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Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches. My bells were on my fathers team of horses as he drove up to our horse-headed hitching post with the bobsled that would3 take us to celebrate Christmas on the family farm ten miles out in the country. My father would bring the team down Fifth Avenue at a smart trot, flicking his whip over the horses rumps and making the bells double their light, thin jangling over the snow, whose radiance threw back a brilliance like the sound of bells.每一个圣诞节都是由铃铛声拉开序幕的，我童年记忆中的圣诞节总是如此。但那不是教堂里的铃铛，而是雪橇上的铃铛，因为我们家居住在爱荷华州的细达河洛佩兹的一个地区，那个地区没有教堂。我的铃铛在我父亲拉雪橇的马队里。我家有一个马头形的拴马桩，父亲会把马儿们赶到拴马桩那儿把大雪橇套在马身上，带着我们到10英里以外的乡下农场去庆祝圣诞节。当父亲驾着马车轻快地驶过第五大街，轻轻地舞动着马鞭时，清脆悦耳的铃声便跳跃在我的耳畔。地上辉映着的雪光使铃声更加清脆动听。There are no such departures any more: the whole family piling into the bobsled with a foot of golden oat straw to lie in and heavy buffalo robes to lie under, the horses stamping the soft snow, and at every motion of their hoofs the bells jingling, jingling. My father sat there with the reins firmly held, wearing a long coat made from the hide of a favorite family horse, the deep chestnut color still glowing, his mittens also from the same hide. It always troubled me as a boy of eight that the horses had so indifferent a view of their late friend appearing as a warm overcoat on the back of the man who put the iron bit in their mouths.如今再也没有那样的出发场景了：一家人挤上大雪橇，身下是金黄的燕麦草，身上盖着厚厚的水牛皮长袍；拉雪橇的马儿踩着柔软的雪，系在它们脖子上的铃铛随着马蹄的节奏叮当作响。父亲坐在那里牢牢地握着缰绳，他穿的长大衣是用家里人都非常喜欢的一匹马的皮毛做成的。那深红棕色的皮毛仍然闪着光泽，他戴的手套也出自同一张马皮。那时8岁的我总是很纳闷，不知道为什么那些马眼见着它们刚刚故去的朋友变成了把衔铁塞在它们嘴里的人身上温暖的大衣而熟视无睹，毫无反应。There are no streets like those any more: the snow sensibly left on the road for the sake of sleighs and easy travel. We could hop oil and ride the heavy runners as they made their hissing, tearing sound over the packed snow. And along the streets we met other horses, so that we moved from one set of bells to another, from the tiny tinkle of the individual bells on the shafts to the silvery, leaping sound of the long strands hung over the harness. There would be an occasional brass-mounted automobile laboring on its narrow tires and as often as not pulled up the slippery hills by a horse, and we would pass it with a triumphant shout for an awkward nuisance which was obviously not here to stay.如今再也没有那样的街道了：为了让雪橇能够顺利驶过，路面上的积雪被有意地保留了下来。我们的雪橇跳跃着在铺满雪得路上狂奔，沉重的划板摩擦着地面发出嘶嘶的声音。在街上，我们会遇到其他的马匹，当我们驶过时可以挺大一串串各不相同的铃铛声。有的马车车辕上挂着单个铃铛，发出轻微的叮当声；有的马具上则挂着一长串铃铛，发出清脆悦耳、忽高忽低的响声。在路上，偶尔我们会遇上坐着镇上官员的小汽车，窄窄的车轮在积雪的路上吃力地行驶着，而且经常不得不用一匹马拉着才能驶上溜滑的山坡。每当这时我们就会发出胜利者的欢呼快速驶过，嘲笑那个钢铁家伙的蠢笨和不合时宜。