VIP Class Notes (Vicki)

How the First Dishes Were Made 
Torad, the Cave-Boy

A long, long time ago there lived a little boy named Torad. In those days there were nohouses like ours, and Torad lived in a cave with his family. They sat and slept on the floor of the cave, for they had no chairs or beds. And no one knew what dishes were.

Torad liked to run and play with the other children. But best of all, he liked to play with the soft, yellow mud which he found along the bank of the river. Sometimes he would sit for hours making mud balls, rolling them on a flat stone until they were round and smooth.

One day Torad was playing with a big mud ball. He took a sharp stick and dug a round hole in the ball. This made it look like a small round bowl. Torad thought it looked like one of the large nut shells which his mother used to carry water from the river.

He was just going to show the bowl to his mother when he heard his playmates calling him. So he ran away to play and forgot all about the mud bowl. The next day, when Torad went to get the bowl, he found it dry and hard.

“Mother might use this for carrying water instead of a nut shell,” he said. So he took the bowl to his mother. When Torad’s mother saw the bowl, she did not know what it was. She held it in her hands and looked at it. “Where did you find this?” she asked.

Torad smiled. ” I made it myself,” he said. “I made it out of mud. I thought you might carry water in it.” Torad’s mother was pleased. “We will see,” she said. “Bring me some fresh, cool water from the river. I want a drink.” Torad ran to the river and came back to the cave with the bowl full of water. But when his mother took the bowl, she saw that the water was muddy.

“Why do you bring me muddy water?” she asked. “I cannot drink it.” Torad was surprised. “It was clear when I got it from the river,” he said. “We cannot carry water in this thing,” said his mother. “It is made of mud, and it will always make the water muddy. We had better throw it away.”

She threw the bowl into the fire. Poor Torad! He was sorry to see his bowl in the fire. But the fire was so hot that he could not get the bowl out. So he ran away to play.

Vocabulary

silver – 银色

stripes – 条纹

spots – 斑点

center – 中心

circle – 圆

square – 正方形

triangle – 三角形

rectangle – 长方形

line – 直线

cotton – 棉

plastic – 塑料

wood – 木材

metal – 金属

stone – 石头

wool – 羊毛

china – 陶瓷

glass – 玻璃

Review vocab