Thank you for listening!

Dad handed me the bucket and the net with a long, wooden handle. He gave Paulie two dead fish wrapped in newspaper. They were tied up with string like a present. I held my nose, but Paulie held those fish like they were his best baseball cards.

“Since we all want crabs for supper, catch a whole bunch. But just in case you don’t, we have leftover broccoli (花椰菜).” Dad said with a wink.

The salty air from Chesapeake Bay filled our noses. This was the best place in the world to catch blue crabs. They like grassy, shadowy water, so Paulie and I headed for our old wooden dock. It was hot, and I sat down and swung my legs over the edge, into the cool water. Paulie struggled to tie the string to one of the slippery fish. Then he slid the extra fish into the bucket and set it in the dark water under the dock for later.

“Here.” Paulie handed me the baited string. “Dangle (提着) this down in the water to call the crabs.”

Crabs love smelly, old fish, so our first crab didn’t take long to come. Its big claw clamped (紧夹住) the bait, and I raised the string real slow so Paulie could net it. But my legs swishing (发出刷刷声) in the water startled that crab, and it let go and floated back to the bottom like a leaf off a tree. Paulie brought up the net and stood there with the handle on the dock.

“Kathy, I can’t believe you’re going to be in third grade and can’t sit still for one minute,” he said.

“And I can’t believe you’re going to be in sixth grade and haven’t caught any crabs yet.”

I went back to dangling the fish.

“Well, get ready,” he urged. “Here comes another one.”

The sun began to set.

8 . The history of microbiology begins with Dutch cloth maker named Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a man of no formal scientific education. In the late 1600s. Leeuwenhoek, inspired by the magnifying lenses（放大镜）he used to examine cloth, built some of the first-microscopes. He developed technique to improve the quality of tiny, rounded lenses, some of which could magnify an object up to 270 times. After removing some plaque from between his teeth and examining it under a lens, Leeuwenhoek found tiny twisting creatures, which he called “animalcules”.

His observations, which he reported to the Royal Society of London, are among the first descriptions of microbes（微生物）. Leeuwenhoek discovered an entire universe invisible to the human eye. He found different microbes in samples of pond water, rain water, and human blood. He gave the first description of red blood cells, observed plant tissue, examined muscle, and investigated the life cycle of insects.

Nearly two hundred years later, Leeuwenhock’s discovery of microbes helped French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur to develop his “theory of disease”. This concept suggested that disease originates from tiny organisms attacking and weakening the body. Pasteur’s theory later helped doctors to fight infectious diseases including anthrax, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, tetanus, and typhoid. All these breakthroughs were the result of Leeuwenhoek’s original work. Leeuwenhoek did not foresee this legacy.

In a 1716 letter, he described his contribution to science this way: “My work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a strong desire for knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therefore; whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that the scientific community might be informed thereof.”

I am a photographer running a studio in the inner city. We are well known for our children's portraits (肖像)，and we range from high-end portraits for modelling jobs to fun sibling photos and birth announcements. We do a bit of everything； as such, we are extremely busy, and it states on our website that we do not accept walk-ins. We are usually booked up six months in advance. One day, ten minutes before closing, a mum walked in with a young girl around six or seven behind her. I internally sighed.

The mother said："Hello. I know you're closing soon, but I have a special favour to ask.”

At that point the little girl peeked around her mother's legs and I was lost for words. Under her thick winter coat and hat, she was skinny with huge dark circles under her eyes. From what I could tell, she had no hair, and a tube taped to her cheek that fed into her nose. It was immediately clear this kid was very, very sick.

The mother said again, nearly teary. " My daughter saw one of your photos taped to the wall at the hospital. She really loves unicorns (独角兽)and the photo had a girl photoshopped onto a horse. I know you're booked up, and it's months before the next appointment, but…”

At that point she actually started crying. I realised that our next available appointment was probably way too far away for this particular kid. The little girl squeezed her mother's hand. I am a very big guy with a beard, but I'm not ashamed to say I needed a minute before I spoke.

I smiled and said with the softest voice I had ever had ： ” Ahh, that's just for regular customers I I've been waiting all day to take a photo of someone as beautiful as you! What's your name, sweetheart?"

I locked the front door and invited them to the changing room,

The mother thanked me over and over and came up front, holding out her credit card.             .

Lon was chasing his runaway horse when a goose went under his feet. And he fell into a thornbush (荆棘丛). “Why do I have such bad luck?”

Things never seemed to go Lon’s way. If there was a bee about, he was stung.

And if his horse ran away, it would run straight through a thornbush. Still, even bad luck might turn good if he could catch that goose for dinner.

He scanned the bushes, and found a nest with an egg. Just an egg, but even one egg might make a small meal.

He picked it up, but dropped it in surprise. The egg was unusually heavy, and it gleamed (发光) in the sunlight. It was made of gold!

Lon sighed. He’d nearly stepped on a goose that lays golden eggs. If he had captured the goose, he would have had golden egg after golden egg.

Then a thought exploded in his mind.

Perhaps he could take the egg and get it to hatch, and the new goose would lay golden eggs just as its mother did.

Lon smiled. His luck seemed to be changing.

Once home, Lon placed the egg into a bed of cotton next to the hearth. He turned it every hour for several days.

One morning, he heard a faint chk-chk-chk. A small golden beak poked its way through the shell.

It was an ugly little thing, but Lon didn’t care. All that mattered was the golden eggs it would soon lay.

The gosling demanded food. Lon happily kept its beak filled. He named the bird Goly and became fond of it, even though it was soon better fed than he was. Lon talked to his goose and taught it to play checkers (国际跳棋).

Time passed as Lon waited for the first golden egg. Goldy had grown quite fat, but there were no eggs. Lon finally took the goose to a farmer to see what the problem was.

The farmer took a closer look and laughed. “You’ll never get eggs from this goose. It’s a boy goose!

I might as well roast you for dinner,” Lon said. “At least then I’ll get a meal for all my work!”

Alarmed，Goldy popped out of Lon’s arm and escaped into the forest.

One morning, Lon awoke to Goldy’s familiar honking outside.