Have you ever ridden a Ferris wheel lately? Can you imagine the flying feeling as you are pulled up to the top and then moved down to the bottom quickly again?

    Today a Ferris wheel is usually 40 to 60 feet tall. That seems very high when you are on the top looking down. But the first Ferris wheel was 264 feet high- taller than a twenty-story building! Can you imagine the view from the top of that?

    The first Ferris wheel was built for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The people who planned the fair were looking for an attraction that would bring people to Chicago. George Ferris handed a drawing of a giant wheel that people could ride on. At first everyone laughed at his strange idea. But Mr Ferris did not give up, and finally the idea was accepted. The ride opened in June of 1893.

    Today's Ferris wheels have 12 to 16 seats, which each carry 2 or 3 people. But that first one had 36 enclosed cars, each holding 60 passengers. When filled, it carried 2,160 people. During that summer in Chicago, about 1.5 million people rode the Ferris wheel.

After the fair, the ride was moved to a nearby amusement park built especially to show off the wheel. In 1904, it was moved again一to St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. After the fair there, the wheel stood unused. In 1906, it was finally sold to a company for scrap metal(废金属).

    Luckily a Chicago bridge builder, W.E. Sullivan, figured out how to make a smaller Ferris wheel that could easily be taken apart and put together. In 1906, he started the company that still makes many of the Ferris wheels used today.

    But, whenever you ride one, remember that it all began with George Ferris's strange idea!

One morning, there suddenly comes a loud cry from a village school—a young bear walks into one classroom! 

"Don't be 1 !" says the bear, " I won't hurt (伤害) 2 of you. I just want to learn here."

"Oh! You can 3 ?" Mrs. Green asks in surprise, "But this is a school for children, not 4 ."

"What a 5 bear!" the children love this bear very much, and they cry, "Mrs. Green, please let him6 !"

"You must know, children," says Mrs. Green, "7 follows rules while bears not."

"But I can 8 to follow rules!" the bear cries, "Bears can 9 be good listeners."

"Well," Mrs. Green now says, "you 10 stay here today. But you must follow our rules."

"No problem!" the bear gets excited, "If my animal friends followed rules, we wouldn't 11 so much. That's 12 I'm here—I want to learn your rules."

Then he runs to a seat but suddenly 13 and shouts, "But what if I have a question to ask?"

Mrs. Green smiles, "You must 14 your hand until I speak to you."

The bear's hand 15 goes up. 

"Any questions?" Mrs. Green asks. 

"Yes!" the bear says, "If I follow the rules today, can I come back to school tomorrow?"

All the children laugh, and so does Mrs. Green!