In many parts of the world, farmers and their families live in ________ or towns. In the United States, however, each farm family lives on ________ own fields, and often can’t see ________ neighbors. Instead of traveling from a village to the fields every morning, American farmers stay ________ their land all the week. They travel to the ________ town on Saturdays for shopping or on Sundays for church. The ________ ride on horses to large schools. Of course, life keeps changing for everyone, including farmers. Today there are cars, good roads, radios and so on. And of course there are machines for farming. All of these have ________ farm life.

For many years, however, farming in America was ________ a lonely way of living. Farmers had to ________ their problems by themselves. But now they learn to try new methods and to believe their own ideas instead of ________ older ways.

One day, there was a blind man called John sitting on the floor with a hat by his feet and a sign that read, “I am blind. Please help me.”

A publicist (广告员) named Tom saw that the man only had a few coins in his hat. He put a few of his own coins in the hat. Without saying anything, he took the sign, turned it around and wrote a new message. Then he put the sign by the feet of the blind man, and left.

Later that afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was almost full of coins. The blind man recognized (识别) his footsteps and asked if it was he who had changed his sign. He wanted to know what the man wrote on it.

The publicist said, “I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read, “Spring has come, but I can’t see anything.”

Do you know the changes of life in the past and at present? Hundreds of years ago, life was harder than it is today. People didn’t have modern machines. There was no modern machine, either.

Life today has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. Water pollution has made our rivers and lakes dirty. It kills our fish and affects our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us talk louder and become angry more easily. Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution. It affects every living thing in the world. Cars, planes and factories all pollute the air every day. Sometimes the polluted air is so thick that it is like a quilt (被子) over the city. This kind of quilt is called smog.