Learn English and Enjoy

 John Hearon’s Long Walk It was shortly after midnight on February 4, 1956, when 38-year-old John Hearon drove his bus out of the station in Tucumcari, New Mexico. He was starting his regular 226-mile trip to Amarillo, Texas, and back. Snow was falling heavily, but Hearon had made the trip 208 times before without difficulty, and he guessed it would stop soon. That part of the country seldom had bad storms. The wind was piling the snow into drifts on the road, however, and Hearon didn’t arrive in Amarillo until four o’clock in the morning. This was later than usual, but in plenty of time for the return trip. He had coffee, checked his passengers were called to begin the trip to Tucumcari. Nine men and four women, one carrying a 21-month-old baby, came a board . At 5:30 Hearon was passing through the deserted , snow-covered city streets. By the time he reached Highway 66, most of the passengers had begun to doze a little. The snow and wind were getting stronger, and

History as Tree Rings Tell It This is a true story of an astronomer who learned more about the sun by looking around him than by looking up into the sky. As a result, he established a new science. The name of the science is dendrochronology . It deals with growth-rings of trees. The rings offer clear records of the weather of the past and give us new information on human history. Growth Patterns A tree grows well in favorable years and slowly in years of drought or other hardship. The change from good years to bad years leaves a pattern of rings in a cross section of the tree trunk . For instance, three good years followed by three years of drought form three widely separated rings which are close together. The date of a serious drought can be determined by counting from the present year’s ring of a growing tree. Suppose a drought was 50 years ago. The we find its mark by counting the rings in from the bark. There will be 50 rings before we reach the closely packed

Our New Telephone (Classical short story shows old people’s reaction to old telephone) “I’ve been thinking, Clinton,” my mother said one evening as she and my father sat reading, “that almost everybody else has a telephone now. We ought to have one, too.” “Not in this house. I don’t want one of those gadgets here,” declared my father as he put down his pipe. “Why, Clinton?” asked my mother. “What’s the matter with having a telephone?” My father sat still for a moment and then gave a loud sneeze . “Get out of here!” he demanded, blowing his nose. “You know cat fur always gives me nose trouble. I hate cats. They do nothing but spread germs around.” “Punk is a clean cat, Clinton, and he doesn't have any germs,” replied my mother. “And please try not to be against a telephone,” Father Says No “I’m not against it,” said my father, “so long we don’t have one here.” “But, Clinton,” my mother continued, “Ruth’s growing up, you know, and all the other girls have tel

How the Horse Came to the American West Think back three thousand years to the deserts and plains of Arabia and of Barbary, famous throughout the ancient world for their beautiful, spirited horses. Trading ships from Phoenicia, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean sea, carry iron, spices , fruits and horses to Spain. Long centuries pass. The strong, lively Arabian horse has become the horse of the Spaniard. Now come to the American West. It is the West of the Indians and the buffalo . But throughout the whole area there is not a single horse. The Indians of the plains – Pawnee, Comanche, Sioux and all the others – move slowly on foot. That is what the American West was like until a few hundred years ago – a horseless land. Now look at the west in the 19 th century. what a great change has occurred! The plains are alive with wild horses which, in some places, outnumber the buffalo. A million manes wave in the air on the deserts and the prairies . The Indian peoples of

 A test of True Love Six minutes to six said the clock above the information desk in New York’s Grand Central Station. The tall young army lieutenant lifted his face, narrowed his eyes and noted the time. His heart was beating so hard it seemed to shake him. In six minutes he would see the woman who had occupied much of his thoughts for the past 13 months, the woman he had never seen, yet whose written words had meant a great deal to him. Lieutenant Blandford remembered one day in particular, during the worst of the fighting. When his plane had been surrounded by enemy plans. In one of his letters he had confessed to her that he often felt fear, and only a few days before this battle he had received her answer: “Of course there will be times when you are afraid … all brave men feel the same way, especially in battle. The next time you have doubts about yourself, try to imagine you can hear my voice saying to you: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of de

12 funny and interesting riddles that will completely break your head (the answers below) What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand year? The letter 'M' What has 4 fingers and a thumb, but is not living? A glove Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly? Incorrectly We hurt without moving. We poison without touching. We bear the truth and the lies. We are not to be judged by our size. What are we? Words. Give me food, and I will live. Give me water, and I will die. What am I? Fire. What flies when it's born, lies when it's a live, and runs when it's dead? A snow flake. What gets wet when drying? A towel. I am always there, some distance away, somewhere between land or sea and sky I lay, you may move toward me, yet distant I stay? The horizon. I am a mother and a father, but have never given birth. I am rarely still, but I never wande

Sand I shall call him Grant Yates; his real name doesn’t matter. A tall, thin man with a bony face, he was probably 50 years old. I was 12 at the time. Like my father, he was a Colorado homesteader . He lived in a little white house at the edge of the sand hills. We lived five miles southwest of him on the hard soil plains. Maybe he liked me because I liked the hills. He loved them. I would get in my horse and ride over to his place; he and I would walk to a big hill near his house and sit there and talk. A Beautiful Hill It was truly a magnificent hill, its sand golden, its grass sparse but tall and green in summer. You could see for miles from its top. Almost any day you could get a glimpse of the smoke from trains on the Burlington Railroad, 25 miles to the north. In the early afternoon, by looking hard, you could see the blue-gray tip of Long’s peak , 100 miles to the west. One day as he sat there letting a handful of sand fall slowly through his fingers  he sai