【推荐1】When Laura wanted to go into the garden by the back door, it was blocked by servants.

Something had happened.

“What's the matter? What's happened?"

“There's been a horrible accident/ said the cook. "A man killed."

“A man killed! Where? How? When?”

Know those little cottages just below here, Miss?” Know them? Of course, Laura knew them. "Well, there's a young guy living there, name of Scott, a carter His horse shied（受惊）at a traction-engine, and he was thrown out on the back ofhis head. Killed.^

“Dead!" Laura stared at the cook.

“Dead when they picked him up," said the cook. 'Just now they were taking the body home. He'$ left a wife and five little ones.

come here;' Laura caught her sister's sleeve and dragged her through the kitchen into the garden. There she paused. "Jose!" she said, horrified, ''however are we going to stop everything?'

"Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

"Stop the garden party, of course.Why did Jose pretend?”

But Jose was still more amazed. "Stop the garden party? My dear Laura, don't be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don't be soextravagant”

“But we can’t possibly have a garden party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”

That really was extravagant. Those little cottages, those miserable houses, had no right to be in that rich neighbourhood in the first place. When Laura and Jose were little they were even forbidden to set foot there because of the rude language and of what they might see. It was dirty and disgusting.

“And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman," said Laura.

"Oh, Laura!” Jose began to be seriously annoyed, lf you are going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident, you'll lead a very difficult life, I'm every bit as sorry about it as you. But you won't bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental（多愁善感的）.”

"Drunk! Who said he was drunk?” Laura turned angrily on Jose, “I'm going straight up to tell mother

Do, dear," said Jose, gently.

"Mother, can 1 come into your mom?" Laura turned the big glass door-knob.

"Of course, child. Why, what’s the matter? What's given you such a colour?” And Mrs. Sheridan turned round from her dressing-table. She was trying on a new hat.

"Mother, a man's been killed,began laura.

“Not in the garden?" interrupted her mother.

“No, no!”

"Oh, what a fright you gave me!" Mrs. Sheridan sighed with relief and took off the big hat and held it on her knees.

"But listen, mother,,, said Laura, Breathless, half-choking, she told the dreadful story. "Of course, we can't have our party, can we?" she begged. "The band and everybody arriving. And the poor family would hear us, mother; they're nearly neighbours!”

“Oh, Laura's astonishment her mother behaved just like Jose; it was harder to bear because she seemed amused. She refused to take Laura seriously.”

“But, my dear child, use your common sense. If some one had died there normally一and I can't understand how they keep alive in those little holes一we should still be having our party, shouldn't we??”

Laura had to say “yes” to that, but she felt it was all wrong.

"Mother, isn't it terribly heartless of us?” she asked.

"Darling!" Mrs. Sheridan got up and came over to her, carrying the hat. "My child!” said her mother, "the hat is yours. It's made for you. Wow! Look at yourself!And she held up her hand-mirror.

"But, mother, Laura began again. She couldn't look at herself; she turned aside.

This time Mrs. Sheridan lost patience just as Jose had done.

"You are being very absurd, Laura," she said coldly. "People like that don't expect sacrifices from us. And ifs not very sympathetic to spoil everybody ,s enjoyment as you are doing now,"

"I don't understand,'' murmured Laura. Then, quite by chance, she saw this charming girl in the mirror, in the beautiful hat. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right. Am I being extravagant? Perhaps. Just for a moment she had another glimpse of that poor woman and those little children, and the body being carried into the house. But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper. I'll remember it again after the party's over, she decided. And somehow that seemed quite the best plan …

【推荐2】At the start of the 20th century, an American engineer named John Elfreth Watkins made predictions about life today. His predictions about slowing population growth, mobile phones and increasing height were close to the mark. But he was wrong in one prediction: that everybody would walk 10 miles a day.

Today, in Australia, most children on average fall 2, 000 steps short of the physical activity they need to avoid being overweight. In the early 1970s, 40 per cent of children walked to school, while in 2010, it was as low as 15 percent.

The decline is not because we have all become lazy. Families are pressed for time, many with both parents working to pay for their house, often working hours not of their choosing, living in car-dependent neighborhoods with limited public transport.

The other side of the coin is equally a deprivation: for health and well-being, as well as lost opportunities (机会) for children to get to know their local surroundings. And for parents there are lost opportunities to walk and talk with their young scholar about their day.

Most parents will have eagerly asked their child about their day, only to meet with a “good”, quickly followed by “I’m hungry”. This is also my experience as a mother. But somewhere over the daily walk more about my son’s day comes out. I hear him making sense of friendship and its limits. This is the unexpected and rare parental opportunity to hear more.

