Growing up, I wanted to be just like my mom. She was kind and caring, and always made people comfortable in her presence. For years she was a volunteer in our community. I love going to the local nursing home to help with her when I was a child. However, once I became a teenager, I was too caught up in my adolescent world to worry about helping others.

One particular summer day when I was 12, Mom came into my room and told me to get up and meet her at the car. But I had planned to spend the day at the lake with friends. Why did she have to ruin everything? At last, I made my way outside with my mother. Angry and annoyed, I climbed into the car and shoot the door loudly. I sat in silence, too upset to talk. “Tasha, do you know where we are going?” Mom asked calmly. I remained silent. “Sweetheart, we’re going to the children’s shelter. I have been there before and I think it would benefit you,” she explained.

I feel a pain slowly form in my stomach. How was I supposed to help there?

When we reached the shelter, I was rather surprised. As we approached the front door, wind bells played a calming tune while trees and flowers welcomed us. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so.

Mom rang the doorbell. We were led to the front room, where all of the children were playing. Toys were spread out across the floor. I noticed a baby whose body was seriously wounded. Most of the children had noticeable physical scars such as cuts, burns and scratches. What a terrible life they must had had before they moved here! My heart sank. As I was looking around, I felt a gentle pull on my shirt.

On a cold windy day, a poor boy tried to pay his way through school by selling goods door to door. Wandering on the street, he was not a successful seller. What’s worse, he found that he only had one dime left. His empty stomach reminded him constantly that for days he hadn’t eaten anything. He had no choice but to beg for a meal at the next house. Hesitantly he knocked at a door, thinking about what to say when it was opened. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. “What can I do for you?” asked the young woman. The boy paused for a while, “Would you please give me some...a drink of water?” the boy dared not to look directly into her eyes. She looked at the bony boy and thought he might need something to give him energy so she brought him a glass of milk. His head rising and small hands taking the cup, he drank it up slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?” “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied with a warm smile on her face. “My mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness.”Deeply moved, he said sincerely, “Then I shall thank you from the bottom of my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in the whole human race. As a matter of fact, he was about to give up and quit before that point.

Years later the young woman became critically ill. However, the local doctors were unable to give an effective medical treatment. Finally they sent her to a hospital in the big city, where specialists can be called in to cure her rare disease. Among those famous specialists, Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.

Dressed in his doctor’s gown, he went in to see her.

The bill was sent to her room.

It was time to go home. “Remember to work on your class speeches for homework,” Miss Walker said as everyone started talking and packing their school bags. Jenny felt sick. She hated having to read aloud in class. She was sure everyone would get really bored with listening to her. Once, when Jenny was reading out her holiday diary, Lee was even looking at his watch, a silver and blue one which seemed just magical.

Jenny watched Lee walk ahead of her as they left school. He seemed so clever, and he had a certain sort of shining confidence. He was just one of those people who were good at everything. Jenny sighed. As she turned the corner, she saw Lee’s watch lying right in the middle of the path.

Jenny picked it up and wanted to return it to Lee, but she couldn’t catch up with him. When she arrived home, Jenny put it on, thinking about the magic. She was surprised that it fitted so well. She walked to the mirror and started practicing her speech. Words just flooded out of her. “I’m going to talk about swimming. I have been lucky. I’ve won lots of competitions. But when I’m in a race, I’m not really thinking about winning. I’m just loving the feeling of being in the water…” Jenny laughed with excitement. She walked across the room. She suddenly seemed to have a certain sort of confidence. Turning back to the minor, Jenny saw a flash of light from the watch in the glass. The flashes of silver seemed almost magical. So maybe Lee’s watch really did have something magical.

The next day, as the lesson began, Miss Walker ask cd who was going to be brave and go first. Nobody moved, Jenny slowly raised her arm. Before Miss Walker could say something, there was a shout “She’s stolen in y watch!” Lee said angrily. “It went missing at school yesterday.”

Everybody was fixing their eyes on Jenny, waiting for an explanation,

Miss Walker smiled and asked the class lo listen lo Jenny’s speech first.

Grandpa’s Old Chair

It was the annual cleaning day for the family. John and his mom were busy cleaning the house. They cleaned upstairs, downstairs, inside and outside until everything was spotless. Exhausted, they sank into the couch. Just then, John’s mom noticed an old chair that was faded and worn. That chair was for John’s grandpa, who had lived with them since John’s grandma had died.

“John, come and help me.” John’s mom sprang to her feet. “We’ll take the chair to the curb (路边). The garbage truck is picking up on our block tomorrow.”

As they attempted to move the chair, John’s grandpa made his way through the door. Seeing what was happening, he quickly tried to stop them. “No!” he protested. “You can’t take my chair.”

“But it’s so old...” John’s mom argued. “We’ll buy you a new one.”

“No,” he persisted, trying to push his chair back into place.

John’s mom finally let go of the chair and left the room. With a sigh of relief, the old man sank into his chair and closed his eyes.

“Grandpa, why won’t you let us get rid of the chair?” John asked.

