英文閱讀(5篇)

1、1.Watching Me GoThe crayoned picture shows a first-grade boy with shoebox arms, stovepipe legs and tears squirting like melon seeds. The carefully printed caption reads, "I am so sad." It is my son Brendan's drawing-journal entry for September 19. Brendan cried his first day of school,

2、 dissolving at his classroom door like a human bouillon cube. The classroom jiggled with small faces, wet-combed hair, white Nikes and new backpacks. Something furry scuttled around in a big wire cage. Garden flowers rested on Mrs. Phillips's desk. Mrs. Phillips has halo status at our school. Sh

3、e is a kind,soft-spoken master of the six-year-old mind. But even she could not coax Brendan to a seat. Most kids sat eagerly awaiting Dick and Jane and two plus two. Not my Brendan. His eyes streamed, his nose ran and he clung to me like a snail on a strawberry. I plucked him off and escaped.It was

4、n't that Brendan didn't like school. He was the kid at the preschool Christmas concert who knew everyone's part and who performed "Jingle Bells" with operatic passion. Brendan just didn't like being apart from me. We'd had some good times, he and I, in those preschool y

5、ears. We played at the pool. We skated on quiet morning ice. We sampled half the treat tray at weekly neighbourhood coffee parties. Our time together wasn't exactly material for a picture book, but it was time together. And time moves differently for a child. Now in Grade 1, Brendan was faced wi

6、th five hours of wondering what I was doing with my day. Brendan always came home for lunch, the only one of his class not to eat at his desk. But once home, fed and hugged, a far-away look of longing would crease his gentle brow-he wanted to go back to school to play! So I walked him back, waited w

7、ith him until he spotted someone he knew, then left. He told me once that he watched me until he couldn't see me anymore, so I always walked fast and never looked back. One day when I took Brendan back after lunch, he spied a friend, kissed me goodbye, and scampered right off. I went, feeling pl

8、eased for him, celebrating his new independence, his entry into thefirst-grade social loop. And I felt pleased for myself, a sense of well-being and accomplishment that I, too, had entered the mystic circle of parents whose children separated easily.Then-I don't know why-I glanced back. And ther

9、e he was. The playground buzzed all around him, kids everywhere, and he stood, his chin tucked close, his body held small, his face intent but not sad, blowing me kisses. So brave, so unashamed, so completely loving, Brendan was watching me go.No book on mothering could have prepared me for that qui

10、ck, raw glimpse into my child's soul. My mind leaped 15 years ahead to him packing boxes and his dog grown old and him saying, "Dry up, Mom. It's not like I'm leaving the country." In my mind I tore up the card every mother signs saying she'll let her child go when he's

11、 ready. I lookedat my Brendan, his shirt tucked in, every button done up, his toes just turned in a bit, and I thought, "OK, you're six for me forever. Just try to grow up, I dare you." With a smile I had to really dig for, I blew him a kiss, turned and walked away.2. Just One WishFox

12、River gave life to the country town of Colby Point, for the road and the river ran alongside one another. Colby Point was really the name of a road that crept between the hills and valleys of McHenry, Illinois. Homes were scattered here and there - mostly summer homes and retirement homes. At the ve

13、ry end of the road there houses all faced one another. Three sisters - all single, all seniors - lived in one of the homes. Across the way their widowed first cousin lived in a yellow house. Next to her lived their brother, Bill, and his wife, Cleo.Cleo had multiple sclerosis, so the pair had moved

14、to Colby Point seeking a quiet, relaxed life. Little did they know when they relocated to this serene area that they would end up rearing their granddaughter, Margie. Before long, the once-quiet neighborhood became active with the sounds of a child.Margie always looked forward to the arrival of Chri

15、stmas, and this year was no different as winter began to settle like a warm blanket around Colby Point. Everyone was in a flurry, for at the church Margie and her family attended, the congregation was preparing to share their Christmas wishes with each other. Since Cleo couldnt make it to church, an

