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2020年07月29日 22:48
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Anytime I see banana pudding on a menu, I'm filled with an euphoric（精神愉快的） sense of well being and taken back to a special moment in my life when I learned an important lesson about jealousy and love.
It all began when my stepchildren came for a visit shortly after their father and I were married. Cheryl was 8, and Chuck was 10. Our small apartment soon became an obstacle course littered with stuffed animals, toys, and games.
But I liked the kids from the start. They were everything I could have wanted in a son and daughter.
Of course, I wanted to win them over. They seemed to like me well enough, but I wasn't sure, especially at mealtime. Cheryl, in particular, enjoyed watching me prepare the evening meal and shadowed my every move in the kitchen. She had an insatiable（贪得无厌的，不知足的） curiosity combined with an enchanting（迷人的，妩媚的） , yet somewhat disconcerting, honesty.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked.
"Making potato salad," I replied.
She stood on her tiptoes and scrutinized（详细检查） the bowls of chopped pickles, eggs, and onions. Her lips curled in disgust（厌恶，讨厌） . She pointed at the bowls. "What's that? And that ... and that!"
My answers did not seem to please her. She shook her head in disapproval. "My mama doesn't make it that way," she informed me.
"Well, just taste it at dinner," I countered, smiling thinly to mask my irritation. "If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it."
It became a nightly ritual. Unfortunately, her father believed that children should eat everything on their plate, including a sample of any dreaded（可怕的） dish that their mother made in a different way than I did.
As a result, I started to feel like Snow White's wicked（邪恶的，恶劣的） stepmother, plotting against the princess as I willed her to succumb to my culinary magic. Chuck, who at first ate anything and everything, developed critical tendencies. He soon took up the hue and cry（大声抗议） of "Mama doesn't make it that way."
Each night after dinner, we sat on the sofa with Dad in the middle, a child on each side, and me on the outside. It seemed appropriate. I was feeling more and more like an outcast.
One night while wrestling with his father on the sofa, Chuck found some stray popcorn kernels under the cushions. Cheryl chastised（惩罚，责骂） me, saying that her mama always vacuumed under their sofa seats every week.
By this time, I was developing a serious dislike both for her mother and her methods.
Then, at last, I found a dish their mama didn't make – one both the kids liked – banana pudding. They helped me in the kitchen. Chuck beat the egg whites for the topping while Cheryl carefully lined the pan with vanilla（香草味的） wafers. I cut up the bananas and prepared the filling. They both licked the bowl. We all had fun. It was a time of sharing and laughter.
Later, mak
ing banana pudding became a cherished family tradition.
On the last night before they were to return home, we had arranged a family get-together. When the doorbell rang, Cheryl scampered to answer. My sister-in-law Carol stood framed in the doorway with a large bowl clutched in her hands. "What's that?" Cheryl immediately wanted to know.
"It's banana pudding," Carol offered proudly.
Cheryl took a closer look, then shook her head from side to side and said, "Karen doesn't make it that way."
I dissolved in laughter that no one else understood. Suddenly, my tension and anxiety disappeared, and I knew that when those kids got back home, their mother would be hearing a lot about how "Karen doesn't do it that way." She had my sympathy and respect.
It seemed their mom and I had more in common than I thought, we both used one important ingredient（原料，要素） in our cooking, the most active one – love.
Detour to romance 曲折的浪漫路
“哎呀，老天爷——你就从来没到这个车站来过？”他指向杂志摊。“我一直就在那儿。那个摊儿是我的。我看过每个上楼的人。”
她的脸色开始变得有些苍白。过了一会儿，她向楼梯看去，声音微弱地说：“我——我过去一直没上这个楼梯。你看，我昨天出城是去办点公事——噢，哈里！”然后，她伸手搂住他的脖子，哭了起来。
她往后一站，用手直指车站的最北头。“哈里，3年来，整整3年，我就在那儿——就在这个车站工作，在站长办公室里，打字。”
Located in the checkroom（衣帽寄放处） in Union Station as I am, I see everybody that comes up the stairs.
Harry came in a little over three years ago and waited at the head of the stairs for the passengers from the 9:05 train.
I remember seeing Harry that first evening. He wasn't much more than a thin, anxious kid then. He was all dressed up and I knew he was meeting his girl and that they would be married twenty minutes after she arrived.
Well, the passengers came up and I had to get busy. I didn't look toward the stairs again until nearly time for the 9:18 and I was very surprised to see that the young fellow was still there.
