新高级阅读前（双语）45（1710）

PASSAGE FORTY-FIVE

My father is Santa Claus

1.As a young boy, I sometimes traveled the country roads with my dad. He was a rural mail carrier and on Saturdays he would ask me to go with him.

2.Driving through the countryside was always an adventure: There were animals to see, people to visit, and chocolate cookies if you knew where to stop, and Dad did.

3.In the spring, Dad delivered boxes full of baby chickens, and when I was a boy it was such fun to stick your fingers through one of the holes of the boxes and let the baby birds peck on your fingers.

4.On Dad’s final day of work, it took him well into “the evening to complete his rounds because at least one member from each fatuity was waiting at their mailbox to thank him for his friendship and his years of service. ”

5.Two hundred and nineteen mailboxes on my route, “he used to say,” “and a story at every one. ”One lady had no mailbox, so Dad took the mail in to her every day because she was nearly blind.

6.Once inside, he read her mail and helped her pay her bills. Mailboxes were sometimes used for things other than mail.

7.One note left in a mailbox read, “Nat, take these eggs to Marian; she’s baking a cake and doesn’t have any eggs. ”Mailboxes might he buried in the snow, or broken, or lying on the ground, but the mail was always delivered.

8.On cold days Dad might find one of his customers waiting for him with a cup of hot chocolate. A young girl wrote letters but had no stamps, so she left a few buttons on the envelope in the mailbox; Dad paid for the stamps.

9.One businessman used to leave large amounts of cash in his mailbox for Dad to take to the bank. Once, the amount came to $ 32, 000.

10.A dozen years ago, when I traveled back to my hometown on the sad occasion of Dad’s death, the mailboxes along the way reminded me of some of his stories.

11.I thought I knew them all, but that wasn’t the ease. As I drove home, I noticed two lamp poles, one on each side of the street.

12.When my dad was around, those poles supported wooden boxes about four feet off the ground.

13.One box was painted green, and the other was red, and each had a long narrow hole at the top with white lettering: SANTA CLAUS, NORTH POLE. For years children had dropped letters to Santa through those holes.

14.I made a turn at the comer and drove past the post office and across the railroad tracks to our house. Mom and I were sitting at the kitchen table when I heard footsteps.

15.There, at the door, stood Frank Townsend, Dad’s postmaster and great friend for many years. So we all sat down at the table and began to tell stories.

16.At one point Frank looked at me with tears in his eyes. “What are we going to do about the letters this Christmas?” he asked.

17.“The letters?”

“I guess you never knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Remember, when you were a kid and you used to put your letters to Santa in those green and red boxes on Main Street? It was your dad who answered all those letters every year.”

18.I just sat there with tears in my eyes. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine Dad sitting at the old oak table in our basement reading those letters and answering each one.

19.I have since spoken with several of the people who received Christmas letters during their childhood, and they told me how amazed they were that Santa had known so much about their homes and families.

20.For me, just knowing that story about my father was the gift of a lifetime.

第四十五篇

我的父亲是圣诞老人

1.当我还是个小男孩的时候，我有时会和爸爸一起在乡间小路上旅行。他是一名农村邮递员，每逢星期六他都会叫我和他一起去。

2. 开车穿过乡村总是一种冒险:有动物可以看，有人可以拜访，如果你知道在哪里停下来的话，还有巧克力饼干，爸爸知道。

3.春天的时候，爸爸送来了装满小鸡的盒子，当我还是个小男孩的时候，把手指伸进盒子的一个洞里，让小鸡啄你的手指是多么有趣。

4.在爸爸工作的最后一天，他花了很长时间“完成巡视，因为每个团队至少有一个成员在邮箱前等着感谢他的友谊和多年的服务。”

5.“在我的路线上有二百十九个邮箱，”他常说，“每个邮箱都有一个故事。”有一位女士没有邮箱，因为她几乎失明了，所以爸爸每天都帮她拿邮件。

6.一进去，他就看她的邮件，帮她付账单。邮箱有时被用来做邮件以外的事情。

7.信箱里有一张纸条，上面写着:“纳特，把这些鸡蛋拿给玛丽安;她在烤蛋糕，没有鸡蛋。”邮箱可能被埋在雪里，或坏了，或躺在地上，但邮件总是送达。

8.在寒冷的日子里，爸爸可能会发现他的一位顾客端着一杯热巧克力等着他。一个年轻的女孩写信，但没有邮票，所以她在信箱里的信封上留下了几个按钮;爸爸付了邮票的钱。

9.一个商人过去常常在他的邮箱里留下大量现金，让爸爸带去银行。有一次，金额达到了32,000美元。

10. 十几年前，当我在父亲去世的悲伤时刻回到家乡时，沿途的邮箱让我想起了他的一些故事。

11.我以为我都认识，但事实并非如此。当我开车回家的时候，我注意到街道两边各有一根灯杆。

12.当我爸爸还在的时候，那些杆子支撑着离地大约四英尺的木箱。

13.一个盒子被漆成绿色，另一个盒子被漆成红色，每个盒子的顶部都有一个狭长的洞，上面写着白字:圣诞老人，北极。多年来，孩子们一直通过这些洞给圣诞老人写信。

14.我在拐角处拐了个弯，开过邮局，穿过铁轨回到我们家。妈妈和我正坐在厨房的桌子旁，这时我听到了脚步声。

15. 弗兰克·汤森站在门口，他是爸爸的邮政局长和多年的好朋友。于是我们都在桌旁坐下，开始讲故事。

16.弗兰克一度含泪看着我。“今年圣诞节我们要怎么处理这些信呢?”他问。

17.“信?”

“我想你从来都不知道。”

“知道什么?”

“还记得吗，当你还是个孩子的时候，你常常把你写给圣诞老人的信放在大街上那些红绿相间的盒子里?”每年回信的都是你爸爸。”

18.我只是坐在那里，眼里含着泪水。我不难想象，爸爸坐在地下室的老橡木桌旁，一边读着那些信，一边一一回信。

19.此后，我和几个在童年时期收到过圣诞信件的人聊过，他们告诉我，圣诞老人对他们的家庭和家庭了解得如此之多，他们感到非常惊讶。

20.对我来说，了解我父亲的故事是一生难得的礼物。