Once there was a man who could run very fast. He was very proud ______ this and was always ready to show people how fast he could run.

One day a thief broken to his house, took some of his things and ran off as fast as he ______. The man ran after him, shouting, “Hey, stop! Don’t you know you can’t get away from me?” But the thief only ran faster. The man got ______ angry that he ran at his top speed. He was soon several miles away from his house.

He was still rushing along ______ he ran into a friend. “Why are you in such a hurry?” asked the friend. “I am trying to catch a thief.” said the man, who was very much out of breath. “But where is the thief?” asked the friend. “Miles and miles behind!” said the runner, smiling with pride. “He ______ he could run faster than I can, but now, you see, he is quite wrong.

   A boy was one day sitting on the steps of a door. He had a stick in one hand, ______ in the other hand a large piece of bread and butter, which somebody had kindly given him. While he was eating it and singing a song happily, he saw a poor little dog quietly ______ not far from him. He called out to it, “Come here, poor dog!”

Hearing this, the dog woke up, rose with its ears ______ and wagged (摇摆) its tail. Seeing the boy eating, it came near him. The boy held out to it a piece of his bread and butter. As the dog stretched (伸出) out its head to take the ______, the boy quickly drew back his hand and hit it ______ on the nose. The poor do gran away, ______ loudly, while the cruel boy sat, laughing at the trick he had done.

A gentleman, who was looking from a window on the other side of the street, saw what the ______ boy had done. Opening the street door, he called him to ______ over, at the same time ______ up one dollar between the finger and the thumb (大拇指).

“Would you like this?” said the gentleman.

“Yes, if you ______, sir,” said the boy, smiling, and he quickly ran over to seize (抓) the ______.

Just as the boy stretched out his hand, the gentleman hit ______ on the knee with an umbrella. “Why did you do that?” shouted the boy angrily. He made a very ______ face and cried, “I didn’t hurt you, nor ask you for money.”

“______ did you hurt that poor dog just now?” said the gentleman. “He didn’t hurt you, nor ask you for your bread and butter. As you served it, I have served you. Now, remember it can feel as well as you, and learn to behave ______ towards animals in the future.”

   When Charley got up one morning, he looked out of the widow and saw the ground deeply covered with snow. On the side of the house nearest the kitchen, the snow was deeper than Charley’s head.

Charley’s father told him that they needed a path (小路) through the snow. “I would make one if I had time,” said his father, “but I have to go to work. Could you make a path, Charley?”

“How could I do that?” asked Charley in surprise. “The snow is higher than my head!”

“Little by little,” said Charley’s father.

So Charley got the snow shovel (铲) and started working. He shoveled and shoveled as hard as he could, but it was very slow work. “I don’t think I can do it, mother,” he said. “There is too much snow!”

“Little by little, Charley,” said his mother. “The snow fell in tiny flakes (薄片), but see what a great pile (堆) it has made.”

“Yes, I see. Mother. If I throw it away little by little, I can do it.”

Charley went on working as hard as he could. When his father came home in the evening, he was very happy to see a nice and clear path. The next day he gave Charley a nice card. Written on the card were the words “little by little.”

   On a summer day, a man sitting under a tree on the bank of a river, watched a group of ducks on the river.

Soon a branch（树枝）with leaves came drifting（漂浮）among them, and they all flew away. After circling in the air for a little time, they landed again on their feeding ground.

Soon another branch came drifting down among them, and again they took flight from the river. But when they found the branch had drifted by without any danger, they flew down to the water as before.

After four or five branches had drifted by in this way, the ducks gave little attention to them. At last, they hardly tried to fly out of their way, even when the branches nearly touched them.

The man who was watching all this, now wanted to know who had drifted these branches. He looked up the river, and noticed a fox slyly（偷偷地）watching the ducks. “What will he do next?” thought the man.

When the fox saw that the ducks were no longer afraid of the branches, he took a much larger branch, and hid himself behind it. Then he drifted himself with the larger branch. When he was right among the ducks, he caught two young ducks quickly and swam off with them. The rest of the ducks flew away in fright（惊吓）, and did not come back for a long time.

The fox must have enjoyed a fine dinner for what he had done.

As soon as the man steps in this world, the first persons who he meets are his family members. The first person is the mother who has taken great pain to bring him to this world. Then is the father who is always there to care for him. Then come the younger brothers or sisters.

The family is the first learning place for a person in this world. Starting from childhood until old age, he learns everything from his family. He sees his family members walking and starts trying that. He sees them speaking and he tries to copy them. Gradually, he learns the basic communication among the family members. He also learns how to love, how to behave, how to come along in life, all from his family. This develops a kind of close relationship among all family members. They are always there to help each other.

The family works like a chain. Younger people learn from elders while elders depend on their kids for a lot of things. When kids grow up, get married and have their own children, the whole cycle (循环) is repeated again. Family members will always rescue you whenever you need them. They always support you in different ways. You can always share your problems with your family and find a better way to solve your problems after a discussion in the house.

Considering all these, we can say, family is one of the greatest gifts of nature to us.

A group of working adults got together to visit their teacher. The teacher was glad to see them, and they talked about everything in their life. All of a sudden, conversations soon turned into complaints(抱怨)about stress in work and life.

The teacher just smiled and went to the kitchen to get different cups—some in plastic, some in glass, some plain(平庸的)looking and some looked rather expensive. The teacher offered his students the cups to get drinks for themselves.

When all the students had a cup in hand with water, the teacher spoke, “If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. It is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, but that is the beginning of your problems and stress. What all of you wanted was water, not the cup, but we went for the better cups.”

Just like in life, if life is water, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold life, but the quality of life doesn’t change. If we only care about the cup, we won’t have time to enjoy the water in it.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said, "I am blind; please
56．."

There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and
57． them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned
58． around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the
59． words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot
60． people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things
61．. The boy recognized (识别) his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the
62．. I said what you said but in
63． different way."

What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course
64． signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it
65． he was blind.

It was a sunny Saturday in Oklahoma City. A proud father Bobby Lewis was taking his two little boys to visit a museum. He walked up to the person at the ticket office and said, “How much is it to get in?”

The person replied, “$3.00 for you and $3.00 for any kid who is older than six. We will let them in free if they are six or younger. How old are they?”

Bobby replied, “One is three and the other is seven, so I guess I owe(应给)you $6.00.”

The person at the ticket office said, “Hey, sir, did you just win the lottery(彩票)or something? You could have saved yourself $3.00. I wouldn’t have known the difference.” Bobby replied, “Yes, that maybe true, but the kids would have known the difference.”

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” In challenging times when ethics(伦理)are more important than ever before, make sure you set a good example for everyone you work and live with.

   暑期将至，我们都应该制定合理的假期计划。请你根据以下要点提示，以“My Summer Vacation Plan”为题，用英语写一篇短文。

My Summer Vacation Plan

With the summer vacation coming, I will make a plan for it. First, _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________