Ralph and Piggy see something shiny lying among the weeds and pick it up. “It is a shell,” Ralph says. “We can blow it and use this to call the others. They'll come when they hear us.” Piggy says in excitement.

Ralph finds his breath and blows a series of short blasts.

Piggy exclaims: “There’s one!”

A child appears among the palms, about a hundred yards along the beach. He is a boy of perhaps six years, sturdy and fair, his clothes torn, his face covered with a sticky mess of fruit.

More signs of life are visible now on the beach. Three small children, no older than Ralph, appear from startlingly close at hand. A dark little boy, not much younger than Piggy, walks onto the platform, and smiles cheerfully at everybody. The sand, trembling beneath the heat haze, conceals many other figures in its miles of length.
Know more about the characters in the story: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/characters/

Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care;
Your web of will, whose end is never wrought;
Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, your worthless ware;
Too long, too long, asleep you have me brought,
Who shall my mind to higher things prepare.

But yet in vain you have my ruin sought;
In vain you make me to vain things aspire;
In vain you kindle all your smoky fire;
For virtue has this better lesson taught,—
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring nothing but how to kill desire.
Dive deeper into the themes of the poem: https://studymoose.com/thou-blinds-man-mark-by-sir-philip-sidney-analysis-essay

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving over the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The travellers stopped, the courier's feet delayed
All friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In the tumultuous storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, he does not care
About number or proportion.
When the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
Dive deeper into the structure and techniques of the poem: https://poemanalysis.com/ralph-waldo-emerson/the-snow-storm/

“Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. Although the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, Scrooge did not like to meet him. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. The Spirit was clothed in a simple green robe with white fur.

The Spirit led Scrooge into a small house of the Cratchit family. The dinner was all done, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The apples and oranges were put upon the table and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew around the hearth. Mr Cratchit proposed, ”A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!” All the family echoed.

They were not a handsome family, they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily. Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets. The brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. The flickering of blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through before the fire. The deep red curtains were drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their family to be the first to greet them.
Watch an animated video summary of the full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxKE308POP8

Paris, France is exciting and peaceful. I was only four years old when I was first in Paris. I talked French and was photographed and went to school here. So I was in Paris for a year when I was four to five and then I was back to America. I always liked the black cat which jumped on my mother’s back. There are lots of cats in Paris and they can do what they like, sit on vegetables or among the groceries, stay in or go out. Anybody driving a car in Paris must know that. French people walking along the sidewalk keep on a certain pace no matter what.

Nothing startles and frightens them to go faster or slower. Not the most violent and unexpected noise makes them jump, or change their pace and their direction. If anybody jumps back or jumps at all in the streets of Paris you can be sure they are foreign and not French. There are two sides to a French, logic and fashion, and this is the reason why French people are exciting and peaceful. Cooking like everything else in France is logic and fashion. French cooking is an art and part of their culture. French desserts are fashionable and complicated. Restaurants continued the tradition of popularizing complicated and fine cooking that could hardly be done in a simple kitchen. Good cooking and fashion in cooking was always diffused throughout France.