Many primary schools support walking school-bus routes (路线), with days of regular,   parent-accompanied walks. Doing just one of these a few times a week is better than nothing. It can be tough to begin and takes a little planning-running shoes by the front door, lunches made the night before, umbrellas on rainy days and hats on hot ones-but it's certainly worth trying.

【推荐1】Rene Compean was no stranger to Angeles National Forest. He’d hiked the park near his home in Southern California numerous times. But after taking a new path last April, he was lost.

As the day faded into dusk, his concern turned to fear. The terrain (地带) was remote and rough. With only a liter of water and less than ten percent battery remaining on his cell phone, Compean was unprepared for anything more than the two-hour journey he’d planned. Compean climbed to a spot, where he found only one bar of signal. “SOS. My phone is going to die. Pm lost,” he texted a friend, attaching a photo showing where he was. The shot showed his legs hanging over a steep rock.

Sixty miles away in Ventura County, Ben Kuo was working at home when he read a tweet from the Los Angeles County Safety Department. They had spent the previous night unsuccessfully looking for Compean, so they released the photo to the public, hoping someone might know the location.

Kuo works in the tech industry, and he has an unusual hobby —looking for where photos are taken. When he saw the blurry (模糊的) image, he pulled up a satellite map on his laptop. He narrowed his search to the surrounding area where Compean’s car was parked and spotted an area that looked like the terrain in the image. When he cross-referred the original photo with 3-D images of the area from Google Earth, the locations matched!

Soon, a search-and-rescue team helicopter was in the air, flying above Compean. After spending 27 hours alone in the wilderness, Compean cried, “I’m safe!” John Gibert, a member of the search-and-rescue team, says, “Compean’s story probably would have ended very differently had a total stranger with strong satellite skills and a sharp eye for detail not taken action.”

【推荐2】As a child, there was nothing I liked better than Sunday afternoons at my grandfather’s farm in western Pennsylvania. Surrounded by miles of stone walls, the house and field provided endless hours of fun for a city kid like me.

Since my first visit to the farm, I had wanted more than anything to be allowed to climb the stone walls surrounding the houses. My parents would never agree because the walls were so old that some stones were loose and falling. However, my idea to climb across those walls grew so strong that finally I had all my courage to enter the living room, where the adults had gathered after Sunday dinner.

“I want to climb the stone walls.” I said. “Heavens, no! You’ll hurt yourself !” The response was just as I’d expected. But before I left the room, I was stopped by my grandfather’s loud voice. “Now hold on just a minute.” I heard him say. “Let the boy climb the stone walls. He has to learn to do things for himself.”

“Go,” he said to me, “and come and see me when you get back.” For the next two and a half hours I climbed those old walls — and had the time of my life. Later I met with my grandfather to tell him about my adventures. I’ll never forget what he said. “Fred,” he said, smiling, “you made this day a special day just by being yourself. Always remember, there’s only one person in this whole world like you, and I like you exactly as you are.”

Many years have passed since then, and today I host the television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, seen by millions of children throughout America. There have been changes over the years, but one thing remains the same: my message to children at the end of almost every visit. “There’s only one person in this whole world like you,” the kids will hear me say, “ and people can like you exactly as you are.”

【推荐3】In 1868, six-year-old Laura and her family set sail from New Bedford. The little girl was taken to share the adventure and the danger of life at sea by his father, Captain Jernegan, who was unwilling to be separated from his family when he was going to hunt the mightiest animal on earth. Laura was a keen observer and writer, whose diary offers a look into her unusual childhood.

Laura was fascinated by her father’s job. When the ship’s lookout spotted a whale, “I hope we shall get him,” she wrote. She watched as the men rushed to their whaleboats and chased the whale to within harpooning(鱼叉) distance. Once, they harpooned so huge a whale that his head was “as big as four whole rooms and his body as long as one ship,” Laura wrote.

Hunting whales was only one part of a whaleman’s job. As soon as a whale was caught, the crew began the hard and dirty work of processing it. ‘The whale body smelled” dreadfully, “noted Laura. The processing of the whale was finally finished when the cooled oil was spooned into barrels. One huge whale produced enough oil to fill seventy-five barrels, she noted. When the Jernegans returned home, the oil would be sold for the best possible price. Whale oil was important during the nineteenth century when it was used to light lamps and to make candles.

Whaling was both exciting and exhausting. Yet it also had its slow moments. Weeks could go by without so much as a glimpse of a whale. Then Laura filled her days with school lessons and sewing.

When Laura was grew up, she never went whaling again. By then, petrol had already replaced whale oil. This era, called the golden age of whaling, was over. So was the era of entire families going to sea. Yet Laura’s diary has helped to ensure that this chapter in America’s seafaring history won’t be forgotten.