1 . An early morning winter storm had brought several inches of snow to my small town in the mountains. Schools were canceled, roads were dangerous and all I wanted to do was to stay in bed. However, I knew I had to get the day started so I put on warm clothes and walked outside. The snow got all over my shoes. The cold wind dried my lips and my eyes. My 47-year-old back ached in anticipation (预想) of the shoveling (铲雪) I would have to do if the snow didn’t stop soon.

Yet, when I looked out on the white blanket that covered the ground, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. It was so beautiful. It softened the bare trees and hid the dead grass. In the distance I could hear the sound of the snowplow on the road, the barking of a happy dog and the laughter of children playing outside, enjoying their day off from school. The sweet music of that laughter brought back a hundred memories of winters past. I remembered catching snowflakes on my tongue, building snowmen, making snow angels, running down hills and always losing snowball fights with first my brothers and then my own children. Standing there in that warm coat of memories made the wind a little less cold and my back a little less sore. I turned up my head, stuck out my tongue and for the first time in years caught a snowflake on it. It tasted so fresh and clean. It tasted like youth, like joy and like love.

May you always feel young in spirit, no matter how old or achy your body may be. May you always delight in the simple joys of life. May you always share your happiness with the hearts of children. And may you always give your love, your light, your laughter and your warmth to others even on the coldest days.

2 . Zhao Yuan, who was a dance teacher, lost one leg in an accident at the age of 24._______she had to use a wheelchair, and leave her_______ position and started to make a living in business. She opened a hotel in her hometown and used some of her earnings to help_______for the college cost of 13 poor students.

In 2020, she set up an offline sales platform called Good and Fresh, which mainly sold goods produced by Zhao’s disabled friends. _______ the pandemic (疫情), however, Good and Fresh _______making money, so Zhao _______ online sales instead.

She became a livestream(直播) host on social media platforms, _______ the sales of goods like brown sugar, sweet potato flour and honey that her friends made. Although Zhao Yuan, who only had one_______, had to deal with her own disability, she had made her business succeed in creating a_______ in e-commerce   (电子商务) and had helped more than 2,000 other________ people sell agricultural products. Everything she sold came from 55 agricultural centers around the province________ by the disabled. She had also trained 57 hosts, all of whom were disabled.

With the________ of her business, Zhao has set up the Good and Fresh Agricultural Science and Technology Development Company, of which she is________. She is planning to________ another 1,000 hosts, and hopes that they will also be able to achieve their personal and social________ through work, just as the way she is doing.

3 . Two weeks ago, a 5-year-old girl named Sunshine Oelfke emptied out her piggy bank (存钱罐) onto the living room floor and immediately started counting. Her grandmother, Jackie Oelfke, thought she was playing as she carefully lined up the coins, but then she saw the girl put the coins into a plastic bag and place it in her backpack.

“What are you doing with that money?” Jackie asked her granddaughter.

“I’m taking it to school,” Sunshine replied. “I’m going to take it for milk money. My friend Layla doesn’t get milk— her mom doesn’t have milk money and I do.”

Jackie’s heart melted at Sunshine’s words. Choked with strong feelings, Jackie held her sweet granddaughter tightly in her arms.

Last week, Jackie and Sunshine met with her teacher, Rita Hausher, and handed her the $30 the kindergartner had saved. There are 20 kids in Sunshine’s class and about half don’t get milk. It costs $ 0.45 a carton (纸盒). The total adds up to about $180 a month for every child in the class to have milk every day.

After dropping Sunshine off at school, Jackie posted a tearful video on Facebook to explain her granddaughter’s plan. To her surprise, many people offered to donate toward the cause. Within a week, Jackie raised more than $1,000. Now every student in Sunshine’s class can get free milk for the rest of the year.

Jackie said Sunshine doesn’t see her kind act as a big deal. She was just trying to look out for her friends. “She doesn’t understand the effect she’s brought about,” Jackie said. “But now she knows she can do whatever she puts her mind to.”

4 . I’ve loved my mother’s desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it as mother sat doing letters. Seeing what Mother was doing, I thought that the act of writing must be the most wonderful thing in the world.

My mother was a kind person, who always showed her love on me in action. However, as a little girl, I only wanted heart-to-heart talks between mother and daughter. But such talks never happened. I was sad about it and often rude to her, eager to start a new life somewhere else.

When I had my own family, I came to understand mother’s love. So I wrote to mother and asked if she’d forgiven my rudeness. Then, I posted the letter and waited for her answer, but it never came. I felt disappointed and slowly didn’t care too much about it.

Years later, during mother’s final illness, she left some things for my sister and brother. “But the desk,” she said in a weak voice, “is specially for Elizabeth.” When I cleaned the desk-her present for me, I found a one — page letter inside, folded many times. It was the letter that I wrote years ago.

Then, tears came down, “Oh, dear mom, you’ve chosen the silent act to show you did forgive me and always be proud of my writing. Thank you for your silent love. I love you forever!”

7 . After a serious earthquake happened, a father left his wife safely at home and rushed to his sons school, only to find that the building where his son studied had collapsed and looked like a pancake.

He was shocked. He didn’t know what he should do for a while, then he remembered the words he had said to his son, “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you!” And tears began to fill his eyes. He started digging through the ruins.

