【推荐1】Madison Williams was studying in her bedroom in Dublin, Ohio, in August 2016 when the door burst open. It was her mother, Leigh Williams, with a(an)______ story: “A little boy fell into a septic tank (化粪池), and no one can ______ him.” Then she made this ______ of her 13-year-old daughter: Can you help?

Madison and Leigh ran to a neighbor’s yard, where they found the boy’s ______ mother and other adults surrounding a septic tank opening. Its diameter was ______ wider than a basketball. The boy had ______ in and was drowning in the sewage (污水).

Madison quickly ______ the situation. She was the only one who could ______ through the small hole. Without ______, she told the adults, “Lower me in.” Inside, the tank was dark, and the air ______. In the process of finding the boy, her left wrist was injured by a hidden pole so ______ that the hand was useless. But Madison went on skimming the surface of the sewage, hoping to ______ the boy. “Every once in a while, I’d see his little toes she says. “Then I would try to grab them.” After several failed ______, she finally managed to grasp his foot tightly with her ______ hand. “Pull me up!” she shouted to the others above. Ten minutes after Madison had entered the tank, she and the boy were ______ out.

But the boy wasn’t out of ______. He had been taken away from oxygen long enough that he wasn’t breathing. He was ______ on his side, and an adult gave him several hard beats on the ______, one right after the other, until the boy coughed up liquids. It was only when Madison heard him cry that she knew he was all right.

It took Madison longer to ______ than the boy. She experienced months of physical treatment for her wrist, which, says neighbor Mary, made the girl’s actions more ______.

【推荐2】I still remember an old lady, a customer on the paper route in my hometown when I was 12 years old. She taught me a lesson in _______ that I shall never forget.

On a winter afternoon, a friend and I were _______ stones onto the roof of the old lady's house. The stone that I found was too smooth, so it slipped from my hand as I let it go and_______straight not for the covering on top of the house but for a small _______ on the house's back porch. At the sound of broken glass, we knew we were _______.We turned and  ran away.

I was too scared about getting _______ that first night to be concerned about the old lady with the broken window in the freezing weather. However, a few days later, when I was sure that I hadn't been discovered , I started to feel _______ about her misfortune. She still greeted me with a smile each day when I gave her the paper , but I was no longer able to_______comfortably in her presence.

I made up my mind that I would _______ my delivering paper money. And after three weeks I had seven dollars that I calculated would pay for her window. I put the money in an envelope with a note explaining that I was sorry for breaking her window and hoped that the seven dollars would ________ the cost of repairing it.

I waited until it was dark , moved ________ to the old lady ' s house and put the letter I didn’t sign through the letter slot(狭槽） in her door. I felt relieved  and could have the ________ of , once again , looking straight into the old lady's kind eyes .

The next day, I handed the old lady her paper and was able to ________ the warm smile that I was receiving from her. She thanked me for the paper and gave me a bag of cookies she had made herself. I thanked her and started to eat the cookies as I continued my ________.

After several cookies, I felt an envelope and pulled it out of the bag. When I opened the envelope, I was ________. Inside were the seven dollars and a short note that said ,“I'm proud of you.”

【推荐3】We first met Tom and Gee in the early days of our marriage. Someone had been ______   our garbage cans to the garage each garbage day, and Jim and I had wondered ______. Then one day we ______ him: an elderly man who lived across the street.

I baked cookies and left them on a chair outside the garage ______ a thank-you note. When we got home from work that day, a typed letter had replaced the ______. The letter was from Tom and explained how he had come to ______ the neighborhood on garbage day, returning cans for people he ______ knew. Back when he’d been fighting a war I wasn’t alive to see, his young wife, Gee, had found herself living alone. Neighbors had taken the time to ______ her garbage cans so ______ didn’t have to, and he ______ forgot. Now he paid it forward by doing the same for all of us.

A few years after we’d moved in, Tom died. We photocopied that letter and ______ it to one of our own for Gee. We told her how ______ Tom had been to us, how sad we felt sorry for her, how thankful we were to have ______ him. She wrote back and told us she still talked to Tom every day.

These days, we’re planning a ______. The house that seemed so huge six years ago is filled with furniture and books and toys and, of course, people. We know it’s time to go, and ______          we can’t seem to stick the For Sale sign up on the lawn. Gaining a third bedroom sometimes seems like an awful trade for all we stand to ______.

It’s not just Gee. It’s the man who lets our kids pick peaches off the tree in his front yard. It’s the ladies who ______ Jim when their pool filter (过滤器) breaks and leave overflowing baskets for our kids on Easter. It’s the police officer living directly across from us, who smiles and waves and makes me feel a little ______ when Jim is away.

The moving boxes are still neatly packed in our basement, but Jim and I agree to ______ until January. Maybe before leaving I’ll talk to Tom, just as Gee still does. Thank you, I’ll say, for teaching us what it means to be a ______.

【推荐1】It was Mother’s Day, but our mother was far away from us. I decided to drive to the ______ with my wife and our children to gather flowers.

After we arrived, we went hiking, played games, and collected all kinds of flowers and so on.How happy we were! Finally, though, we had to ______ our car and got ready to go back home. While the kids chatted and I drove, my wife sat behind me, surrounded by her flowers, a(n) ______look in her eyes.

Suddenly my wife ______to me, “Stop the car.Stop right here!” ______ I could ask her what had happened, she was out and went up a nearby grassy hill with the lilacs (丁香花) still in her arms. At the ______ of the hill was a nursing home and, because it was such a beautiful spring day, the patients were outdoors talking with relatives.

My wife went up the hill, where an elderly patient was sitting in her ______, alone with her back to most of the others.My wife ______the flowers to her and said something. The patient raised her head and smiled. They talked for a few ______before my wife ran back. As the car ______ away, I found in the mirror the woman ______ with the lilacs.

“Mom,” the kids asked, “Who was that? Why did you give her our _______ ? Is she somebody’s mother?” My wife said, “I didn’t know the old woman. But it is Mother’s Day. And she seemed so ______. Who wouldn’t be cheered by flowers? ______,” she added, “I have all of you, and I still have my mother, even if she is far away. That woman needed those flowers more than I did.”

Now, every May, our own yard is _______ with lilacs. Every Mother’s Day we drive to the countryside to gather flowers and sow more seeds in our yard. And every year I remember that lonely old woman in her wheelchair, and her smile on her face.

【推荐2】My grandma was in a nursing home. She was unable to move; now her eyesight was almost ______. Grandma and I often exchanged cards. I knew that she enjoyed ______ in touch with people. Since I returned, Grandma thought I should be her “personal ______   ” . I said, “I guess you’ve forgotten how bad my ______ is.” Grandma acted like she didn’t ______ me. Grandma would have me write letters on the cards she would send. She would dictate(口授); then I would ______ what she said. Grandma would always have me ______ what I had written back to her. Grandma didn’t have a hearing ______ then because she was always telling me, “That is not _________ what I said!” I would then rewrite what she exactly said.

Since I was ______ before Christmas, I asked Grandma if she would send some Christmas cards. Grandma readily agreed. I prepared several _________kinds of cards. I knew she had friends and family who all had different ________. I would take each card and ______ the front of the card in detail.

After a while, I looked up and I ______ several nursing home ________ standing in the doorway. I started to notice as I read each card, the ________ on their faces and Grandma’s face, too. Each one had a smile in _________ eyes, as they were seeing the scenes in their minds.

I thought I would be doing Grandma a favor when I started to write the Christmas ____ for her, ____ it turned out that she did me a big favor. I would always cherish this special memory of bringing some Christmas______and pleasant memories to Grandma and her fellow residents. That was it.