When I was 8 years old, I decided to run away from home after a quarrel with my mother. With my suitcase packed and some sandwiches in a bag, I started for the front door.
My mom asked where I was going. “I'm leaving home,” I said.
“What's that you're carrying?” she asked.
“Some clothes and food,” I replied.
“If you want to run away, that's all right,” she said. “But you came into this home without anything and you can leave the same way.”
I threw my suitcase and sandwiches on the floor and started for the door again.
“Wait a minute,” Mom said. “You didn't have any clothes on when you arrived, and I want them back.”
This infuriated me. I tore my clothes off — shoes, socks, underwear and all — and shouted, “Can I go now?”
“Yes,” my mom answered, “but once you close that door, don't expect to come back.”
I was so angry that I shut the door forcefully and stepped out of my home. Then I noticed down the street two neighbor girls walking toward our house. I was so shy that I saw the big spruce (云杉) tree in our yard and jumped under the low-hanging branches. A pile of dried-up brown needles were beneath the tree, and you can't imagine the pain those sharp needles caused to my body.
After I was sure the girls had passed by, I ran to the front door and knocked at it loudly.
“It's Billy! Let me in!”
The voice behind the door answered, “Billy doesn't live here anymore. He ran away from home.”
Looking behind me to see if anyone else was coming down the street, I said, “Mom! I'm sorry. I'm still your son. Let me in!”
The door opened and Mom's smiling face appeared. “Did you change your mind about running away?” she asked.
“What's for supper?” I smiled back.
Chimps in Gombe National Park | ◆The family of chimps wake up and in the morning ◆Chimps either or clean each other to show love ◆The mother chimp and her babies in the tree ◆Chimps sleep together in their for the night ◆The between members of a chimp family is as strong as in a human family |
Jane's study on chimps | ◆She spent years and recording chimps' daily activities ◆She observed chimps as a group hunting aand then eating it and discovered chimps hunt and eat meat ◆She also discovered how chimpswith each other ◆She studied their body language, which helped hertheir social system |
Jane's view on chimps | ◆She believes we should understand and chimps ◆She has wild animals should be left in the wild and not used for or advertisements |
Jane's achievements | ◆Helping to special places for chimps to live in safely ◆Working with animals in their own ◆Gaining a doctor's degree ◆Showing women can live in the as men can |
The world we live in gets more mechanized every year. Some countries which were mainly agricultural a hundred years ago have now become industrial. New factories and towns have been built on good agricultural land. There are now fewer farms to serve a much greater population, so these farms must be more efficient in order to produce as much food as possible. There is no place in the modern agricultural world for the inefficient farmer. Unfortunately, many of the picturesque aspects of farming are disappearing in the search for efficiency. The more tractors are used, the fewer horses are needed. Everyone agrees that horses are far more pleasant to look at than tractors. But they are less efficient. Cows are usually milked by machinery nowadays, and even pigs are fed automatically. There is not much art or poetry on the modern farm, and the old traditional idea of a farm as a slow, peaceful, romantic place is totally wrong nowadays.
The modern farmer has to be a mechanic, a scientist, an accountant and a gambler. The more mechanized farming becomes, the more expert the farmer has to be. He must understand what machinery is necessary for his kind of farm, and he must know how to use it efficiently. He must also understand the new technical advances in agriculture, and how to use chemical and synthetic products to improve his crops. The more workers a farmer employs, the more he must know about the problems of wages and taxes. As in any other industry, most modern farmers find it necessary to employ office staff to deal with these. But although he has more modern equipments and far more scientific aids than his grandfather had, the farmer is still dependent upon the weather. As he can never be sure what the weather will do, he must be prepared to take risks, and face the possibility of losing everything.