The country road ran through a landscape of little hills and shallow valleys and heavy groves of timber, including one of great towering black walnut trees which were all cut down a year later to be made into gunstocks for the First World War. The great moment was when we left the road and turned up the long lane on the farm. It ran through fields where watermelons were always planted in the summer because of the fine sandy soil, and I could go out and break one open to see its Christmas colors of green skin and red inside. My grandfather had been given some of that farm as bounty land for service as a cavalryman in the Civil War.乡间公路穿过一片小山丘，那里有很多浅浅的山谷，到处长满了郁郁葱葱成片成片的树林。其中有一大片高耸入云的黑胡桃树一年后都被砍倒，制成了在第一次世界大战中使用的枪支的枪托。最令人兴奋的时刻是我们的雪橇离开乡村公路驶上通往农场的长长的小路的时候。雪橇驶过片片田地，那里是优良的沙质土壤，夏天种满了西瓜。在西瓜成熟的季节，我总会好奇地跑去地里打开一个，看看墨绿的瓜皮里红红的瓜瓤，那是圣诞的颜色。那片土地是我祖父因在南北战争中服过役当过骑兵而得到的奖赏。Near the low house on the hill, with oaks on one side and apple trees on the other, my father would stand up, flourish his whip, and bring the bobsled right up to the door of the house with a burst of speed.在快要接近小山上那座低矮的、一边种满橡树、一边种满苹果树的房子时，父亲总会从雪橇座位上站起来，用力挥舞着手中的马鞭，以风驰电掣般的速度把雪橇驶到房门口停下。There are no such arrivals any more: the harness bells ringing and clashing like faraway steeples, the horses whinnying at the horses in the barn and receiving a great, trumpeting whinny in reply, the dogs leaping into the bobsled and burrowing under the buffalo robes, a squawking from the hen house, a yelling of “Whoa, whoa,” at the excited horses, boy and girl cousins howling around the bobsled, and the descent into the snow with the Christmas basket carried by my mother.如今再也没有那样的到达时的热闹景象了：车辕上的铃铛清脆响亮，就像远处的尖塔一样优美绚丽；马儿们朝着马厩里的马嘶鸣，马厩里的马儿们也以热烈响亮的嘶鸣作答，狗儿们牛皮毯子下钻来钻去；母鸡窝里传来咯咯的鸡叫声；为了让兴奋的马儿们安静下来的“喔！喔！”声；堂兄弟姐妹们在雪橇周围欢闹着追逐着；一家人走下雪橇，踏入雪中，妈妈提着的篮子里装满了圣诞节的东西。 While my mother and sisters went into the house, the team was unhitched and taken to the barn, to be covered with blankets and given a little grain. That winter odor of a barn is a wonderfully complex one, rich and warm and utterly unlike the smell of the same barn in summer: the body heat of many animals weighing a thousand pounds and more; pigs in one corner making their dark, brown-sounding grunts; milk cattle still nuzzling the manger for wisps of hay; horses eyeing the newcomers and rolling their deep, oval eyes white; oats, hay, and straw tangy still with the live August sunlight; the manure steaming; the sharp odor of leather harness rubbed with neats-foot oil to keep it supple; the molasses-sweet odor of ensilage in the silo where the fodder was almost fermenting. It is a smell from strong and living things, and my father always said it was the secret of health, that it scoured out a mans lungs; and he would stand there, breathing deeply, one hand on a horses rump, watching the steam come out from under the blankets as the team cooled down from their rapid trot up the lane. It gave him a better appetite, he argued, than plain fresh air, which was thin and had no body to it.母亲和姐妹们走进房子。