2014届高考英语一轮复习限时阅读训练12.docVIP

2014届高考英语一轮复习限时阅读训练12 A I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His social worker assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee. He was short, a little fat, with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down’s Syndrome(唐氏综合症). I thought most of my customers would be uncomfortable around Stevie, so I closely watched him for the first few weeks. I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my trucker regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot. After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a coffee spill was visible, when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was convincing him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a heart surgery. His social worker said that people with Down’s syndrome often had heart problems at an early age, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months. A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, my head waitress, let out a war whoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker c