As the late afternoon sun beat down on his farm last May, Brandon Leseberg finished feeding his cows and decided to go back home. As they often did, his two sons, Louie, 6 and Everett, 3, had followed along. To have a drink, Louie stepped on a well with a covering which is easily broken.

Brandon had just finished locking the gate when he turned around and saw only his youngest son.

“Where’s Louie?” he shouted.

“He fell in the hole!” Everett said.

Brandon quickly realized what had happened. Noooo! He thought. Louie can not swim! He ran to the well and without thinking, jumped in.

As he fell some 70 feet down the well, Brandon hit the ice-cold water. He grabbed Louie, who was frightened, trying to stay afloat in water that was too deep for either of them to stand.

“All right, Dad, you can pull us out now,"Louie said.

If only it were that easy. Each second in the well meant a greater risk of hypothermia (低温症).

Looking up to see Everett’s face above the well, Brandon shouted, “Everett, you’re going to have to be a big boy and save us. Run to the road and get someone to help!”

About 15 minutes later, their neighbors, Christi and Mark Mackenny, were driving by when they noticed Everett alone by the side of the road, waving. They pulled over and asked if he was OK. “My daddy and Louie are in a hole.” he told them.

The couple drove onto the farm, and the boy pointed them to the well. Mark dialed 911 while Christi called another neighbor, Dan Athen.

After hearing from Christi, Dan ran to his barn (谷仓), grabbed a thick 85-foot rope and then with his son Ryan, 13, sped to Lesebergs’ farm. Eric Duncan, who works on Brandon’s farm, and his friend Jocob MaKenny also arrived to help.

In southern China, there is a famous road     1    (build) across Poyang Lake, which lies in the north of Jiangxi Province, China and is known as China’s second     2     (large) lake. People in China also call it “the most beautiful road under the water.”

This road is sure     3     (attract) a lot of attention towards the end of May every year. A lot of people come out of     4     (curious). The water level of the lake is so close to the surface of the road,     5     makes the view ahead broad and bright when people drive along. It’s as though they were taking a boat across the lake. The feeling is     6     (simple) wonderful!

For the next few months, this road is not above the surface    7    under the water. When the water level of Poyang Lake starts to go up, the road surface becomes unseen. However, drivers can still drive across the lake safely     8     watching the guardrails(防撞护栏) fixed on either side of the road. For thrill-seeking motorists, it’s like     9     (drive) an amphibious(水陆两栖的) super car. Then in a few days, the entire road     10     (flood) with the continuously rising water. A few months later, the road will reappear.

Molly didn’t understand what there was to celebrate. She looked around as her graduating high school class cheered while standing and tossing their caps high into the air. Molly took her cap off and gripped it tight.

She craned her neck to look at the rain of black and white graduation caps cascading down. Some caps had signatures on them in permanent marker. Some were decorated with glitter and gems. Some had stickers and she noticed one was beautifully hand-painted.

She looked down at her own white cap. White. Blank. Bare. She drew it close to her chest and held on tight. Today was her last chance to see her best friends, after all. Wren had decided to head to the college where her father lived outside of the country. Iris was headed to collage on the other side of the country.

Molly sat down in her chair again. She was stuck in the middle of her graduating class. She couldn’t see Iris or Wren at the front of the class. Molly’s only friend at the moment was herself.

The ceremony was long over. Molly stood, trying to find some way out of the mess of chairs and people that blocked her in when she noticed Iris and Wren standing at the end of the row she was in. Molly cracked a smile and waved. She parted the chairs in front of her and walked along the seats in that row to get to her friends.

“Can you believe this day has finally arrived?” Iris exclaimed, clapping her hands together and bouncing on her feet. Molly cracked another smile. She still didn’t see what there was to celebrate.

Sure, she was excited to go off’ to college herself. She decided to go to the local community college because she wanted to stay close to home and also because she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a career. Both her friends had seemed to already figure that out and Molly felt even more backward.

She wasn’t doing anything special—no studying abroad, no living in a new country, no decorations on her graduation cap.

Wren took Molly by the hand.

Iris grabbed a purple marker, uncapped it and got to work.

8 . Mutualism—win-win ecological partnerships perfected over evolutionary time-lengths—is a less-known ecological relationship that is also weak and easily hurt by the effect of a rapidly changing planet.

Bees and flowers are typical examples of mutualism. Some bee tongues are perfectly evolved to tap into certain flowers. By specializing in those plants, the longer-tongued bees reduce competition with insects that can't access those sweet foods.

That mutualistic relationship, however, has been impacted in at least one population of bees and flowers. As certain flowers in Colorado have become rarer due to warming temperatures, the tongues of the bumblebees（大黄蜂）that historically fed on them have become shorter.

Like many of their relatives, bumblebees are on the decline. To find out what's going on, a team of researchers headed to Colorado. The researchers examined bumblebee samples collected on three mountains from 1966 to 1980 and also gathered a fresh set, which they collected in the same places from 2012 to 2014. They performed the task of measuring all the historic and recently caught bees' tongues.

As the team reports in Science, both of the species tongues have declined in length over time. The team found a nearly 25-percent decrease in tongue length between the bees collected decades ago and those living in the same region today.

Next they turned to the flowers. Looking at contemporary and historic botanical data, the scientists confirmed that the number of flowers with short tubes did not increase in large quantities. They found that in response to warmer temperatures, flowers have been moving up the mountains and becoming rarer at lower altitudes. This altitude-climbing effect has ultimately resulted in an approximate loss of millions of flowers.

The findings paint a telling picture: hotter summers caused bumblebees' choice flower species to disappear, forcing them to evolve shorter tongues to tap into the remaining food sources. Then, competition with generalist species, more time and energy needed and a forced reliance on alternative sources all likely contributed to the bees' overall decline.

“Little boy, will you help an old man up the hill with his load?” These words were spoken by an old gray-headed man, who was drawing a hand-cart with a bag of corn in it.

“I can’t. I am in a hurry,” said Hanson, the boy addressed, who was hurrying to get to the schoolyard, so that he might play with the boys before school began.

The old man sat down on a stone at the foot of the hill, to rest himself and gather strength for the ascent (上坡). He stared after Hanson, and sighed as he thought of the days of his youth, now far back in the past. A tear was beginning to gather in his eye, when another little boy, John Wilson, came up to him and said, “Shall I help you up the hill with your load?”

The old man brushed his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, and replied, “I shall be very glad to have your help.” He then stood up, took the handle of his cart, and pulled with all his strength, while John pushed behind.

When they reached the top of the hill, John discovered a hole in the bag on the under side, from which the corn was dropping out. Putting forth all his strength, he turned the bag, so that there might be no further loss of corn.

“Thank you very much,” said the old man, as John set out upon a run for his school-house; “and may God reward you.” But John was out of hearing before the last words were spoken.

When John reached the school-house, he was about ten minutes late, for which he received a mark (违纪记录). This was a very unusual thing for him, as he was remarkable for never being late. If he had told the headmaster what had delayed him, he would have been excused; but he thought it would look a little like boasting to do so. So he took the mark without saying a word.

When the school was over, Hanson approached John.

The next morning, John set out early for the school-house as usual.