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Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to 1)out-patients at the clinic.
One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the 2)stooped, 3)shriveled body. But the 4)appalling thing was his face... 5)lopsided from
6)swelling, red and raw. Yet, his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ‘til morning.”
He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. No one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments...”
For a moment I hesitated, but his words convinced me. “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch1. My bus leaves early in the morning.”
I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No, thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag.
When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him for a few minutes. It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly 7)crippled from a back injury.
He didn’t tell it by way of complaint. In fact, every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing2. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently3 a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
At bedtime, we put a camp 8)cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens4 were neatly5 folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast. But just before he left for his bus,
9)haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.”
He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”
I told him he was welcome to come again.
On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a 10)quart of the largest 11)oysters6 I had ever seen. He said he had 12)shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 A.M. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
During the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box with fresh young 13)spinach or 14)kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had, made the gifts doubly precious.
When I received these little 15)remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!”
Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But if only they could have known him, perhaps their illness would have been easier to bear. I know our family will always be grateful to have known him. From him, we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude7 to God.
Recently, I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all—a golden 16)chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented8, rusty9 bucket.
I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind.
“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, until I can put it out in the garden.”
She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old man. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.”
All this happened long ago, and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.
我家的房子在巴尔的摩市，与约翰斯?霍普金斯医院门诊部的正门只隔了条马路。我和家人住楼下，楼上的房间租给那些来诊所看病的病人。
一个夏日的傍晚，我正准备晚餐时，忽然听见有人敲门。打开门后，我见到一个长相实在可怕的老人。看着他那佝偻萎缩的身体我心想：“怎么，他还没有我八岁的孩子高呢”。更吓人的是他的脸——因浮肿而变形，红红的满是皱纹。不过他的声音却很和善：“晚上好，我想问一下你这儿有没有房间可以借住一晚。我早上从东海岸赶来治病，明天早上才有回家的巴士。”
他告诉我从中午起就在找房间，但都没有找到。好像没人有空房。“我估计是我的脸……我知道我的脸很可怕，但医生说再多治疗几次就……
我犹豫了一下。“我可以睡在走廊的摇椅上，明天一早就去坐车。”听到这话我同意了。
我告诉他我们会给他找一张床，不过只能先在走廊里休息。我回屋准备好晚餐，准备开饭时，我问老人要不要过来一起吃。他举起一只褐色纸包说：“不了，谢谢你，我这儿有不少吃的呢。”
饭后洗完碗碟，我到走廊上同他聊了几分钟。三言两语后，便发现这位老人瘦小的身躯里有着伟岸的心灵。他告诉我，他是以打鱼为生的，要养活他女儿、女儿的五个孩子，还有因脊椎受伤而彻底残废的女婿。
他不是以抱怨的口吻提及这些事，实际上，每句话的开始都对上帝的恩赐充满谢意。他很感激他所患的病（显然是某种皮肤癌）没有疼痛，他感谢上帝赐予他继续活下去的力量。
就寝时，我在孩子们的房间给他放了张野营用的小床。第二天早晨我起来时，小床上的被褥用品已整齐地叠好，而老人也已经站在外面的走廊上。他谢绝了早餐。就在即将离开去乘巴士时，他犹豫再三，像是要请求一个天大的恩惠，问道：“下次来看病时，我还能回到这儿住吗？我不会给你们添太多麻烦的，只要给我一张椅子我就能睡得很好。”
他停了一会，补充道：“你们的小孩让我感觉就像是在家里。我的脸可能会让大人们不安，可孩子们好像不怎么介意。”
我告诉他欢迎下次再来。
第二次，老人早上七点多就到了。他带了一条大鱼和一夸脱我从来没有见过的大牡蛎作为礼物。他说是早上出发前剥的壳，这样就既新鲜又美味。我知道他乘的巴士凌晨4点发车，为了给我们准备这些东西，他得起得多早啊！
他在我们家借宿那些年，没有哪次不带鱼、牡蛎，或是他家园子里的蔬菜给我们的。还有几次我们收到他快递来的包裹，里面是新鲜嫩菠菜或甘蓝菜包裹的鱼和牡蛎，每片叶子都仔细地洗过。我深知他得步行三英里邮寄这些东西，而他自己的收入又那么低，于是这些礼物在我们心里就变得格外珍贵。
每当我收到这些小礼物时，常想起老人首次借宿离开后的那个清晨，一个邻居对我说：“昨晚你收留了那丑八怪老头吗？我把他支出去了！留这种人过夜非吓跑房客不可！”
可能我家的确为此失去过房客一两次，但是啊，如果他们能认识这位老人，或许他们的病痛将不再那么难以承受。我知道，我的家人会为认识这位老人而永远心存感激。从他那里，我们学到了什么是坦然面对不幸而毫无怨言，并怀着感恩的心接受上帝赐予的美好。
最近，我拜访了一位朋友。她有一个花房。随着她的指引，我们来到花房中最美丽的一朵花面前——一株绚烂地开放着的金菊。但令我特别惊奇的是，它竟然生长在一个凹下去还生了锈的旧铁桶里。
我不禁想，“如果这是我的花，我会把它放到我最可爱的花盆里去！”但朋友的话改变了我的想法。
“栽它的时候碰巧花盆不够了”，她解释道，“我就知道它会长得那么好看，我想它也不会介意一开始委身于这旧桶里的。用不了多久，我就会把它移栽到花园里去。”
她一定很奇怪为何我笑得如此开心，我那时正想象着天堂中这样的一幅情景。上帝来到那位老人可爱的灵魂前说：“这样一个特别可爱的灵魂，不会介意栖息于这副瘦小的身躯的。”
这些都发生在很久以前，而现在，那美好的灵魂，该是多么高大地伫立于上帝的花园中啊！
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1
porch
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| n.门廊，入口处，走廊，游廊 | |
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2
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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3
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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4
linens
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| n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品 | |
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5
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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6
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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7
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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8
dented
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| v.使产生凹痕( dent的过去式和过去分词 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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9
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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