“You don’t understand, John.” His grandpa shook his head and said, “I sat in this chair with your grandma right here when I asked her to marry me. And I sat in this chair the night your father was born. Many years later,” Grandpa’s voice broke, “I sat in this chair when the doctor called and told me that your grandma was ill. I was lost without her, but the chair gave me comfort and warmth.” The old man’s sadness seemed to grow as he recalled that fateful day.

“I understand now.” John looked at his grandpa and said, “This is not just any old chair. It is more like a friend.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “We’ve gone through a lot together.”

However, that night, when John and his grandpa were asleep, John’s mom and dad carried the chair outside. It was a starless night. Snow fell silently from the black sky and covered Grandpa’s chair in a blanket of white.

The next morning, John was woken by the garbage truck pulling up to the house.

Hearing this, John’s mom looked at his grandpa and slowly walked towards him.

My family moved in a small house in Brighton, Colorado on my seventh birthday. My first memory is our neighbor Bill, an old man, handing me strawberries from his garden through a hole in the chain-link fence. “We need to make the hole bigger,” he said jokingly. Later I knew that he lived alone.

Bill spent much time working in the garden, and I was always talking to him from our yard. I was a chatterbox. I think what drew me to Bill is that he never got tired of listening to me. I also think Bill saw a lot of himself in me — we were both lonely and anxious — and that may be why he always took the time to listen to me. It was a wonderful connection.

There weren’t any kids of my age in the neighborhood, and my parents were very busy, so I mostly played in the yard with my dog. I had a lot of imaginary friends — a whole family, actually, with a wife, children, a best friend... no joke. Weird kid.

One day, my parents asked Bill whether he’d watch me while they were away on business. This worked for everyone, so it became a somewhat monthly occurrence. Bill had a spare room in his house, which became “my” room.

Bill promised to teach me to drive the lawn tractor(割草机) someday and I was always looking forward to it. In winter, Bill would attach a snowplow(铲雪机) to the front of the dawn tractor. I seriously told him that I would invent a better snowplow when I grew up. “Sure you will. You’ll get a patent certificate. It takes a certificate to prove an important thing,” Bill said with a smile.

One snowy morning, an idea suddenly hit me. My parents were watching TV when I spit it out, “What if I adopted Bill as my grandpa?” My parents said I could go over and ask him.

When she looked around her house, Betty Margaret saw lots of electronics. Along with the usual things like her laptop and smart phone, there were all of her kids’ electronic devices: cell phones, video game devices and more! There seemed to be more than enough ways for her and her three children to be online all day, every day.

Ms Margaret worried that her kids were becoming too dependent on the Internet and electronics. Then she began to reread one of her favorite books, Henry Thoreau’s Walden, which gave Ms Margaret an idea. Thoreau spent 2 years in a simple cabin without running such luxuries as computers and electronic devices for a while.

Ms Margaret talked with her kids and explained that she wanted the family to try living for 6 months without Internet, cell phones, TV, and video games. Ms Margaret writes articles for a newspaper in Australia, and had written several books as well. She told her children that if they agreed, she would write a book about their experience and they could go on a trip abroad with the money from sales of the book. Her three children agreed, and “the experiment” as Ms Margaret called, began.

Over the course of the experiment, the Margaret’s children had different reactions to life without electronics. Before the experiment began, Anni, the eldest of the children, read books more than her younger brother and sister. She therefore had a relatively easy adjustment to the family’s new lifestyle. Anni could also use the library’s computer for her homework. Bill, who loved to play video games before the experiment began, had to find a way to spend all of his new free time. He started to spend more time practicing his saxophone (萨克斯管). Susan, the youngest child in the family, had the hardest time adjusting to life without electronics. She felt restless for the first weeks and later, influenced by her elder sister, gradually began to find interest in the novel experiences brought by various books.

Upon having their daily family gathering after dinner, Ms Margaret, wearing a mysterious smiles, announced the big news that they had come to the end of “the experiment”.

The vivid description of their true and funny experience toward the new lifestyle undeniably contributed to the hit of the book.

It was the day of the big cross-country run. Students from seven different primary schools in and around the small town were warming up and walking the route(路线)through thick evergreen forest.

I looked around and finally spotted David, who was standing by himself off to the side by a fence. He was small for ten years old. His usual big toothy smile was absent today. I walked over and asked him why he wasn’t with the other children. He hesitated and then said he had decided not to run.

What was wrong? He had worked so hard for this event!

I quickly searched the crowd for the school’s coach and asked him what had happened. “I was afraid that kids from other schools would laugh at him,” he explained uncomfortably. “I gave him the choice to run or not, and let him decide.”

I bit back my frustration(懊恼). I knew the coach meant well—he thought he was doing the right thing. After making sure that David could run if he wanted, I turned to find him coming towards me, his small body rocking from side to side as he swung his feet forward.

David had a brain disease which prevented him from walking or running like other children, but at school his classmates thought of him as a regular kid. He always participated to the best of his ability in whatever they were doing. That was why none of the children thought it unusual that David had decided to join the cross-country team. It just took him longer—that’s all. David had not missed a single practice, and although he always finished his run long after the other children, he did always finish. As a special education teacher at the school, I was familiar with the challenges David faced and was proud of his strong determination.