chess board for a minute, Miguel calls Dad and leaves a message: "Dad, it's me…"

I am Alice. My sister and I spent our last summer holidays with our uncle who is a   geologist(地质学家) and loves to collect stones.

 One day he bought us two backpacks and asked us to go to the mountain with him. We walked the whole day. Every now and then he put stones in our backpacks. To our surprise, he also took some stones out from them. But we thought he had just found better stones.

 When we returned to the house, we were very tired. The backpacks were so heavy that we felt relief(轻松) when we took them off. Yet our uncle's backpack was half empty.

" Why did you give us so many stones?" we asked.

"I didn't. You did." he said." You didn't know it, but I gave you a little attitude(态度) test today.I listened to every word you said. Whenever you were complaining(抱怨),I added a stone to your backpacks. Every time you talked about something with positive(积极的) thinking, I took out a stone. And now look at your backpacks."

 Our backpacks were full of stones.

" Your negative(消极的) thoughts are just like stones. You carry them____in your mind just like those stones in your backpacks. The more negative thoughts you have, the heavier your mind will be." said our uncle.

 With great love, our uncle taught us one of the most important lessons in life— the power(力量) of the attitude.