She didn't come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40, and when the passengers from the 10:02 had all arrived and left, Harry was looking pretty desperate. Pretty soon he came close to my window so I called out and asked him what she looked like.
"She's small and dark," he said, "and nineteen years old and very neat（整洁的，优雅的） in the way she walks. She has a face," he said, thinking a minute, "that has lots of spirit. I mean she can get mad but she never stays mad for long, and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle. She's got a brown fur, but maybe she isn't wearing it."
I couldn't remember seeing anybody like that.
He showed me the telegram he'd received: ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME STATION. LOVE LOVE LOVE
LOVE. MAY. It was from Omaha, Nebraska.
"Well," I finally said, "why don't you phone to your home? She's probably called there if she got in ahead of you."
He gave me a sick look. "I've only been in town two days. We were going to meet and then drive down South where I've got a job. She hasn't any address for me." He touched the telegram.
When I came on duty the next day he was still there and came over as soon as he saw me.
"Did she work anywhere?" I asked.
He nodded. "She was a typist. I telegraphed her former boss. All they know is that she left her job to get married."
Harry met every train for the next three or four days. Of course, the railroad lines made a routine checkup and the police looked into the case. But nobody was any real help. I could see that they all figured that May had simply played a trick on him. But I never believed that, somehow.
One day, after about two weeks, Harry and I were talking and I told him about my theory. "If you'll just wait long enough," I said, "you'll see her coming up those stairs some day." He turned and looked at the stairs as though he had never seen them before.
The next day when I came to work Harry was behind the counter of Tony's magazine stand. He looked at me rather sheepishly and said, "Well, I had to get a job somewhere, didn't I?"
So he began to work as a clerk for Tony. We never spoke of May anymore and neither of us ever mentioned my theory. But I noticed that Harry always saw every person who came up the stairs.
Toward the end of the year Tony was killed in some argument over gambling, and Tony's widow left Harry in complete charge of the magazine stand. And when she got married again some time later, Harry bought the stand from her. He borrowed money and installed a soda fountain and pretty soon he had a very nice little business.
Then came yesterday. I heard a cry and a lot of things falling. The cry was from Harry and the things falling were a lot of dolls and other things which he had upset（弄翻） while he was jumping over the counter. He ran across and grabbed a girl not ten feet from my window. She was small and dark and her eyebrows came to a little point in the middle.
For a while they just hung there to each other laughing and crying and saying things without meaning. She'd say a few words like, "It was the bus station I meant" and he'd kiss her speechless and tell her the many things he had done to find her. What apparently had happeded three years before was that May had come by bus, not by train, and in her telegram she meant "bus station," not "railroad station." She had waited at the bus station for days and had spent all her money trying to find Harry. Finally she got a job typing.
"What?" said Harry. "Have you been working in town? All the time?"
She nodded.
"Well, Heavens. Didn't you ever come down here to the station?" He pointed across to his magazine stand. "I've been there all the time. I own it. I've watched everybody
that came up the stairs."
She began to look a little pale. Pretty soon she looked over at the stairs and said in a weak voice, "I never came up the stairs before. You see, I went out of town yesterday on a short business trip. Oh, Harry!" Then she threw her arms around his neck and really began to cry.
After a minute she backed away and pointed very stiffly toward the north end of the station. "Harry, for three years, for three solid years, I've been right over there working right in this very station, typing, in the office of the stationmaster."
The little tin heart
After 20 years as a full-time wife and mother, I decided now that my kids were grown, I needed a part-time job to keep me busy. I decided to drive a school bus.
Charlie began riding my bus in September of my fourth year driving. Eight years old, with blond hair and crystalline（透明的，水晶般的） gray eyes, he got on with a group of children. They all had stories to tell me about their summers. Charlie, though, ignored me. He didn’t even answer when I asked his name.
From that day on, Charlie was a trial. If a fight broke out I didn’t have to turn my head to know who had started it. If someone was throwing spitballs（纸团，唾沫球） I could guess the culprit（犯人，罪犯） ’s name. If a girl was crying, chances were Charlie had pulled her hair. No matter how I spoke to him, gently or firmly, he wouldn’t say a word. He’d just stare at me with those big gray eyes of his.
