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 father’s 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 mout...