马儿们从雪橇上被解下来，带到了马厩里，披上了毯子，喂上了饲料。冬天马厩里的那种气味是一种令人陶醉的混合味道，浓郁而温暖，完全不像夏天里的味道：许多重达上千磅甚至更重的大牲畜身上散发出的体温；几头猪在角落里发出阴郁低沉的哼哼声；奶牛不停地用鼻子拱着食槽，咀嚼着里面的干草；马儿们滴溜溜地转动着它们那深邃的椭圆形的大眼睛，审视着那些新成员；燕麦、干草还有稻草都散发着新鲜的八月阳光的味道；还有冒着热气的动物粪便的气味以及为了使皮革马具柔软而用牛脚油摩擦皮革散发出的浓烈的味道，还有贮藏在地窖里正在发酵的未干的秣草发出的米糖般甜甜的味道。那是一种从强壮而又有生命力的东西身上发出的气味，父亲总是会说这种气味是保持健康的秘诀，因为它可以洗涤人的脾肺。他总会站在那里，一只手搭在马屁股上，一边做着深呼吸，一边看着马匹由于刚刚在小径上疾驰而产生的热气从毯子下面冒出来。他还说这种气味比新鲜空气更能使他有好胃口，新鲜空气太过平淡而没有味道。A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, thats where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.牛马棚正是圣诞节的发源地，毕竟那是故事最开始发生的地方，圣婴呼吸到的第一口空气就是这种味道。By the time we reached the house, my mother and sisters were wearing aprons and busying in the kitchen, as red-faced as the women who had been there all morning. The kitchen was the biggest room in the house and all family life save sleeping went on there. My uncle even had a couch along one wall where he napped and where the children lay when they were ill. The kitchen range was a tremendous black and gleaming one called a Smoke Eater, with pans bubbling over the holes above the fire box and a reservoir of hot water at the side, lined with dull copper, from which my uncle would dip a basin of water and shave above the sink, turning his lathered face now and then to drop a remark into the womens talk, waving his straightedged razor as if it were a threat to make them believe him. My job was to go to the woodpile out back and keep the fire burning, splitting the chunks of oak and hickory, watching how cleanly the ax went through the tough wood.我们进到屋子里的时候，母亲和姐姐们正扎着围裙在厨房里忙碌着。她们的脸颊跟其他在厨房里忙碌了一上午的妇女一样，红扑扑的。厨房时整个房子里最大的房间，除睡觉之外的所有家庭活动都是在这里进行的。叔叔甚至靠墙放了一张睡椅，他经常会在上面打个盹儿，孩子们生病时也会躺在上面。叔叔家的厨房的灶台很大，又黑又亮，被称做“食烟者”。灶台上大大小小的锅在火箱上的灶眼里打出一盆水，然后在下水池上刮他的脸。他会不时地转过他那涂满肥皂泡的脸在妇女们的谈话中间插几句嘴。他挥舞着手中的直刃刮胡刀，好像以此作为威胁让别人相信他所说的话。我的工作是到房子后面的柴堆取来木柴使火炉里的或持续燃烧，柴火不够时还要挥舞利刃把坚硬的橡木和山胡桃木 劈成可以烧火的木块儿。It was a handmade Christmas. The tree came from down in the grove, and on it were many paper ornaments made by my cousins, as well as beautiful ones brought from the Black Forest, where the family had originally lived. There were popcorn balls, from corn planted on the sunny slope by the watermelons, paper horns with homemade candy, and apples from the orchard. The gifts tended to be hand-knit socks, or wool ties, or fancy crocheted “yokes” for nightgowns, tatted collars for blouses, doilies with fancy flower patterns for tables, tidies for chairs, and once I received a brilliantly polished cow horn with a cavalryman crudely but bravely carved on it. And there would usually be a cornhusk doll, perhaps with a prune or walnut for a face, and a gay dress of an old corset-cover scrap with its ribbons still bright. And there were real candles burning with real flames, every guest sniffing the air for the smell of scorching pine needles. No electrically lit tree has the warm and primitive presence of a tree with a crown of living fires over it, suggesting whatever true flame Joseph may have kindled on that original cold night.