As he was digging, other helpless parents and the firemen arrived and tried to pull him off the ruins, saying, “It’s too late! They’re all dead! There’s nothing you can do!” To them he replied with one line, “Are you going to help me now?” And then he kept on digging.

No one helped, however. He went on alone because he needed to know for himself, “Is my boy alive or is he dead?” He dug for eight hours…12 hours.….24 hours.….36 hours.. then in the 39th hour, he pulled back a rock and heard his son’s words. He shouted his son’s name, “ARMAND!” He heard back, “Dad!?! It’s me, Dad! I told the other kids not to worry. I told them that if you were alive, you’d save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved. You promised, ‘No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you!’ You did it Dad!”

“What’s going on there? How is it?” the father asked.

“There are 14 of us left out of 33, Dad. We’re frightened, hungry, thirsty and thankful you’re here. When the building fell down, it made a triangle, and it saved us.”

“Come out, boy!”

“No, Dad! Let the other kids out first, because I know you’ll get me! No matter what happens, I know you’ll always be there for me!”

8 . It was one of those terribly hot days in Baltimore. Needless to say, it was too hot to do anything outside. But it was also scorching in our apartment. This was 1962, and I would not live in a place with an air conditioner for another ten years. So my brother and I decided to leave the apartment to find someplace indoors. He suggested we could see a movie. It was a brilliant plan.

Movie theaters were one of the few places you could sit all day and — most important — sit in air conditioning. In those days, you could buy one ticket and sit through two movies. Then, the theater would show the same two movies again. If you wanted to, you could sit through them twice. Most people did not do that, but the manager at our theater. Mr. Bellow did not mind if you did.

That particular day, my brother and I sat through both movies twice, trying to escape the heat. We bought three bags of popcorn and three sodas each. Then, we sat and watched The Music Man followed by The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. We’d already seen the second movie once before. It had been at the theater since January, because Mr. Bellow loved anything with John Wayne in it.

We left the theater around 8, just before the evening shows began. But we returned the next day and saw the same two movies again, twice more. And we did it the next day too. Finally, on the fourth day, the heat wave broke.

Still, to this day I can sing half the songs in The Music Man and recite half of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart’s dialogue from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! Those memories are some of the few I have of the heat wave of 1962. They’re really memories of the screen, not memories of my life.

9 . Andy rode slowly on his way to school, day-dreaming about the fishing trip that his father had promised him. He was so busy dreaming about all the fish he would catch that he was _________of everything else around him.

He rode along until a strange sound around _________him to the present. He came to a stop and looked _________ up to the heavens. What he saw shocked him. A huge swarm of bees _________ the sky like cloud and the buzzing mass was moving towards him.

With no time to waste, Andy sped off _________ the opposite direction, riding furiously without knowing how to _________ the swarm. With a rapidly beating heart and his legs pumping furiously, he sped down the rough road. As the bees came closer, his panic increased. Andy knew that he was sensitive to bee stings(蜇) . The last sting had _________ him in hospital - and that was only one bee sting! He had been forced to stay in bed for two whole days. Suddenly, his father's words came to him. "When you are in a tight situation, don't panic. Use your brain and think your ways out of it. "

On a nearby hill, he could see smoke waving slowly skywards from the chimney of the Nelson family home. "Bees don't like _________, " he thought. "They couldn't get into the house. " Andy _________ towards the Nelson house, but the bees were gaining ground. Andy knew he could not reach the house __________. He estimated that the bees would catch up with him soon.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eyes, he__________ a small dam used by Mr. Nelson to irrigate(灌溉) his vegetable garden. Off his bike and into the cool water he dived, disappearing below the __________and away from the savage insects. After __________ his breath for as long as he could, Andy came up for air and noticed the bees have gone. Dragging himself out of the dam, he __________ up the hilly slope and rang the doorbell. Mr. Nelson took his inside and rang his mother.

"You'll really need that fishing break to help you recover, " laughed his mother with __________. "Thank goodness you didn't panic! But Andy did not hear her. He was dreaming once again of the fish he would catch tomorrow. "

An 11-year-old boy in the American state of Rhode Island recently discovered an unusual example of sea life. He found what is thought to be one of the    1    （large） quahogs ever found in the state. Quahogs are a kind of large clam（蛤蜊）    2    is eaten as food.

Cooper Monaco was looking for clams with his grandfather when he found the large creature. Monaco gave it to    3    university.

The clam is 14.5 centimeters across and    4    （weigh）nearly 1.3 kilograms .The Department of Environmental Management for the state does not keep quahog records. But a quahog grows to about 10 centimeters across, the university said.

Monaco described how he found the creature in a statement. "I was down on my hands and knees in the water    5    （look） for clams, and I touched this huge rock thing," he said. Monaco added, " always pull out rocks and throw them to the side and look under them. And then I felt    6    （it）edge and I thought, ‘Holy moly, this is a clam.’ And I can hardly find a word to express my    7    （excite）.”

Monaco knew the quahog was    8    （unusual）large, so he told his mother not    9    （cook）it. Ed Baker, the manager of the URI Marine Science Research Facility, says that the quahog will    10    （show）to the public.