I asked around some, and found out Charlie’s father was dead and he didn’t live with his mother. He deserves my patience, I thought. So I practiced every bit of patience I could muster. To my cheery “Good morning,” he was silent. When I wished him a happy Halloween, he sneered. Many, many times I asked myself how I could reach Charlie. “I’m at my wit’s end,” I’d say. Still I was sure that this child needed to feel some warmth from me. So, when he’d pass by, I’d ruffle（弄皱，扰乱） his hair or pat him on the arm.
Toward the end of that year, the kids on my bus gave me a small trophy（奖品，纪念品） inscribed “To the Best Bus Driver Ever”. I propped it up on the dashboard（仪表盘） . On top I hung a small tin heart that a little girl had given me. In red paint she had written, “I love Polly and Polly loves me.”
On the next-to-last day of school I was delayed a few minutes talking to the principal. When I got on the bus I realized that the tin heart was gone. “Does anyone know what happened to the little heart that was up here?” I asked. For once with 39 children, there was silence.
One boy piped up, “Charlie was the first one on the bus. I bet he took it.” Other children joined the chorus, “Yeah! Charlie did it! Search him!”
I asked Charlie, “Have you seen the heart?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he protested. Standing up, he took a few pennies and a small ball ou
s on hold to care for his sister during her final weeks, they cobbled（铺） together a system to watch over their friend and allow her to keep some of the privacy and independence she cherished.
Baer's good friend Ruth Henrich took the lead. That seemed natural: Henrich, then 58, and Baer both worked in publishing and lived in the same duplex（占两层楼的公寓套房） . Though busy in her job as an associate managing editor at , Henrich took Baer to doctors' appointments and helped her deal with all the aspects of life that were becoming increasingly mysterious to her—answering machines, TV controls, and even phone numbers. After Henrich sent out an e-mail request, a group of volunteers signed up to ferry Baer back and forth to radiation therapy. Others in Baer's circle offered up particular talents: A nurse friend helped Baer figure out how to get what she was due from Social Security and her disability insurance; an attorney pal（朋友，伙伴） helped Baer with her will; a buddy who was an accountant took over her bills when she could no longer manage them. "There was this odd sense that the right person always showed up," says Ballance.
Not that it was easy. "I had to know at all times who was going to be there and anticipate what Marjorie would need next, so it was always on my mind," says Henrich. "It was something I wanted to do, but it also never went away." Still, their jury-rigged arrangement worked remarkably well. Even as Baer lost the ability to read and write and engage in conversation over the course of the year, she was able to continue to live on her own, walk to the market, take the subway to painting classes, and even fly to Iowa by herself to visit her brother Tom and his family.
"She was a generous person," says another friend, Elizabeth Whipple, "and it came back to her in truckloads."
Unmarried women are one of the fastest-growing demographic（人口统计学的） groups in America, and increasing numbers of men are remaining single, too; experts are concerned about how caregiving will be managed for both groups as they age. If the experience of Baer's friends is a guide, the Internet will play a role. It's already making it possible to create communities of caregivers who may have only one thing in common: the person who needs their help. On personal "care pages" set up through services such as Lotsa Helping Hands, friends and family members can post a list of tasks that need to be done, volunteer to do them, and keep updated on the person's condition. As Baer's cancer progressed, for example, her friends set up a page on Yahoo! where people could sign up to deliver meals or do errands（差事，使命） .
Eventually, their help wasn't enough. One morning, a year after Baer's diagnosis, Henrich checked in before work and found Baer on the floor. Though she wore a panic button on a chain around her neck, she hadn't used it. "I don't know how long she had been there," Henrich says.
That was when Baer's brother Phil stepped in. He and Tom had taken turns earlier making trips to Berkeley to care for their sister; now Phil, who lived in Los Angeles, took leave from his job as head of air-conditioning and heating at CBS Studio Center—and from his understanding wife, Joyce—to care for Baer full-time. "There was just no question in my mind that I would do anything I could, including switch places with Marjorie," he says. "It made me realize how much I loved her."
For the next few weeks, Phil looked after her during the day. He oversaw the nighttime caregivers and consulted with the hospice（旅客招待所，收容所） workers who assisted with medical issues and helped him prepare for Baer's death. But even then, his sister's loyal friends were irreplaceable, he says, providing both practical and emotional sustenance（生计，食物） .
Several of Baer's friends were there when she died. "We were all trying to help ease her passing," says Whipple. "Phil put his hands on her chest, and she let go."
Catherine Fox, one of the friends who was present when Baer died, was deeply affected. "It was so comforting to know that if you're willing to ask for help, the generosity of family and friends can be phenomenal（异常的，显著的） . It makes me feel secure and hopeful to know that help is there when you need it."
