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It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking， and I was looking out the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. My parents lived nearby， and Dad had visited us several times already. "What are you doing out there?” I called to him.
那是一個秋日的早晨，全家剛搬進我們第一處住宅不久。孩子們在樓上從包果里往外拿東西。我望著窗外，見父親正神秘地在屋前的草地上打轉。父母住在附近，父親已到我家來過幾次了。我向他喊道：“您在外邊干什么呢?”
He looked up， smiling. "I 'm making you a surprise. " Knowing my father, I thought it could be just about anything. A self-employed jobber, he was always building things out of odds and ends. When we were kids, he once rigged up a jungle gym out of wheels and pulleys. For one of my Halloween parties, he created an electrical pumpkin and mounted， it on a broomstick. As guests came to our door, he would light the pumpkin and have it pop out in front of them from a hiding place in the bushes.
他笑著抬起頭來說：“我要給你一個驚喜。”我了解父親，他會做出點事來的。他是個體手藝人，總是用零星東西做些小玩藝兒。當我們還是孩子的時候，有一次他用幾個輪子和滑輪裝配了一個攀登架。有一次萬圣節，他為我做了個電南瓜，還把它裝在一個掃帚把上。客人到我家門前時，他就把點亮藏在樹叢中的南瓜燈，在他們走到跟前突然伸出來。
Today, however, Dad would say no more, and, caught ups in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise.
不過今天爸爸卻不愿多說什么，況且我們新生活的還有千頭萬緒要理，結果我也就忘了他的什么驚喜了。
Until one raw day the following March when I glanced out the window. Dismal. Overcast. Little piles of dirty snow still stubbornly littering the lawn, Would winter ever end?
第二年三月的一天，我感到潮濕陰冷于是朝窗外望了望，外面陰沉沉，灰蒙蒙的，草坪上到處是一堆堆不“化”的污雪。難道冬天就不會走了嗎?
And yet...was it a mirage? I strained to see what I thought was something pink, miraculously peeking out of a drift. And was that a dot of blue across the yard, a small note of optimism in this gloomy expanse? I grabbed my coat and. headed outside for a closer look.
可是...這該不是幻覺吧?我瞪大眼睛看，似乎有粉色的什么東西從吹積成的雪堆中神奇地冒出來。那是院子那頭的一個小藍點，是這郁悶壓抑的陰霾中的一個快樂的小音符嗎?我抓起外衣向外奔去，我要去看個究竟。
They were crocuses, scattered whimsically throughout the front lawn. Lavender, blue, yellow and my favorite pink-little faces bobbing in the bitter wind.
是番紅花，在屋前草坪上星羅棋布到處都是。淡紫色、藍色、黃色和我鐘愛的粉色——一個個小臉在凜冽的寒風中搖曳著。
Dad. I smiled, remembering the bulbs he had secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dreariness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timed, more attuned to my needs? How blessed I was, not only for the flowers but for him.
爸爸。我笑了，想起了他去年秋天他偷偷種下的球莖。他知道，在萬物凋零的冬天我總是情緒低落。還有什么比番紅花更適合時宜的呢？還有什么比番紅花更合我的需求呢?我好幸福，因為有了這些花，更因為有這樣的爸爸。
