Kuang Heng was born in a poor family. He liked reading books very much. He needed to work at daytime, so he had to read books during night. But he was too poor to buy candles.

One day, he found his neighbor had candles, but the light couldn’t go through his room. So he dug a small hole on the wall so that he could use the light to read books. From that day, he read books every night until the light went out.

However, he finished reading all his books and there were no books for him to read. Then he went to a rich man’s house and worked for him without payment. The rich man asked: “Why don’t you want the money?”

Kuang Heng said: “Because I only want to borrow your books.” The rich man agreed. Kuang Heng read the books one by one.

Because he tried to get over difficulties and worked hard, he became a great scholar（学者）at last.

Trees are useful to human in three very important ways. The first important way is that they provide people with food, wood and other things. Trees provide people and animals with food. Without trees, many animals can’t live on Earth. It won’t be easy for people to live on Earth, either.

The second important way is that trees give us shade (阴凉处) on a hot summer day, people are glad to have a rest under the shade of a tree after they have walked a long way. You can imagine (想象) how important the shade of trees is to us and animals.

The third important way is that trees help to prevent (防止) drought (干旱) and floods. However, in many parts of the world, people have not realized this. They have cut trees down in large numbers. In the end, they find that they have lost the best friends they had.

John was a very strong man. Once he got a job cutting wood in the forest(森林). His boss gave him an axe(斧子) and showed him the area where he should work.

The first day, John cut down 18 trees.

“Good” the boss said, “Keep that up!”

Happily, John tried harder the next day, but could only cut down 15 trees.

The third day he tried even harder, but could only cut down 10 trees. Day after day he was cutting down fewer and fewer trees.

“I must be losing my strength (力气)” John thought. He said sorry to his boss and he said that he could not understand what was going on.

“When was the last time you sharpened (磨快) your axe?” the boss asked.

“Sharpened? I have no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut down trees!” said John.

Although John was working hard, he didn’t work “smart”．He didn’t think about the best way to do his job. Many of us never learn new skills, and we think that what we have learned is enough. Sharpening our skills from time to time is the key to success.