I spent most of my teenage years in an old farmhouse in the Durham County countryside. That was more than 30 years ago, but life there dated back to an even earlier era I spent my summer days doing manual labor in the tobacco fields, while my summer evenings were spent preparing vegetables in the backyard. My fall weekends were often spent cutting wood and storing logs for the fire. Some of my neighbors still had outhouses. We had an indoor TV receiver which helped us tune into the few television stations we could watch.

Living where we did, we could see three or four other houses from our own, none of them within shouting distance. We knew our neighbors, most of whom were elderly. My father wouldn’t let other folks do without when he had enough, so we helped them out when they needed it.

Jimmy lived across the street, on the far side of a tobacco field. He was seventy years old and lived alone. He lost his wife two years ago. He had barely supported himself these last couple of years since his health had gotten worse. One day, we went to visit him at his home. It was a small wooden house with dirty windows and a curtain that had been mended several times. The poor old man would sit in an armchair by the window, holding a faded (褪色的) photo, and with tears in his eyes, recall happy memories of his wife.

One weekend, my father went to check on Jimmy, but a rare heavy snow happened to fall. It was so heavy that he couldn’t get his old truck up Jimmy’s uneven (不平坦的), snow-covered road Nobody could understand what made Dad climb the 400 yards or so to Jimmy’s house. My brother and I were waiting anxiously at home. After a long time, he rushed home and told us that Jimmy was sick and had no firewood left.

My father asked us if we would like to help.

We knocked on Jimmy’s door, and he greeted us.

3 . I was sleepy as I drove home one night in the pouring rain. I was driving too fast. I fell asleep and________my truck six times. I remember feeling rain on my face and________a helicopter. And I remember the doctor who stitched me up in the operating room.

As I was being________from the hospital, the nurse put a huge pile of________in my arms. They were not mine. So where did they come from?________, while I was hanging from the truck in the rain,________people had stopped, walked through the broken glass and crumpled（变形的）metal, and laid their coats over me to________me from the elements. I left the hospital with ten coats. Ten strangers________me, even though I had made a terrible________.

I cleaned the coats and put ads in the paper offering to________them, but no one ever came forward. I________at them every day for nearly a year and felt impressed by the________of people. I finally________them to a local church.

I still have a________of the truck I destroyed. And any time I need a________of the kindness that is a permanent part of humanity, I look at that picture.