My father loves his garden. He planted some seeds in it. But at that time, I didn’t understand why working in the dirt excited him so much.

Unluckily, in early May, my father was seriously injured in an accident. He had to stay in bed for a while. My mother had several business trips, so I said that I would take care of his garden until he recovered. I thought that the little plants would continue to grow as long as they had water, and luckily it rained often. So at first I didn’t pay more attention to this garden.

One Saturday morning, my father said to me, “Christine, I wanted to have some salad.” I panicked (恐慌) for a moment but then I quietly went to the nearest store to buy some vegetables.

When I gave the salad to him, he said, “Oh, what a beautiful salad! I can’t believe the carrots are this big already. You must be taking very good care of my garden.” I felt a little bit guilty (愧疚的).

Coming home, my mother saw the bag from the store in the kitchen. I was embarrassed and I admitted, “Dad wanted a salad, so I went to the store.” She laughed but promised to help me in the garden and weeks later I was finally able to pick some.

I carefully made a salad and took it to my father. He looked at it with a hint of a smile. “Christine, the carrots are smaller in this salad, but they taste better.”

Now, I better understand how putting a lot of effort into caring for something can help appreciate the results more, however small they may be. Perhaps this was one of the reasons for my father’s love of gardening.

Everything was ready when Laurie returned. He brought a note and some money from Aunt March. The afternoon passed slowly. Meg and her mother sewed, Beth and Amy prepared supper and Hannah did the ironing. It was dark when Jo finally arrived home. She had a very strange expression on her face. She put some money in her mother’s hand and said, “This is for Father. Buy something nice for him and bring him home!”

“Twenty-five dollars! My dear, where did you get it?” said Mrs. March in a surprised voice.

“I earned it,” replied Jo, taking off her hat.

Everybody in the room gasped. Jo’s hair was as short as a boy’s.

“Your hair! You cut your beautiful hair!” cried her mother. “It wasn’t necessary to do that!” She touched her daughter’s head and kissed her. “You don’t look like my Jo any more. But I love you the same!”

“Why did you do it?” asked Amy. She couldn’t imagine cutting her own pretty hair.

“I wanted to do something for Father,” replied Jo.

Mrs. March looked at her and smiled. She understood and she was proud of her daughter.

That evening Beth played her favorite hymn before they went to bed. Beth and Amy soon fell asleep but Meg was awake for a long time. She thought Jo was asleep but then Jo sobbed very softly.

“Jo! You are crying!” said Meg. “Are you worried about Father?”

“No, not now”

“Why then?”

“My hair!”

Meg smiled and kissed her sister.

—Taken from Little Women

This is me. My name is Peter. I am 12. I am in Beijing now. I like white and blue. I don’t like (不喜欢) black. (1) ______ telephone number is 256-9038.

This is Henry. He is my uncle’s son. (2) 他10岁了。He is in Qingdao now. He likes red and brown. He doesn’t like blue. His telephone number is 358-6912.

(3) This is my good friend. Her name is Anna. She is 11. She is in Shanghai now. She likes green and purple. She doesn’t like black. Her telephone number is 012-7632.

This is a photo (4) ______ my dog. Its name is Doudou. Doudou is my friend, too. It’s white. It is very nice. I like it.