Question

Directly across the street was our house from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.

One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the shriveled (皺縮的) body. But the shocking thing was his face-twisted from swelling，red and raw.

Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus till morning.”

He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face…, I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments …"
  I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you，I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag.

When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly disabled from a back injury.
  He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence began with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
    At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch.

He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come back again.
  In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.
  Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little gifts, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.

"Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by accommodating such people!"

Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.

I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

58. The first time I met the man, _____.

A. he had an eight-year-old son        B. he was looking for a place to stay overnight
C. he frightened my kid               D. he was in need of something to eat

59. The next-door neighbor refused the man because _____.

A. he had no spare room               B. the man didn't bring him gifts

C. he might lose roomers               D. the man was bad-tempered

60. Which of the following is NOT true about the man?

A. He developed skin cancer.         B. He didn't complain about his sufferings.
C. He fished to support a large family.  D. God helped him to get over his disease.

61. What attitude did the man have toward life?

A. Confident.       B. Grateful.        C. Regretful.     D. Passive.

62. What message is conveyed in the passage?

A. Give others a hand               B. Accept good and bad with gratitude
C. Be the architect of life                        D Never judge a book by its cover.    

Answer 1

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