最真实的拳王阿里
当拳王阿里点燃亚特兰大奥运会的火炬时，他知道自己并没有被帕金森症打败。一直照顾他的妻子朗尼·阿里说：“谁能想到他是一个与病魔战斗的人呢？现在人们可以了解到他最真实的一面了。即使不开口讲话，他仍然拥有激励人心的力量。”
Love doesn't stop when a parent, spouse, or friend gets sick. Here, remarkable stories of stepping up, sticking around, and finding joy.
By Camille Peri
Lonnie Ali was six years old and had just gotten home from school in Louisville, Kentucky, when she saw a crowd of boys gathered around a handsome young man in a white shirt, a bow tie（领结） , and black dress pants. "Look," said her mother, standing in the doorway, "that's Cassius Clay."
Clay, who would soon claim the first of three heavyweight boxing titles and adopt the Muslim name Muhammad Ali, made a point of（重视，强调） calling the shy little girl over. And from then on, she recalls, whenever he visited his mother across the street, he stopped by her house as well. "He was like a big brother," she says. "He'd sit and talk, and I'd believe what he said before I'd believe my father. I figured my father would tell me stuff just because he wanted to protect me, but Muhammad would tell it to me the way it was."
They remained friends, even as he became a world champion and she went off to college, where she got a psychology degree and then an MBA. When she was 17, Lonnie says, she realized that she would marry him someday—"I knew it was fate," she says. Twelve years lat
er, she did, becoming the boxer's fourth wife. Muhammad had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but the diagnosis didn't faze（打扰，折磨） Lonnie. "I knew the man, not the celebrity," she says. "That's who I loved. And he knew I would always be in his corner."
For a long time, Muhammad's disease barely slowed him down. Lonnie was more of a care partner than caregiver, nudging（轻推，刺激） her husband to take his medicine and accompanying him to doctors' appointments. But gradually, his symptoms became more intrusive（侵入的，打扰的） . One turning point occurred about 15 years ago, when the couple were out to dinner in Boston. "Muhammad went to put food in his mouth and he froze," she recalls—temporary immobility（不动，固定） is characteristic of the disease. Another was when the famously animated boxer became stone-faced, also a classic sign of the disease. "Then I knew I had some challenges that I really needed to deal with and learn about," Lonnie says.
The challenges have been practical, emotional, and psychological as much as medical. Lonnie has had to recognize her own limitations: At one point five years ago, as she cared for her husband, mothered their teenage son, Asaad, and ran a business, among other things, she felt so unfocused, she thought she had attention deficit disorder（注意力缺损症） . "I went to the doctor and fell asleep in the waiting room," she says. "The doctor said, ‘You don't have ADD. You're sleep-deprived.’"
She's also had to learn to accept what she can't control. Muhammad is still a big man, with piercing（刺穿的，敏锐的） eyes and muscular arms, the result of working out every day. But his disease means that this man of unparalleled（无比的，无双的） physical gifts now walks haltingly; once famous for his banter（戏谑，逗弄） , he often sits in silence. "I've been with him for so long, I can basically look at him and tell what he wants and needs," Lonnie says.
Yet the illness can steal only so much, and Muhammad still has plenty he wants to do. A quarter of a century into his struggle with Parkinson's disease, he's taking piano lessons. Most important, this lifelong supporter of humanitarian causes still feels he has a mission to help other people. Early in his disease, Muhammad shied away from（躲避，回避） the spotlight. "He used to play to the camera, but the camera was no longer his friend," Lonnie says. But then he made an appearance with Michael J. Fox, also a Parkinson's sufferer, who has been open about his own movement problems. "I think he thought, If Michael can do it, I can do it."
Now Muhammad Ali doesn't care what people think when they see him. Early this year, in an essay for National Public Radio's "This I Believe," the boxing legend wrote about carrying the Olympic torch to light the cauldron（大锅） at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta and realizing that his tremors（震动，颤抖）
had taken over. "I heard a rumble（隆隆声，抱怨声） in the stadium that became a pounding（重击） roar and then turned into a deafening（震耳欲聋的，极喧闹的） applause," he wrote. He understood then that Parkinson's had not defeated him.