那真是自给自足的圣诞节：圣诞树是从小山下的丛林里看来的，挂在上面的纸制装饰物有许多事堂兄弟姐妹们自己做的，也有一些非常漂亮的是从叔叔家原来居住的名叫“黑森林”的地方带来的。吃的东西有爆玉米花球，而玉米就产自西瓜地旁边那片向阳坡地，还有包着自制糖果的纸号角和从自家果园里摘下来的苹果。礼物往往是手工编织的袜子、羊毛领带、钩针编织的精美的睡衣抵肩、梭织而成的衬衫衣领、布满花卉图案的小桌布、搭在椅子扶手和靠背上的罩布。有一次我还曾经受到过一个磨得锃亮的牛角，上面刻着一名骑兵，虽然雕刻简单，但也是威风凛凛。礼物中总是会有用玉米皮做成的玩具娃娃，用李子干或核桃做成的脸，用上面带有鲜亮丝带的旧紧身胸衣碎片做成的艳丽的裙子。圣诞树上点着真正的蜡烛，跳动着真正的烛光，所有的客人都呼吸着弥漫在整个房间里的浓烈的松针烧焦的味道。没有一棵点满小电灯泡的圣诞树会像一棵树顶上点满蜡烛的圣诞树一样能营造出那种温馨、质朴的氛围。给人的感觉是在那个故事开始的寒冷夜晚，约瑟夫点燃的是同样真切的烛火。There are no dinners like that any more: every item from the farm itself, with no deep freezer, no car for driving into town for packaged food. The pies had been baked the day before, pumpkin, apple, and mince; as we ate them, we could look out the window and see the cornfield where the pumpkins grew, the trees from which the apples were picked. 如今再也没有那样的圣诞晚餐了：没有冷冻冰箱，没有汽车开进城里去购买袋装食品，所有的东西都产自自家的农场。馅儿饼都是头一天就烤好的，有南瓜馅儿的、苹果馅儿的、肉馅儿的；我们可以一边吃馅儿饼，一边望到窗外生长南瓜的玉米地和从上面摘下苹果的苹果树。还有农家干酪，仍滴着油脂的装着凝乳的袋子还挂在冰冷的地窖天花板上。面包是当天早上为烤肉预热炉子而现烤出来的，当婶婶匆匆从我身边走过时，我能闻到那沁人心脾的面包刚刚出炉时的味道，那是最新鲜的香味。还有用一个巨大棕色瓦罐儿盛着的豌豆烟熏猪肉，猪肉来自每年11月屠宰的猪。越过大瓦罐儿，我们能看到场院角落里倒扣着的一口大黑铁锅，无辜的猪儿们停在那里蹭痒儿。There was cottage cheese, with the dripping bags of curds still hanging from the cold cellar ceiling. The bread had been baked that morning, heating up the oven for the meat, and as my aunt hurried by I could smell in her apron that freshest of all odors with which the human nose is honoredbread straight from the oven. There would be a huge brown crock of beans with smoked pork from the hog butchered every November. We could see, beyond the crock, the broad black iron kettle in a corner of the barnyard, turned upside down, the innocent hogs stopping to scratch on it.总会有各种各样的蜜饯水果和泡菜：有采自小树丛中葡萄树上的野葡萄，有山楂果子冻，有野黑刺霉和家种的覆盆子，还有从菜园地里采来的草莓，以及用小径旁野生的莳萝制成的酸甜泡菜，还有用我们放在牛奶房水槽里冷却，然后在炎热的9月下午吃的西瓜皮腌制的泡菜。Cut into the slope of the hill behind the house, with a little door of its own, was the vegetable cellar, from which came carrots, turnips, cabbages, potatoes, squash, Sometimes my scared cousins were sent there for punishment, to sit in darkness and meditate on their sins; but never on Christmas Day. For days after such an ordeal they could not endure biting into a carrot.在房子后面的山坡上挖有一个菜窖，窖口有一个小门儿，里面储存着胡萝卜、萝卜、卷心菜、土豆、南瓜。那时我那几个被吓坏的堂兄们会被送到那里接受惩罚，坐在黑暗里思过。但他们从未在圣诞节受到过这样的惩罚。这样的苦难经历过后的几天里他们再也吃不进胡萝卜了，一口也吃不下去了。And of course there was the traditional sauerkraut, with flecks of caraway seed. I remember one Christmas Day, when a ten-gallon crock of it in the basement, with a stone weighting down the lid, had blown up, driving the stone against the floor of the parlor, and my uncle had exclaimed, “Good God, the pianos fallen through the floor.”