2 . The arrival of spring always means a trip to the bamboo forest for Kaitlyn Hennacy and her family, followed by an afternoon making bamboo buns (包子). This ________ started when Hennacy’s mother and grandmother discovered ________ bamboo growing near the University of Maryland, where her mom was studying in the early 1990s. Hennacy said her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Zhejiang, China, where she ________ cooking with bamboo often.

The trip to ________ bamboo usually happens in late April. Each person in the group has their own bag to ________ as they get each bamboo shoot out of the ground. However, no one picks more bamboo than Grandma. The entire ________ of picking the bamboo and making the buns reminds Hennacy of how ________ her grandma is — and it ________ her own work ethic. “She turned 80 this year and still hikes up a hill,” Hennacy said.

To make buns, the bamboo has to be cut into small pieces and ________ with other fillings. Hennacy learned how to make the buns by ________ her grandma, but she had to work to measure everything and write it down because her grandmother cooks from ________.

Hennacy said she and her family are ________ to have Grandma living with them. She ________ everyone’s favorite foods and routinely ________ healthy meals. “That’s how ________ a person she is.”

Hennacy said. “She shows her love through cooking.”

3 . On the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal, a ship ________ with migrant workers returned to Andhra Pradesh. One of the workers ________ out at the waves and had a dream about the 2-year-old son he hadn’t seen since birth. The dream was filled with colors and promise.

When he ________ to his village, the man requested a meeting with the elders. ________ , the elders agreed, and the young son, Sam, became the only child in the village chosen to go to school.

“Even though many in my village hated me, and I often felt ________ , I kept going,” says Sam, who continued his schooling even when his father died,________ the family to fend(照顾) for themselves for survival.

When Sam finished public school, he was accepted to an American university. It ________ he would have to leave his mother and brother living at the lowest level of ________ in the village. He wouldn’t see them for two years. But his soul was good, and he was patient, even as his ________ hurt.

In university, his soul lit up, and he reveled in learning all he could ________ . From there, it was on to Washington, D. C. for a doctoral degree and a ________ in the Education Department.

Finally, Sam could fulfill the dream his father had for him: to bring ________ to the village. He sent most of his money back to the village to build a ________ school and pay for teachers. A brick building ________ on the dirt lot. Computers arrived, along with electricity and the internet. Sam returned every summer to work with the minister of education and invited every child to school.

“I have much,” he says. “So I give much.”

5 . After the first half-day of kindergarten, Abe had something on his mind. His mum, Ricki Weisberg, had made him a sandwich for lunch but Abe wasn’t having it. It was not a good sandwich. So after he stepped off the school bus, he said, “Mommy. Terrible sandwich by the way. Really terrible.”

The honest exchange between Abe and his mum was recorded on video by Weisberg. Weisberg shared it online and it became a hit and brought a lot of laughter to so many people. “It makes me happy because of the gaiety it probably brought to people,” said Weisberg. “For me, I just love that piece of that. Life is hard. So giving people laughter makes me happy.”

But most people just wanted to know one thing: What was the sandwich?

Well, the “terrible” sandwich was a hurried, thrown-together butter and jelly sandwich, said Weisberg. On Abe’s first day, Weisberg reread the school communication and realized she would need to pack him food. At first, Weisberg thought she could make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But because of food allergy (过敏) considerations at the school, peanut butter was out of the question. So she made him a butter and jelly sandwich.

Weisberg said, “I thought I made a good sandwich and I was being a good mum, so I was just expecting him to be happy. I was quite surprised when he hit me with that sandwich review.”

The butter, Weisberg would later find out, had gone bad. The sandwich tasted really terrible. “It’s really hard being a mum. You never really know if you’re doing it right. I just want to encourage parents to build that level of trust with your kids so they can be honest with you,” said Weisberg.

9 . Kathy and Brandon Gunn are a couple from Michigan, and they were married in September 2007. One gift that they received on their wedding day was a box from Kathy’s great aunt Alison. On the front of the gift, it read, “Do NOT open until 1st disagreement.”

The couple had forgotten about the present for years, even though their marriage had disagreements and arguments. It wasn’t until they were thinking about getting a gift for a friend’s upcoming wedding that they remembered their one gift that was still to be opened.

“I thought back to our wedding day (nearly 9 years ago) and tried to recall the gifts that had meant the most to me,” Kathy wrote in a post on Facebook. “The funny thing? The gift that meant the very most was still sitting in a cupboard. . . unopened. All along, we assumed that the contents of that box held the key to saving a marriage—an age-old secret—unknown to us. After all, my great aunt and uncle had been married for nearly half a century.”

When Kathy and Brandon finally opened the mysterious present, what they found inside was so sweet. There was one note and some money, and addressed to Kathy. It read, “Kathy, go get a pizza, shrimp, or something you both like. Aunt Alison.” Brandon also had a note addressed to him. It read, “Brandon, go get flowers and a bottle of wine. Aunt Alison.”

“For nine years that box sat high on a shelf in various cupboards gathering dust, yet it somehow taught us about inclusion (包容), understanding and patience. Today, we decided to open that box, because I finally had a realization,” Kathy wrote in her post. “I realized that the tools for creating and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage were never within that box-they were within us.”

Harry’s reward

Harry didn’t want to learn to swim. He couldn’t figure out what the use of learning to swim was. But Harry’s parents believed it was a great pity for a healthy boy to be afraid of the wind and the sea.

“Everybody, especially every Englishman and boy, should know how to swim,” Papa had said. “There is never any knowing the use it may be of.”

“Isn’t it very hard to learn?” Harry asked.

“It takes some patience,” his father said. “But in three weeks or so, you should be able to swim fairly well, if you have a lesson every day.”

There was no escaping it, however. Papa, though very kind, was very firm, and once he said a thing, it had to be done. So with a rather white face, poor Harry set off every day for his swimming lesson. He was a quick and clever boy, and a strong boy, and his father knew this. After the initial fear was overcome, it went on better and faster than could have been expected. Two weeks later, Harry had the pleasure of hearing his father say to his mother, “He swims already very nearly as well as I do myself.”

Seacliff, the place at which the family was spending the summer, was not a fashionable watering place but a little village. There were a few gentlemen’s houses in the neighborhood, so that in fine weather merry groups met at the little sheltered bay among the rocks.

One day, Harry, having finished his own morning swim, set off to walk home at his ease. Suddenly a sound disturbed his pleasant thoughts. A carriage was rushing wildly along, coming nearer and nearer. The driver, Ann, stood upright in the carriage (马车), hitting the poor horse as if she were mad, while from time to time she screamed, “Help, help!”

“What is it?” screamed Harry too, as Ann passed. She would not stop, but she threw back some words through the wind. “My sister—Alice—is drowning (淹溺). Go to the village to fetch someone who can swim.”

Harry ran back to the bathing place at once.

There were plenty of hands to help carry them to land once they were within a safe distance; however, it was Harry who was the true hero.