3.THE ARTIST
Long, long ago there lived a king. He loved horses. One day he asked an artist to draw him a beautiful horse. The artist said, \waited. He waited and waited. At last, after a year he could not wait any longer. He went to see the artist himself.
Quickly the artist brought out paper and a brush. In five minutes he finished
drawing a very beautiful horse. The king was angry. \five minutes, yet you kept me waiting for a year. Why?\
\with me, please.\the king saw piles and piles of paper. On every piece of paper was a picture of a horse. \artist said.
4.\
More than one hundred years ago there was a great French scientist with the name Ampère.
One day, Mr. Ampère went out for a walk in the street. There were a lot of people and much noise there. But all this was nothing to him. He was thinking of a math problem. He had no paper with him. How could he work it out?
Just then, he saw a blackboard in front of him. He ran up to it at once. He took out a piece of chalk and wrote his problem on the blackboard. Then he started to work on it. The blackboard moved a little, but he did not notice it. The blackboard moved on. Mr. Ampère moved with it. The blackboard started to move faster and faster. Mr. Ampère could not keep up with it any longer. He stopped to have a look.
What did he see? Why, the \a carriage!
5.A WAY OUT
A French student went to London for his holiday. He thought: \English. I think people can understand me.\
One morning he went to visit the Science Museum. At noon he was tired and
hungry. He went to the nearest restaurant and sat down at the table. He wanted to have a cup of tea and some eggs. Soon the waiter came up to him and asked, \you, sir?\
\around him, but nobody was eating eggs.
Then he saw a magazine on the table next to him. There was a picture of a cock on its cover. He showed the picture to the waiter. \ \
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\ \
\ \
\ \
\tea, please.\
6.TWO FRIENDS AND A BEAR
One day two young men were going through the forest. One said to the other, \ I?ll stay with you and help you.\at you.\
They walked on.
After a while there was a great noise. It was a big bear. The young men ran away quickly. One of them got up into a tree. But the other was fat and could not climb up. So he threw himself at the foot of the tree. He thought to himself, \that I am dead.\
Soon the bear came near. The bear looked at the fat young man, then it put its nose down and smelled him. The young man held his breath. The bear thought he was dead, so it went away.
The man in the tree came down. With a smile he asked his friend, \mouth so near to your ear. What did it say to you?\
The friend answered, %ust your friend. He ran away from you when you needed his help most. Remember: A friend in need is a friend indeed.?\
7.THE STORY OF LITTLE GAUSS
One afternoon some boys made a lot of noise in class. The teacher got angry. He kept them in the classroom after school. He told them to add all the numbers from 1 to 100 together.
The boys took out their exercise-books. All of them began to write the numbers down except one boy. He was new in the school. He looked out of the window for a few minutes. Then he wrote a number in his exercise-book and put up his hand. \ The teacher and the other boys were very surprised. \
The boy took it to the teacher. The answer was right, so the teacher had to let the boy go home.
The next morning, the teacher asked the boy, \quickly?\
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\answer quickly. Soon I found it. You see, if you add 100 to 1, you get 101, and 99 and 2 is 101. 98 and 3 is 101 too, and when you reach 51 and 50, you have 101 fifty times. That is 5050.\
After this, when the teacher gave the class exercises to do, he gave this boy
different exercises. The boy?s name was Karl F. Gauss. When he grew up, he became a great scientist.
8.THE MONKEY AND THE CROCODILE
One day a little monkey was playing in a tall tree by the river. A crocodile was swimming slowly near the bank with her baby. She looked around for some food. Suddenly she saw the monkey. \hought. She then turn to her son, \
\
\
\climb trees.\
\a way.\
The baby crocodile thought hard. Then he had an idea. He swam near the tree and shouted, \
\
\lots of bananas on them. I?ll take you there on my back.\
\ck.
Soon they were in the middle of the river. Suddenly the crocodile went down under the water. When he came up again, the monkey was all wet. \The monkey cried. \
\heart.\
The little monkey was clever. \ \
\ want you without your heart.\The crocodile turned and swam back to the bank.
Soon they reached the bank. The monkey jumped off the crocodile at once, picked up a big stone and quickly climbed up the tree. The crocodile waited for the monkey to come down again. As he was waiting, he suddenly heard a voice from above:
\
The crocodile looked up. The monkey was hanging from the tree by his tail and laughing.
