Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table, reading his book. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to copy him in every way he could.

One day the grandson asked, “Grandpa, I try to read the book just like you, but I don’t understand it, and I forget what I understand as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the book do?”

The grandpa quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, “Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water.”

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandpa laughed and said, “You’ll have to move a little faster next time,” and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again. This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned. Out of breath, he told his grandpa that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, so he went to get a bucket instead. The grandpa said, “I don’t want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You’re just not trying hard enough.” The boy again dipped the basket into the river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandpa the basket was empty again. Out of breath, he said, “Grandpa, it’s useless!”

“So, you think it is useless?” the grandpa said, “Look at the basket.”

The boy looked at the basket and for the first time he realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean.

“Grandson, that’s what happens when you read the book. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you’ll be changed, inside and out.”

   I have received many Christmas gifts over the years. I remember many of them, from the tape recorder I _____ from my dad in 1975 to the black guitar my wife gave me several years ago. The best gift I ever received was presented to me by a _____. I never even knew his name and I only had contact with him for less than 60 _____. His Christmas present to me changed the way I thought about _____ and about Christmas.

It was several years ago when my wife asked me to meet her at the local _____. They had advertised a kind of _____ for children that she wanted to purchase for our son. We stood with a very large crowd, waiting for the manager to blow the whistle, _____ his employees to cut the shrink-wrap off the box. After a while the whistle was blown. It was like _____ a bucket of bait (鱼饵) into a tank of sharks. I knew this was going to happen.

As the bikes began to _____ decrease in number, I saw my opportunity to wrap my ______ around the corner of one of the boxes. I ______ one box and suddenly felt some mild resistance. I ______ to see one of the largest gentlemen I had ever seen in my life. I felt somewhat ______. Obviously, tattoos (文身) were his hobby.

I started to ______ the box but he gently pushed it back in my direction and back into my hands. He then ______ it into my shopping cart. He looked at me, ______, and said, “Merry Christmas.” My wife and I went to the ______, paid for the bike and went home. All the way home I was thinking that this moment was by far the best Christmas ______ I had ever received. I will never forget the ______ of a stranger and the gentleness of a human heart in a ______ act.

   Carl Kenton is a wealthy businessman. Five years ago, after returning from abroad to his motherland, he _____ his small company. Speaking of success, Kenton often tells us a story about his extra（额外的）expensive "school" fee. He always owes his _____ to it.

At that time, Kenton, who already got a Ph. D. degree, decided to return to the homeland, starting a company. Before _____, he bought a Rolex watch with the _____ made through years of work after school and the scholarships. At the airport he had to accept the routine customs check. The watch on his wrist was also asked to be _____down for a check. Kenton knew that carrying the _____ goods out had to pay the tax, and he worried about paying _____ for his watch. So when he was checked, he told a lie that his watch was a _____ fake（假货）. When he was proud of his "smarts", immediately, in the _____ of Kenton, the officers hit the watch, which ______ nearly $ 100, 000, into pieces on hearing Kenton's words. Kenton was ______. Before he understood why, he was taken to the office to be examined ______. For many times of entry-exit ______ he knew that only those people on the "blacklist" would "enjoy" this special ______.

The officers looked over everything carefully in the box, and ______ him no matter what time of entry and exit he must accept the check and if ______ using and carrying fake and poor goods again, he would be charged according to law! Suddenly, his face turned red, and he had nothing in mind even after ______ for long.

After returning to the homeland, he often told the story to his family, and his employees, too. He said that this made a deep ______ on him, because the extra high "school" fee that he had ever paid made him realize the value of ______, which he would ______ as the secret of his success forever.

Once there lived a rich man 【小题1】wanted to do something for the people of his town.【小题2】 first he wanted to find out whether they deserved his help.

In the centre of the main road into the town, he placed【小题3】very large stone. Then he 【小题4】(hide ) behind a tree and waited. Soon an old man came along with his cow.

“Who put this stone in the centre of the road?” said the old man, but he did not try to remove the stone. Instead, with some difficulty he passed around the stone and continued on his way.【小题5】man came along and did the same thing; then another came,and another. All of them complained about the stone but not tried to remove 【小题6】. Late in the afternoon a young man came along. He saw the stone,【小题7】(say) to himself: “The night【小题8】(be) very dark. Some neighbors will come along later in the dark and will fall against the stone.”

Then he began to move the stone. He pushed and pulled with all his  【小题9】(strong) to move it. How great was his surprise at last!【小题10】 the stone, he found a bag of money.

   When Dekalb Walcott Ш was just 8 years old, his father, a Chicago fire chief, let him tag along on a call. Dekalb says a lot of kids idolized (崇拜) basketball player Michael Jordan when he was growing up in Chicago in the1990s. Not him.

“I wanted to be like Dekalb Walcott Jr, ”he says of his father. So when his dad asked if he wanted to go on that call with him when he was 8, Dekalb was excited. “I'm jumping up and down, saying, ‘Mom, can I go? Can I go?’”

The experience changed Dekalb's life, and he told his dad on a visit to StoryCorps. “My eyes got big the moment the alarm went off, ” the younger Dekalb says. “This is the life that I want to live someday. ”

Now 27, the younger Dekalb is living that life. He became a firefighter at 21 and went to work alongside his dad at the Chicago Fire Department. Before his father retired, the pair even went out on a call together-father supervising (监督)son.

“You know, it's everything for me to watch young row, ”his father says. But he also recalls worrying about one particular fire that his son faced.

“I received a phone call that night. And they said, ‘Well, your son was at this fire. ' I said, ‘OK, which way is this conversation going to go?'”Dekalb Walcott Jr. recalls.

“And they said, ‘But he's OK. And he put it out all by himself. Everybody here was proud of him. ’”

“And the word went around, ‘Who was out there managing that fire? Oh, that’s Walcott!That's Walcott up there!’So, you know, moments like that, it's heaven on earth for a dad. ”

Dekalb Walcott Jr. has retired. The younger Dekalb says he's proud of being a second-generation firefighter. “You know, it makes me look forward to fatherhood as well, because I'm definitely looking forward to passing that torch (火把) down  to my son. ”