"There's still a lot for me to learn from him, and I never forget that," Lonnie Ali says. "Muhammad was the epitome（摘要，象征） of strength and beauty, but could someone with physical challenges really relate to him? Probably not. But now they can identify with him. We used to get letters all the time about people with Parkinson's who wouldn't go out of the house, but because they saw Muhammad out, now they go out.
"He still has that power to inspire people—without even opening his mouth."
A Famous Story of Mark Twain
Mark Twain was a famous American writer. He wrote many stories and many of them were funny stories. These stories are still read by many people all over the world. Besides writing, he also liked hunting and fishing very much, so one year he went to Maine（缅因州） for a holiday and spent three very pleasant weeks in the woods（树林，森林） there.
When he had to go back home, he drove to the station with his baggage. There he asked a porter（搬运工，服务员） to put it into the train. Then he got into the smoking car and sat down in one of the comfortable seats there. The car was empty when he got in, but a few minutes later, another man got in and sat down on the seat opposite his. Mark Twain looked at the man and thought that this man looked quite unpleasant. However, it would be impolite to say nothing in that situation, so he said good morning to the man, and they began to talk.
First they talked about the weather and then they talked about Maine. The stranger said, "We have some beautiful woods in Maine. It would be a pity to come to Maine without spending some time there. I suppose you have been in our woods, haven't you?" "Yes, I have," answered Mark Twain. "I've just spent three weeks there and I had a very good time, too. And let me tell you something. Although fishing isn't allowed in Maine at this season, I've got two hundred pounds of beautiful fish with my baggage（行李） in this train. I like to eat fish, so I packed it in ice to take it home with me. May I ask who you are, sir?"
The stranger looked at Mark Twain for several seconds and then answered, "I'm a police officer. My job is to catch people who hunt and fish during the wrong seasons. And who are you?"
Mark Twain was surprised and frightened when he heard this. He thought quickly and then answered, "Well, I'll tell you, sir. I'm the man who tells the biggest lies in America."
Teen Entrepreneurs
Like a lot of college freshmen, Sean Belnick has a job. He works for a company that brings in more than $$20 million dollars a year. But Belnick is not just another employee; he is also the company’s owner.
“We started off with a couple o
ago Symphony orchestra heard me play and liked me, but orchestra schedules were set far in advance. I thought I might join them in a few years.
The next morning, I got a call. The great pianist Andre Watts, who was to play the "Gala Benefit Evening" at Chicago's Ravinia Festival, had become ill. I was asked to substitute（代替）. That performance was, for me, the moment. After violinist Isaac Stern introduced me, I played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. My father's mouth hung open throughout the entire song.
Afterward, people celebrated -- maybe they were a bit drunk -- and asked me to play Bach's Goldberg Variations. So I played until 3:30 a.m. I felt something happening. Sure enough, gigs started pouring in（大量涌入）. Lincoln Center. Carnegie Hall. Still, my father kept telling me, "You'd better practice!" But living in America with me was beginning to relax him. In Beijing I'd been fat -- he made sure I ate -- and he'd been skinny. Now I was getting thin. He wasn't.
I wanted to do something special for him for all he had done for me. So when I made my Carnegie Hall solo recital（独奏） debut in 2003 at age 21, I included Chinese music. I wanted to revive our family's Shenyang tradition of playing together.
My father and I had often practiced a piece called "Horses," a fun version for piano and erhu. That night in Carnegie Hall, after I played Chopin and Liszt, I brought Dad out on the stage, and we played our duet（二重奏）. People went crazy -- they loved it. My father couldn't sleep for days. He was too happy to sleep.
There have been lots of concerts in Carnegie Hall, but for me playing there was especially sweet when I remember the cold days in Beijing. Together, my father and I worked to reach the lucky place where fortune spots you, and lets you shine.
A Prodigy's Early Years
As a boy growing up in Shenyang, China, I practiced the piano six hours a day. I loved the instrument. My mother, Xiu-lan Zhou, taught me to read notes, and my father, Guo-ren Lang, concertmaster（首席小提琴手） of a local folk orchestra（管弦乐队）, showed me how to control the keys. At first I played on clunky（难听的） Chinese keyboards -- cheap, but the best we could afford. Later my parents bought me a Swedish piano, but I broke half the strings on it playing Tchaikovsky（柴可夫斯基）. That's when my parents and my teacher decided I was too much for such an instrument -- and for our hometown. To be a serious musician, I would have to move to Beijing, one of our cultural capitals. I was just eight years old.