16、d Bill didn't like to leave her alone for too long, he was in the habit of dropping Margie off at church early on Sunday mornings; the aunts would bring her home.As Margie sat in church that morning, she rehearsed in her mind over and over what she would say. She wasn't afraid, for she knew

17、what an important wish this was. The service seemed to drag on and on. Finally the pastor uttered the words Margie had been anticipating all morning, “This is a special time of year when everyone around the world celebrates peace and goodwill toward our fellow man. This year, here at St. Johns, we w

18、ant to hear your Christmas wishes. We cannot fill everyones wish, butwe would like to try and fill a few. As I call your name, please come forward and tell us about your Christmas wish.”O(jiān)ne after another, the church members shared their wishes, large and small. Margie was the last and the youngest t

19、o speak. As she looked out at the congregation, she spoke confidently, “I would like for my grandma to have church. She cannot walk, and she and my grandpa have to stay at home. They miss coming so much. So that is what I wish for. And please don't tell them, for it needs to be a surprise.”Ridin

20、g home with her aunts, Margie could tell they were speaking in low tones about her wish. She hoped that they would keep her secret. As the next Sunday came around, Margie was getting ready for church when Grandma asked, “Why are you so fidgety”You haven'tsat still all morning.”“I just know that

21、something wonderful is going to happen today!”“Of course it will,”said her grandma with a chuckle. “Its almost Christmas, you know.”Grandpa was getting on his coat when he happened to look out the front window. He saw some cars coming down the dirt road one after another. Now at this time of the yea

22、r there wasn't too much traffic, so this was really amazing. Margie pushed her grandma to the window so that she could see all the cars. Pretty soon the cars were parked all up and down the road as far as a person could see.Grandpa looked at Grandma, and they both looked at Margie. Grandpa asked

23、, “Just what did you wish for, Margie?”“I wished that you and Grandma could have church. And I just knew that it would come true. Look! Theres the pastor, and everyone from church is coming up the walk.”The congregation arrived with coffee and cookies and cups and gifts. They sang Christmas carols a

24、nd listed to the pastor speak on giving to others the gifts that God gives. Later that night, Margie slipped out the back door and walked outside to look up at the stars. “Thank you,”she whispered, “thank you for giving me my wish.”That was just one of the many wishes granted for Margie as she grew

25、up. Her childhood overflowed with the love of her grandparents, four great aunts and many wise, caring neighbors. Margie was truly a blessed little girl.I should know - I was that little girl.3. The Rich FamilyI'll never forget Easter 1946. I was fourteen, my little sister, Ocy, was twelve and m

26、y older sister, Darlene, was sixteen. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with no money and seven school-aged kids to raise.By 1946, my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month be

27、fore Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special holiday offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy fifty pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This wou

28、ld allow us to save twenty dollars of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house- and yard-cleaning jobs as

29、 possible, and both of us baby-sat for everyone we could. For fifteen cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for a dollar. We made twenty dollars on potholders. That month was one of the best of our lives.Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. A

30、t night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about eighty people in church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be twenty times that much. After all, every

31、Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.The night before Easter, we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had seventy dollars for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to chu

32、rch! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.But we sat in church proudly. I

33、 heard some teenagers talking about our old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the front. Mom put in the ten-dollar bill, and each of us kids put in a twenty-dollar bill.We sang all the way h

34、ome from church. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon, the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We ask

35、ed what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp twenty-dollar bills, one ten-dollar bill and seventeen one-dollar bills.Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had go

36、ne from feeling like millionaires to feeling poor. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and our late Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see wheth

37、er we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knives that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor

38、family, so we must be poor, I thought. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed - I didn't even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my clas

39、s of over one hundred students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.We sat in silence for along time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girl

40、s went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally, on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. Wed never know we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a

41、 sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in, and she sang only one verse.At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said one hundred dollars woul

42、d put a roof on a church. The minister added, “Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?” We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene, Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy

43、put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over one hundred dollars. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering form our small church. He said, “You must have some rich people in this church.”Suddenly it struck us!

