A young man is sitting by the road eating something. A policeman is coming over. At once, the man gets up quickly and runs down the road. The policeman runs after him. The man runs very fast. But the policeman runs faster. After a few minutes, the policeman catches him. ‘Where are you going?' says the policeman. ‘You must be a criminal (罪犯) if you run like that when you see a policeman.' ‘No, no,' says the man, ‘I'm not a criminal. I'm just too fat, you see. The doctor says to me that I must always run fast after eating.' ‘I see,' says the policeman, ‘You are running to help to lose some weight (重量).'

    If you were to walk up Arthur Bonner and say, "Hey, Butterfly Man." his face would break into a smile. The title suits him and he loves it.

Arthur Bonner works with the Palos Verdes blues butterfly, once thought to have died out. Today the butterfly is coming back—thanks to him. However, years ago if you'd told him this was what he'd he doing someday, he would have laughed, "You're crazy." As a boy, he used to be "a little tough buy on the streets". At the age of thirteen, he was caught by police for stealing. At eighteen, he landed in prison for shooting a man.

    "I knew it had hurt my mom," Bonner said after he got out of prison. "So I told myself I would not put my mom through that pain again."

    One day he met Professor Mattoni, who was working to rebuild the habitat for an endangered butterfly called EI Segundo blue. He saw the sign "Butterfly Habitat" and asked, "How can you have a habitat when the butterflies can just fly away?" Dr. Mattoni laughed and landed him a magnifying glass, "Look at the leaves. I could see all these caterpillars on the plant." Dr. Mattoni explained, " Without the plant, there are no butterflies."

    Weeks later, Bonner received a call from Dr. Mattoni, who told him there was a butterfly that needed help. That was how he met the Palos Verdes blue. Since then he's been working for four years to help bring the butterfly back. He grows astragalus, the only plant the butterfly eats. He collects butterflies and bring them into a lab to lay eggs. Then he puts new butterflies into the habitat.

    The butterfly's population, once almost zero, is now up to 900. For their work, Bonner and Dr. Mattoni received lots of awards. But for Bonner, he earned something more: he turned his life around.

    For six years now Bonner has kept his promise to stay out of prison. While he's bringing back the Palos Verdes blue, the butterfly has helped bring him back, too.

    “Please take my penny,” said Maggie to old Dan, the fisherman, who sat on a bench repairing his nets.

    Her brother Andrew drew her back, whispering, “Maggie, he is not a beggar (乞丐)!”

    But Maggie paid no attention. “Please take it,” she said again. Old Dan smiled, and took it. “Thank you, little miss,” he said, “It is kindly meant.”

    After that, Maggie went to the beach to gather shells. She never thought how fast the hours were passing until being tired. She sat down on a rock. Soon she was scared because the sea water was going up. She wanted to go home, but she found the places she had gone down easily very difficult to climb up. The stones were wet and smooth. What could poor Maggie do? She felt sad and cried.

    Luckily, Dan's large dog Rover jumped down from a rock! Rover raised his loud bark. The fisherman had taken his nets to the top of the cliffs (悬崖), and was laying them out in the sun when he heard the loud barking of a dog. He felt sure that it was Rover, and Rover was in trouble, so he looked over. There he saw it all.

    “Bless her! It is the little one that was so kind-spoken to me this morning!” he cried, and he hurried to his sons' rooms.

    “Quick, boys, quick!” he said. “Get to the boat, and row fast to the sea. There is a poor child there just waiting to be helped.” The fishermen lost no time, and soon little Maggie and Rover were rowed safely to land! Old Dan was waiting there to lift her out to give her into her mother's arms.

    “It was the penny that did it, madam,” he said to Mrs. Weston later. “I saw Rover looking at her when she put the penny. And I am thinking he had been looking after her all the day.”

    Some years later, Rover came to Maggie's home with a little note, in which was written—“Will Maggie help Rover?—his master is dead.”

Blue Lightning

    Sally loved cars more than anything else. This spring she thought of building a go-kart to enter for the Go-Go Race. So she asked her dad for help.

    "Well," he said. "How about this: you do some research first and then come back to me with a design."

    A week later, Sally brought her notes and drawings to Dad. She named her go-kart "Blue Lightning". Dad looked over her work, thinking. "Well, that's interesting," he said. "Have a try. Just build Blue Lightning as you've designed."

    Over three weekends of hard work, Sally turned her design into a real, working go-kart and painted it light blue. Dad asked her to take it for a test drive. Sally agreed.

    After she did that, Sally drove back to Dad. "Well," she said. "Now I know why you wanted me to have a test drive."

    "Oh, do you?" he said. "Please share."

    "When I drove fast, there was a lot of pushback," she said. "I think it's because of the lightning bolt (闪电) shape."

    "Very good!" Dad said.

    "So, why didn't you tell me about that problem in the first place?" Sally asked.

    Dad laughed. "Where's the fun in that? If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime."

    Sally said, "I see. Anyway, designing is half the fun!"

    Dad smiled. "Good. Sometimes, learning happens during the process. We learn how to do something right by doing it a few times first and making mistakes along the way."

    That encouraged Sally and she worked even harder. When she showed Dad her new go-kart, he nodded with pride.

    Finally came the race. Sally wasn't worried about whether she would win—in her mind, she had already won, by building something better than ever before.