?Here?s my heart. Come up and get it. Don?t keep your mother waiting…You
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can?t come up? Well, catch!?
With these words, he threw the big stone at the crocodile.
9. MISS EVANS
Have you ever heard the story about Miss Evans? It is a true story. Maybe many people have read about it.
One afternoon in April 1912, a new ship set off from England to American on its first trip. It was one of the largest and finest ships at that time and on it were over 2,200 people.
It was cold, but the trip was pleasant and people were enjoying themselves. The next day was even colder. People could see icebergs here and there.
It was night. Suddenly the man on watch shouted, \Iceberg ahead!\
It was too late. The ship hit the iceberg and came to a stop. There was a very big hole in the ship and water began to come inside. Slowly the ship started to go down. People had to leave the ship. Women and children were the first to get into the lifeboats. Suddenly a woman shouted. \that boat. I must go with them! Please!\
There was no room here, someone shouted back. The children heard their mother and began to cry.
A young woman was sitting near the poor children. She stood up. Here, she shouted. Take my place! I?m not married and I have no children.
She got out and the thankful mother joined the children in the lifeboat.
Soon after that, the ship went down. More than 1,500 people lost their lives. Among those was the young woman.
Who was she? Her name was Miss Evans and she was going home to Boston. But nobody knew more about her than that.
\
\ \
\
\
\ go. They are only dogs. And dogs are our friends now. \
\
\
10. THE ARAB IN THE DESERT
An Arab was walking alone through the desert when he met two men. The men looked worried. It seemed that they had lost something. The Arab went over to them. “Have you lost one of your camels?” he asked them.
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“Yes,” they said.
“Was he blind in the right eye and lame in the left foot?” asked the Arab. “Yes, he was.”
“Had he lost a tooth and was he carrying corn?” “Yes,” said the men. “Please tell us where he is.”
“I don?t know where he is,” said the Arab. “I?ve never seen such an animal.” “Did someone tell you about him?” “No.”
The two men looked at each other in surprise. They could not believe the Arab?s words. Finally, they came up close to him, took hold of him, and shouted: “Where?s the animal? And what have you done with our goods?”
The Arab insisted that he had never seen the camel. At last the men took him before a judge. They said that the Arab had stolen their camel.
“I?ve never seen their camel,” insisted the Arab. “But I?m a man of the desert, and I?ve learned to look carefully at everything I see. This morning I saw the tracks of a lost camel. I knew this because there were no man?s tracks near those of the camel. I also saw that the camel must be blind in the right eye, because he had only eaten the grass on his left side and had not touched the grass on his right. The animal was lame because with one foot he left a track much lighter than any of the others. He had lost a tooth, because wherever he ate grass, there was always a small space left untouched. I also found groups of ants near the tracks of the camel. They were pulling pieces of corn. From these facts I was able to tell what goods the animal was carrying.”
The judge and the two men were satisfied with what the Arab had said. Together the four men set out to look for the lost animal.
11. EDISON’S BOYHOOD
Thomas Edison was born in 1847. When he was a child, he liked to find out how things worked. One day when he was five, his father saw him sitting on some eggs, and asked what he was doing that for. Tom did not reply. Instead, he asked his father why he was not able to hatch chickens while hens could.
Young Tom was in school for only three months. During those three months, he asked a lot of questions. Most of them had nothing to do with his lessons. His teacher did not know why the boy had so many strange questions. He told Tom?s mother that Tom was not bright and was not worth teaching. His mother took him out of school and taught him herself. The boy read a lot. He became very interested in science.
By the time he was ten, he had already built a chemistry lab for himself. He planted vegetables in his garden and sold them to buy what he need for his lab.
Once his mother was ill and she sent for a doctor. The doctor said she needed an operation at once. But it was night and the lamp in the room gave poor light. Edison thought hard. Finally he had an idea. He collected all the lamps in the house and put them and put then on a long table. Then he placed a big mirror behind them. Now there was enough light, so the doctor could operate. Edison?s mother was saved.
At the age of twelve, Edison began selling newspapers on a train. When he was free,
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