当然还有撒着一粒粒葛缕子粒的传统泡菜。我记得有一个圣诞节，当地下室里用一块儿石头压着盖着盖子的装有10加仑这种泡菜的大罐子突然间爆裂，使得石头砸到客厅下面的地板时，叔叔大声叫道：“我的天，钢琴从地板上掉下去了！”All the meat was from the home place too. Most useful of all, the goosethe very one which had chased me the summer before, hissing and darting out its bill at the end of its curving neck like a feathered snake. Here was the universal bird of an older Christmas: its down was plucked, washed, and hung in bags in the barn to be put into pillows; its awkward body was roasted until the skin was crisp as a fine paper; and the grease from its carcass was melted down, a little camphor added, and rubbed on the chests of coughing children. We ate, slept on, and wore that goose.所有的肉类也是家产的。其中最有用的莫过于鹅肉了，那只鹅正是那年夏天伸着它那弯弯曲曲晃动着的、像长着羽毛的蛇一样的脖子，张着大嘴，发出嘶嘶的声音向我冲过来，在后面追赶过我的那只鹅。鹅是旧时圣诞节普遍食用的一种家禽：羽毛拔下来，洗净，放进袋子挂在马厩里风干，然后装进枕头里；它那笨拙的身体会被烤得直到外皮变成像纸一样薄脆；从它的躯体里熔化流出的油脂加进一点儿樟脑可以涂搽在患咳嗽的孩子的前胸治病。总之，我们吃鹅肉，睡鹅毛，穿鹅毛。 I was blessed as a child with a remote uncle from the nearest railroad town, Uncle Ben, who was admiringly referred to as a “railroad man,” working the run into Omaha. Ben had been to Chicago; just often enough, as his wife Minnie said with a sniff in her voice, “to ruin the fool, not often enough to teach him anything useful.” Ben refused to eat fowl in any form, and as a Christmas token a little pork roast would be put in the oven just, for him, always referred to by the hurrying ladies in the kitchen as “Bens chunk.” Ben would make frequent trips to the milk house, returning each time a little redder in the face, usually with one of the men toward whom he had jerked his head. It was not many years before I came to associate Bens remarkably fruity breath not only with the mince pie, but with the jug 1 funnel sunk in the bottom of the cooling tank with a stone tied to its neck. He was a romantic person in my life for his constant travels and for that dignifying term “railroad man,” so much more impressive than farmer or lawyer. Yet now I see that he was a short man with a fine natural shyness, giving us knives and guns because he had no children of his own.作为一个小孩子，有一位来自离家最近的有铁路的镇子的远房叔叔是一件令人愉快的事。我的叔叔，本，被人很羡慕地成为“铁路人”，他在开往奥马哈的列车上工作。本叔叔曾经去过芝加哥，他去过好几次，他的妻子蜜妮每提起此事都会不屑地说：“他去的这几次没学到什么好东西，反而长了不少臭毛病。”本叔叔拒绝吃任何禽类做成的菜肴，作为圣诞节的象征会特地为他在炉子里烤一小块猪肉，这块肉被忙碌在厨房里的女士们称做是“本的肉块儿”。本叔叔会不停地往牛奶房里跑，每次回来脸上都会更红润一些，通常他都会先跟在座的其中一个男人迅速摆一下头然后一起走出去。几年之后我才弄明白本叔叔嘴里的浓郁的果味香气不只是因为吃了果肉馅儿饼，还跟我在牛奶房冷却冰箱里发现的用一块儿石头系在颈部沉在水箱底部的酒罐子有关。因为本叔叔经常有机会到处游历，还有他那令人备显尊贵的“铁路人”的称谓，他在当时是一位浪漫的传奇式人物，比农场主或者律师都更有吸引力。然而如今在我看来，他那时只是一个文雅而生性腼腆的矮个子男人，经常送给我们玩具刀和手枪，因为他自己没有孩子。And of course the trimmings were from the farm too: the hickory nut cake made with nuts gathered in the grove after the first frost and hulled out by my cousins with yellowed hands; the black walnut cookies, sweeter than any taste; the fudge with butternuts crowding it. In the mornings we would be given a hammer, a flat iron, and a bowl of nuts to crack and pick out for the homemade ice cream.