44、 We had given eighty-seven dollars of that “l(fā)ittle over one hundred dollars.” We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on, I've never been poor again. 4. Cyber Step-Mother I've often felt that "step-parent" is a label we attach to men

45、and women who marry into families where children already exist, for the simple reason that we need to call them something. It is most certainly an enormous "step", but one doesn't often feel as if the term "parent" truly applies. At least that's how I used to feel about b

46、eing a step-mother to my husband's four children. My husband and I had been together for six years, and with him I had watched as his young children became young teenagers. Although they lived primarily with their mother, they spent a lot of time with us as well. Over the years, we all learned t

47、o adjust, to become more comfortable with each other, and to adapt to our new family arrangement. We enjoyed vacations together, ate family meals, worked on homework, played baseball, rented videos. However, I continued to feel somewhat like an outsider, infringing upon foreign territory. There was

48、a definite boundary line that could not be crossed, an inner family circle which excluded me. Since I had no children of my own, my experience of parenting was limited to my husband's four, and often I lamented that I would never know the special bond that exists between a parent and a child. Wh

49、en the children moved to a town five hours away, my husband was understandably devastated. In order to maintain regular communication with the kids, we contacted Cyberspace and promptly set up an e-mail and chat-line service. This technology, combined with the telephone, would enable us to reach the

50、m on a daily basis by sending frequent notes and messages, and even chatting together when we were all on-line. Ironically, these modern tools of communication can also be tools of alienation, making us feel so out of touch, so much more in need of real human contact. If a computer message came addr

51、essed to "Dad", I'd feel forgotten and neglected. If my name appeared along with his, it would brighten my day and make me feel like I was part of their family unit after all. Yet always there was some distance to be crossed, not just over the telephone wires. Late one evening, as my h

52、usband snoozed in front of the television and I was catching up on my e-mail, an "instant message" appeared on the screen. It was Margo, my oldest step-daughter, also up late and sitting in front of her computer five hours away. As we had done in the past, we sent several messages back and

53、 forth, exchanging the latest news. When we would "chat" like that, she wouldn't necessarily know if it was me or her dad on the other end of the keyboard-that is unless she asked. That night she didn't ask and I didn't identify myself either. After hearing the latest volleybal

54、l scores, the details about an upcoming dance at her school, and a history project that was in the works, I commented that it was late and I should get to sleep. Her return message read, "Okay, talk to you later! Love you!" As I read this message, a wave of sadness ran through me and I rea

55、lized that she must have thought she was writing to her father the whole time. She and I would never have openly exchanged such words of affection. Feeling guilty for not clarifying, yet not wanting to embarrass her, I simply responded, "Love you too! Have a good sleep!" I thought again of

56、 their family circle, that self-contained, private space where I was an intruder. I felt again the sharp ache of emptiness and otherness. Then, just as my fingers reached for the keys, just as I was about to return the screen to black, Margo's final message appeared. It read, "Tell Dad good

57、 night for me too." With tear-filled, blurry eyes, I turned the machine off. 5. The Pickle Jar As far back as I can remember, the large pickle jar sat on the floor beside the dresser in my parents' bedroom. When he got ready for bed, Dad would empty his pockets and toss his coins into the j

58、ar. As a small boy I was always fascinated at the sounds the coins made as they were dropped into the jar. They landed with a merry jingle when the jar was almost empty. Then the tones gradually muted to a dull thud as the jar was filled. I used to squat on the floor in front of the jar and admire t

59、he copper and silver circles that glinted like a pirate's treasure when the sun poured through the bedroom window. When the jar was filled, Dad would sit at the kitchen table and roll the coins before taking them to the bank. Taking the coins to the bank was always a big production. Stacked neat

60、ly in a small cardboard box, the coins were placed between Dad and me on the seat of his old truck. Each and every time, as we drove to the bank, Dad would look at me hopefully. "Those coins are going to keep you out of the textile mill, son. You're going to do better than me. This old mill

61、 town's not going to hold you back." Also, each and every time, as he slid the box of rolled coins across the counter at the bank toward the cashier, he would grin proudly. "These are for my son's college fund. He'll never work at the mill all his life like me." We would always celebrate each deposit