It was my brother's idea. Let's get Mom a pet dog for her birthday. It would make her happy. I thought it was a good idea, as Mom had always wanted to own a dog. By the time our conversation ended, I had my task: find our mother a dog.

After a careful search, I finally found an ad for dogs in a local newspaper. A nearby family had a dog who had just given birth to five male puppies（小狗）！ All had had their first vaccines（疫苗），and would be ready to leave their mom in a few weeks.I gave them a call.

The man who answered the phone listened patiently to my story and set a date for us to meet the dogs.

When the day arrived, I got into my brother's car. We pulled up in front of some houses that sat along a narrow street. As we stepped onto the sidewalk，we were greeted by noisy barks（吠叫声）. Four dogs had positioned themselves on the back of a sofa and were watching us through a large window. We climbed onto the porch(门廊) and rang the doorbell.

A tall man with graying hair and a kind smile opened the door. As I reached to shake his hand, I could see the puppies behind him, running to get to us. Each puppy wore a different color string around his neck.

We met the man's wife, who wore a similar friendly smile and welcomed us to her home. We met the puppies' parents and then set about the business of selecting a friend for our mother. There were four puppies and four visitors; the man handed each of us a dog. Three of the puppies looked up at us with large, curious eyes. The fourth one, who I was holding, began to wiggle excitedly and kiss my face. "Let's take this one! He's the one! Look how lovely he is!" I said. As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal.

My brother wasn't sure and suggested that we take some time to get to know all of them.

Two weeks later, we picked up the dog and hid him around the corner in my mom's living room while she opened her birthday gifts.

Sue and Johnsy were two young artists, sharing a small flat on the third story of an old house. Once Johnsy fell very seriously ill in November. She had pneumonia. Soon she gave up hope for survival. The doctor who attended her did not see any positive change in her condition.

One day he told Sue that Johnsy’s chance of survival was limited unless she had something to hope for. She had made up her mind that she was not going to get well. If she lost her hope to live, medicines would do nothing. Sue tried her best to make Johnsy take interest in things around her. But there was no response from Johnsy. She always lay still on her bed looking at an ivy plant through the window gradually losing its leaves, and had taken it in her mind that she would die when the last leaf fell.

Sue continued to convince Johnsy that she was foolish to pin her destiny to the survival of the last leaf on the vine. The old ivy leaves had nothing to do with her getting well. The doctor was confident that she would get better. Johnsy was too depressed to say anything.

She kept on counting the remaining leaves on the creeper. One day Sue informed Behrman, an old fellow artist, who was their downstairs-neighbour, about this and he was annoyed that Johnsy had such little hope. He was aware of her wish to die when the last leaf fell.

Behrman came to their room and found Johnsy asleep. Sue drew the curtain together and they went to the next room. She peeped out through the window and saw only one leaf on the creeper which seemed to fall anytime because it was raining heavily and icy cold wind was blowing.

Behrman did not say a word. He went back to his room and decided to do something for Johnsy’s life. He painted a similar leaf and sticked it on the creeper while Johnsy was sleeping.

Next morning, after the storm, Johnsy saw the last remaining leaf still clinging to the creeper. She was filled with hope. She decided that she wanted to continue living. She thought that there must have been a reason that the leaf had refused to die, and it was a sin to want to die.

Johnsy soon recovered from her illness.

After some time, Sue informed Johnsy that Behrman had died of pneumonia while being out in the wet and cold, painting the last leaf. Behrman had finally painted his long-promised masterpiece— the leaf which saved Johnsy’s life, sacrificing his own in the process.

Willis knew it was meaningless to argue with his older brother Jack. Their mother had packed some sandwiches and a large plastic bottle full of juice and allowed them to go wandering along the coast.

Jack was in charge (负责), Mother had said. Just because Jack was 15, two years older than him, their mother thought Jack was smarter. But he wasn’t acting smart now. Even Tanya would not be so silly, and she was only 8.

“It isn’t far,” Jack said, “I can do it easily.” They looked at the small island just off the beach. Jack was talking about swimming around the island.

“But it’s a lot rougher (风浪很大的) once you get out of the bay.” Willis said, “You know there are currents (水流) all along this coast.”

“Look, who’s in charge here?” Jack said.

“You are,” said Willis.

“Right. Now you and Tanya stay here while I swim around this island. It should only take a short while.” They watched as Jack waded (趟水) into the water and set off.

Willis opened the juice, filled two plastic cups and passed one to Tanya. After a while, Tanya said, “We’d better leave some sandwiches for Jack. He might be hungry when he gets back.”

“He’s been gone a long time.” Willis said, “Let’s see if he’s made it.” They walked down to the other side of the bay.

“Look!” Tanya screamed as she pointed. Jack was there – holding onto a rock, halfway out of the water.

Jack must have heard Tanya for he shouted, “Help! Help!”

“We’ve got to do something,” said Willis. “But what? ... if only we had a rope.”

“The sheep!” Tanya said, pointing to the low cliff (悬崖) behind the bay. “The sheep we saw when we were coming here. They were tied up with rope!”

Willis got up the cliff as fast as he could.

Willis swung (摆动) the rope end with the bottle above his head and let it go.