当然配菜也同样来自于农场：山胡桃仁蛋糕用的是第一场霜降后从小树林里采集来的山胡桃制成的，我的堂兄弟姐妹们因剥山胡桃而两手发黄；用黑核桃仁制成的小甜饼比任何味道都甜美；还有撒满白核桃的牛奶软糖。一般在早晨我们会得到一个铁锤、一个平铁板，还有一碗要砸开的坚果，为做自制冰激凌准备果仁。And there was the orchard beyond the kitchen window, the Wealthy, the Russet, the Wolf with its giant-sized fruit, and an apple romantically called the Northern Spy as if it were a suspicious character out of the Civil War.厨房的窗外便是果园，果园里长着各种苹果树：“富裕果”、“赤褐果”、“狼果”的果树上结满了大个头儿的果实；还有一种叫做“北方间谍”的苹果树，名字听起来像是出自内战的一位可疑人物。All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farmhazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. A little round one was always baked for me in a Clabber Girl baking soda can, and my last act on Christmas Eve was to put it by the tree so that Santa Clans would find it and have a snackafter all, hed come a long, cold way to our house. And every Christmas morning, he would have eaten it. My aunt made the same Dutch Bread and we smeared over it the same butter she had been churning from their own Jersey (highest butterfat content) milk that same morning.所有家庭都会准备他们自己独特的圣诞食物。我们家的是一种被叫做“荷兰面包”，用介于做面包和蛋糕之间的面团做成的面食，里面塞满了香橼和各式各样产自农场的果仁、榛子、黑核桃、山核桃、白胡桃。通常会专门用“酸牛奶姑娘”烘烤苏打罐为我烤制一个又圆又小的“荷兰面包”。圣诞夜我所做的最后一件事就是把这个特制的点心放在圣诞树旁以便让圣诞老人发现它并把它作为宵夜。毕竟他是长途跋涉冒着严寒来到我们家的。每一个圣诞节的早晨就会发现他已经把它吃了。婶婶做了同样的“荷兰面包”，我们把同样的黄油（含有最高的乳脂含量）抹涂在上面吃，那是婶婶当天从他们自家养的泽西种乳牛身上挤出的鲜奶中一次提炼制成的。To eat in the same room where food is cookedthat is the way to thank the Lord for His abundance. The long table, with its different levels where additions had been made for the small fry, ran the length of the kitchen. The air was heavy with odors not only of food on plates but of the act of cooking itself, along with the metallic smell of heated iron from the hard-working Smoke Eater, and the whole stove offered us its yet uneaten prospects of more goose and untouched pies. To see the giblet gravy made and poured into a gravy boat, which had painted on its sides winter scenes of boys sliding and deer bounding over snow, is the surest way to overeat its swimming richness.在食物烹调出来的同一个房间里品尝它们，这正是感谢主如此丰盛的恩赐的最好方式。厨房里的那张长桌子由于为小孩子们不断增加一些高低不等的桌面，几乎已经和厨房一样长了。空气中浓香四溢，不仅仅是装在盘子里的食物的香味，空气中还弥漫着食物在烹饪过程中发出的香味，以及“食烟者”灶台上一直不停烧烤着的金属发出的味道。整个炉子给我们提供着更多的等待上桌的烤鹅和馅儿饼。船形肉卤盘的周围描绘着冬天的情景，雪地上孩子们滑着雪橇，小鹿欢快地跳跃；看着家禽的内脏制成的浓香的卤汁，再倒入这样的盘中，人们忍不住会吃得过量。The warning for Christmas dinner was always an order to go to the milk house for cream, where we skimmed from the cooling pans of fresh milk the cream which had the same golden color as the flanks of the Jersey cows which had given it. The last deed before eating was grinding the coffee beans in the little mill, adding that exotic odor to the more native ones of goose and spiced pumpkin pie. Then all would sit at the table and my uncle would ask the grace, sometimes in German, but later, for the benefit of us ignorant children, in English:Come, Lord Jesus, beour guest,Share this food that youhave blessed.