语法填空。
Long ago, near the frontier lived an old man. One day he found his horse 1 _ (miss). It was said that the horse was seen running outside the border of the country. The neighbors came to comfort him for the unfortunate loss. But the old man was 2_ (expect) calm and said, “ It doesn’t matter; it may not be a bad event, on the contrary, I think it can be a good 3 .”
One night the old man heard some noise of horses and got up to take a look. To his surprise, he saw 4 handsome horse besides his own. It was clear that his horse had brought a companion home. Hearing the news, the neighbors all came to say congratulations 5 his good luck. However, the old man was very calm. He added, “It is true that I got a new horse for nothing, but it is hard to say 6 it is good or bad. It may be 7 unlucky thing.”
What he said turned 8 to be right. The son of the old man was very fond of the horse 9 (bring) home, and one day, when he was riding the horse, he fell off the horseback and terribly hurt in his left leg. “Nothing serious,” the old man said, “perhaps it is going to be good.”
A year later, many of the youth were recruited (应征) to fight in a war and most of them died. The son of the old man was absolved(免除) from the army service for his 10 (disable), so he escaped death.