My father, who played the erhu, a two-stringed instrument, knew that life wouldn't be easy. Millions of pianists in China were vying（竞争） for fame. You need fortune, my father said. If you don't work, no fortune comes. But music is still music, he added, and it exists to make us happy.
To relocate to Beijing with me, he made a great sacrifice. He quit his concertmaster's job
, which he loved, and my mother stayed behind in Shenyang to keep working at her job at the science institute to support us. They both warned me, "Being a pianist is hard. Can you live without your mother?" I said, "I want my mother!" But I knew I needed to be in Beijing. In America, people often move and start over. But not in China, not in those days.
Suddenly my father and I were newcomers -- outsiders. To the others around us, we spoke with funny northern accents. The only apartment we could find for the money we had was in an unheated building, with five families sharing one bathroom. My father cooked, cleaned and looked after me. He became a housewife, basically.
We lived far from my school, and since the bus was too expensive, my father would "drive" me on his bicycle every day. It was an hour-and-a-half trip each way, and I was a heavy boy, much heavier than I am as an adult. He did this in winter too. Imagine! During the coldest nights, while I practiced piano, my father would lie in my bed so it would be warm when I was tired.
I was miserable, but not from the poverty or pressure. My new teacher in Beijing didn't like me. "You have no talent," she often told me. "You will never be a pianist." And one day, she "fired" me.
I was just nine years old. I was devastated. I didn't want to be a pianist anymore, I decided. I wanted to go home to my mother. For the next two weeks I didn't touch the piano. Wisely, my father didn't push. He just waited.
Sure enough, the day came at school when my teacher asked me to play some holiday songs. I didn't want to, but as I placed my fingers on the piano's keys, I realized I could show other people that I had talent after all.
That day I told my father what he'd been waiting to hear -- that I wanted to study with a new teacher. From that point on, everything turned around.
Mahatma Gandhi
Married by arrangement at 13, Gandhi went to London to study law when he was 18. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and for a while practiced law in Bombay. From 1893 to 1914 he worked for an Indian firm in South Africa. During these years Gandhi's humiliating experiences of overt racial discrimination propelled him into agitation on behalf of the Indian community of South Africa. He assumed leadership of protest campaigns and gradually developed his techniques and tenets of nonviolent resistance known as Satyagraha (literally, "steadfastness in truth").
Returning to India in January 1915, Gandhi soon became involved in labor organizing. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Amritsar (1919), in which troops fired on and killed hundreds of nationalist demonstrators, turned him to direct political protest. Within a year he was the dominant figure in the Indian National Congress, which he launched on a policy of noncooperation with the British in 1920-22. Although total noncooperation was abandoned, Gandhi continued civil disobedience, organizing protest marches against unpopular British measures, such
as the salt tax (1930), and boycotts of British goods.
Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned by the British and resorted to hunger strikes as part of his civil disobedience. His final imprisonment came in 1942-44, after he had demanded total withdrawal of the British (the "Quit India" movement) during World War II.
Gandhi also fought to improve the status of the lowest classes of society, the ‘Untouchables’, whom he called harijans ("children of God"). He believed in manual labor and simple living; he spun thread and wove cloth for his own garments and insisted that his followers do so, too. He disagreed with those who wanted India to industrialize.
Gandhi was also tireless in trying to forge closer bonds between the Hindu majority and the numerous minorities of India, particularly the Muslims. His greatest failure, in fact, was his inability to dissuade Indian Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, from creating a separate state, Pakistan. When India gained independence in 1947, after negotiations in which he was a principal participant, Gandhi opposed the partition of the subcontinent with such intensity that he launched a mass movement against it. Ironically, he was assassinated in Delhi on January 30, 1948, by a Hindu fanatic who mistakenly thought Gandhi's anti-partition sentiment were both pro-Muslim and pro-Pakistan.
A Hard Lesson
Benjamin Franklin is remembered as an inventor, author, statesman, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. But all great people were kids once and got into mischief. In writing about his life, Franklin recalled a youthful event that he later regretted.
Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. His father, whom Ben admired and respected, was a soapmaker and candlemaker with a large family. At the age of ten, Ben was taken out of school and put to work in the shop.
Ben described his duties as “cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going on errands, etc.” But of course he preferred playing outdoors with his friends.
The Franklin family lived near the water, so Ben learned to swim well and to handle small boats.
He wrote that he was a leader among the boys in his neighborhood and “sometimes led them into scrapes.” One such episode is told here in his own words.
“There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets [ants], sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next morni
ng the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.”