当孩子们被派往牛奶房去取奶油时，就知道晚餐要开始了。我们把出自泽西种乳牛、颜色跟它们侧腹一样的金黄的奶油从盛放鲜奶的冷却盘中撇出。吃饭前的最后一件事是在小打磨机里磨咖啡豆，原本满是本土烤鹅和香料南瓜馅饼味道的空气中就又会增加了一种来自异国的香气。然后所有的人都围坐在桌子旁，吃饭前的祷告通常是由叔叔做的，他有时用德文，但之后为了让孩子们听懂，他会改用英文：来吧，主耶稣，来做我们的贵宾。跟我们一起分享您赐予我们的食物。There are no blessings like that any more: every scrap of food for which my uncle had asked the blessing was the result of his own hard work. What he took to the Lord for Him to make holy was the plain substance that an Iowa farm could produce in an average year with decent rainfall and proper plowing and manure.如今再也没有那样的祈福了：叔叔敬献给上帝、请他赐福的所有食物都出自一个爱荷华州农场的一般年景，雨水充足时，通过辛勤耕作、适当施肥所获得的普通收成。 The first act of dedication on such a Christmas was to the occasion which had begun it, thanks to the Child of a pastoral couple who no doubt knew a good deal about rainfall and grass and the fattening of animals. The second act of dedication was to the ceremony of eating. My aunt kept a turmoil of food circulating, and to refuse any of it was somehow to violate the elevated nature of the day. We were there not only to celebrate a fortunate event for mankind, but also to recognize that suffering is the natural lot of menand to consume the length and breadth of that meal was to suffer! But we all faced the ordeal with courage. Uncle Ben would let out his belta fancy Western belt with steer heads and silver bucklewith a snap and a sigh. The women managed better by always getting up from the table and trotting to the kitchen sink or the Smoke Eater or outdoors for some item left in the cold. The men sat there grimly enduring the glory of their appetites.在这样的圣诞节第一个要感谢的是使这个节日产生的那个圣诞之夜，感谢那个圣婴，他的牧民父母一定通晓降雨、草场和养殖牲畜。第二个要感谢的便是那个盛大的宴席。婶婶不停地传着各种食物，从某种程度上说拒绝任何一种食物都是对一天中气氛最高涨时刻的亵渎。此刻，我们不仅要庆祝人类的一件幸事，还要认识到受苦受难是人类的天命享用整整一桌子的美食的确是件苦差事！但我们都勇敢地面对这一苦差事。本叔叔会叹口气啪的一声松开他的皮带那是一条漂亮的西部牌皮带，上面带有公牛头和银扣子。女人们能更好地应付这件苦差事，她们时而从桌子旁站起身来快步走到厨房的水槽、灶台，或是到房子外面取一些冰冻在外面的东西。男人们却坚定地坐在那里忍受着他们的好胃口。 After dinner, late in the afternoon, the women would make despairing gestures toward the dirty dishes and scoop up hot water from the reservoir at the side of the range. The men would go to the barn and look after the livestock. My older cousin would take his new .22 rifle and stalk out across the pasture with the remark, “I saw that fox just now looking for his Christmas goose.” Or sleds would be dragged out and we would slide in a long snake, feet hooked into the sled behind, down the hill and across the westward sloping fields into the sunset. Bones would be thrown to dogs, suet tied in the oak trees for the juncos and winter-defying chickadees , a saucer of skimmed milk set out for the cats, daintily and di
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