Last summer, 15-year-old Bob had a problem. Like a lot of children, Bob was interested in doing many things. He liked dancing best and wanted to join a dancing group. But Bob's high school didn't have a boys' dancing group but a girls' group. He tried to join the girls' group. And he made it.

Bob thought his problem was over after he had been one of the dancers in the dancing group. But a bigger problem was just beginning. The teacher didn't allow Bob to stay in the girls' group. “If Bob stay in the group,” the teacher said, “other boys will want to join and girls might leave.” They took Bob off the group(开除).

Bob was very angry about it, so he went to a judge (法官). The judge said it was not right and told the teacher to let Bob go back to the dancing group.

D

   Stuffy Pete sat down on a bench in the New York City Park. It was the third bench to the left as you enter the park from the east.

    Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years, an Old Gentleman had come to find Stuffy there at one in the afternoon. He led Stuffy to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. He was trying to make it a tradition.  

    Stuffy had just come from a dinner so big that he had almost no power to move. How he expected that gentleman would not come this year! Then his eyes grew wider and his breath stopped.

    The Old Gendeman was thin and tall, dressed all in black. He wore eye-glasses. His hair was whiter and thinner than it was last year. His legs did not seem as strong as they had seemed the year before, but he moved, straight and proud, to Stuffy and toward the tradition that he was building.

    "I am glad to see everything's fine with you. For that blessing you and I can give thanks on this day of thanksgiving. If you will come with me, my man, I will give you a dinner that will surely make your body feel as thankful as your mind," said the gentleman. The words themselves were almost a tradition

    Stuffy was very full, but he understood that his desire for food on Thanksgiving Day was not his own. It belonged to this kind gentlemam.

    The gentleman led Stuffy to the restaurant and to the same table where they had always gone. He sat at the table, watching.

    The turkey and all the other food were gone almost as quickly as they appeared Stuffy saw the look of happiness on the gentleman's face. He continued to eat to keepit there.

    In an hour the battle was finished.  

    "Thank you for my Thanksgiving dinner," Stuffy stood up heavily.

    They said goodbye, as they did each year, at the door.

    Stuffy went around the first corner, stood for one minute, and fell. He was picked up and taken to a hospital.

    An hour later , the Old Gentleman was brought to the same hospital.

    "That nice old gentleman over there," a doctor was talking to another. "Do you know what's wrong with him? He's almost dead for the need of food. A very proud old man, I think, He told me he hadn't eaten anything for three days."

    It's a Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Black goes to a dinner party. She is in an old jacket. When she comes into the party room, no one says hello to her. They don't ask her to have dinner. Mrs. Black is not happy.

    Then Mrs. Black goes home. She puts on her nice clothes. And she comes back to the party. All of people say hello to her and they ask her to have dinner. Is she happy now?

    Mrs. Black says, "You like my clothes, not me." Then she gets her clothes some food.

    "Eat, clothes," Mrs. Black says, "they like you, not me!"

    Then she doesn't have the dinner and goes back home.

    “Everything happens for the best, (一切都会变好的)" my mother said, whenever things weren't going my way. "Don't worry. One day your luck will change."

    After I had finished my college education, I discovered that Mother was right.

    I had decided to try for a job in radio. I wanted to host a sports program. I went to Chicago and knocked on the door of every station. But I got turned down every time. In one station, a kind lady said my problem was that I hadn't got enough experience. "Get some work in a small station and work your way up, "she said.

    I went back home. I couldn't get a job there, either. I felt really down. “Your luck will change, " Mom said to me. I tried another radio station in lowa. But the owner told me he had already had someone.

    As I left his office, I asked, "How can someone be a sports announcer(播音员)if he can't get a job in a radio station?" I was waiting for the lift when I heard the man call, "What did you mean? Do you know anything about football?" He put me in front of a microphone(麦克风)and asked me to try to imagine that I was giving my opinion on a football game.

    I succeeded!

    On my way home, Mom's words came back to me, "One day your luck will change, Son. And when it happens, you'll feel doubly good because of all the hard work you've done." At that moment I knew just what she meant.

    As far back as he could remember, Larry had wanted to go to Hollywood and become a film star. The young man's hopes for success were broken again and again. However, Hollywood was just everything to him. When he first came to California? Larry had decided never to give up and return home without success. Therefore, he kept on trying. "Some day," he told himself, "my big chance would come."

    Larry found a job—parking cars at one of Hollywood's big restaurants. His pay was low, but since the guests were kind enough to give him more money, he managed to make a living. One day he recognized an important film director driving into the parking lot and getting out of his car. Larry had recently heard that the man was ready to make a new picture.

    Larry got into the car and prepared to drive it on into the lot and park it. Then he stopped, jumped out, and ran over to the director. "Excuse me, sir, but I think it's only fair to tell you that it's now or never if you want me in your next picture. A lot of big companies are after me."

Instead of pushing away the boy, the director laughed, then wrote something on a card and handed it to the young man. "Come and see me tomorrow."

    Larry got a small part in the director's next film. He was on his way!