After my father died, my mother went to work in the fields every day, and those two acres of land were nothing in other people's homes, but they were too difficult for our family, which lacked labor.
My mother is small, thin, and I see her walking to the ground with two tangled pointed feet every day, and I feel very sad when I am small, so I hope that I can grow up quickly and share my mother's labor.
Mom carried a basket on her back and a big hoe. A normal hoe is very light on a man's shoulder, and on the mother's shoulder, I feel that the hoe has made the mother even shorter.
After finishing the work in the fields in the spring and summer, my mother had to carry a basket of wild vegetables back, in addition to feeding my sister and me, she also had to feed the chickens and pigs raised at home, which was the tuition fee of the eldest brother and the second brother.
The eldest brother did not give up his studies because of his father's death, and he was lucky.
The eldest brother who looks very much like his mother, is a beautiful man, and is studying at a prestigious university, which is too rare in those days. Rare big brother, there are a lot of girls around. I don't know when, the eldest brother fell in love with a female textile worker in a textile factory in Tianjin. The girl's nickname is Little Apple, which shows how cute she is. The kind-hearted little apple takes out a part of his salary every month to support the eldest brother, so that the eldest brother will continue until he graduates from college.
The second brother was in middle school in Tianjin at that time, and he walked with the stars every morning and went home with the moon at night. Carry a nest head in your arms for lunch. Sometimes, when I get home at night, I don't have to wait for the meal to finish, and I fall asleep when I am tired. His mother felt sorry for him, but he would never allow him to give up studying.
Mom gritted her teeth and persisted.
The well-wishers in the town saw that their mother was working so hard, so they recommended her mother to become a teacher in a private school. At that time, the country was promoting the accelerated literacy method, and the literacy campaign was culminating. Literacy classes and private schools have been set up in various localities to provide free learning for illiterate people, with the aim of improving the cultural level of the whole people and adapting to the construction of New China.
Although it is only a class every night and the salary is small, it is also a relief for our family. At that time, the name of my mother on the street changed, and they all called her *** Every night, I followed my mother to the private school to read and write with those who were illiterate, and I also naughtily called my mother *** This is in those difficult years, a little bit of people can think of a life with a smile.
In the year of rural cooperativeization, good news kept coming.
For my family, my mother went to work in the fields as usual, but not by herself, but with everyone.
Big Brother graduated from college and started to make money, sending money home from time to time. My mother doesn't have to worry about the tuition fees of my second brother and sister anymore.
The better news is that the eldest brother graduated from the Yumen Oilfield in the northwest and was assigned to the Great Northeast, a large oil factory, became an engineer, got married, and wanted to take us to him.
This news means that my mother will no longer have to work in the fields, her pointy little feet will no longer have to stumble in the dirt, and she will **slip the roads in the city. The second brother no longer has to go back and forth to middle school for more than 30 miles every day, he can go to bed early at night. We want to leave this sad and difficult hometown and take a new path.
I was so happy in those days that I was like a little monkey who got a banana, jumping around my mother every day. Watching my mother pack her luggage one by one, I asked over and over again, Mom, when are we going to go, and I asked again and again.
Thinking about that time, the only thing that was still a little reluctant was Brother Dulu who played with me every day, and I didn't know who he would play with after I left. I don't know if I have any playmates like Brother Dulu when I arrived at my eldest brother's house.
Brother Dulu has already gone to school, and after school, he still comes to my house every day. As usual, he didn't talk much, just listened to me make up nonsense about my eldest brother's house.
The night before we were really leaving, Brother Dulu came, he sat on the edge of the kang, looked at me and said, you are gone, can you come back?I froze, I didn't think about it. I said, I don't know. After sitting for a while, Brother Dulu was about to go home, and I saw tears in his eyes. The tears in the swollen eye bubbles looked so full. I cried too.
Walking to the door, Dulu took something out of his pocket and handed it to me. Through the faint moonlight, I saw that it was a mud doll. He said, I can't play mud with you anymore. This is what I made, it was made of cement that my dad dug from the river, and it was mixed with cotton so that it wouldn't crack. There is too little paint at home, and it is not well painted.
When I was more than six years old, I had never received a gift from anyone, and I didn't know what to say for a while, and I forgot to say thank you. I didn't have a gift for Brother Dulu, and I didn't even think about giving a gift to Brother Dulu, I just wanted to go to my eldest brother's house early and live a good life.
Back in the house, I looked at the clay doll through the dim kerosene lamp, it was a female doll, wearing red clothes, green pants, and her black hair was combed with crooked peaches, and there was a red dot on the crooked peach, like a red head rope. The eyes are drawn in an arc, like squinting, the mouth is drawn into a crescent, and the corners of the mouth are upturned, as if they are smiling. Is this mud doll made by Brother Dulu me?At that moment, I was very sad. I thought to myself, it would be nice if I could leave with Brother Dulu. But I knew in my heart that it was impossible.
The early winter morning was already cold, and it was still dark. At about two or three o'clock in the morning, the third uncle and the fourth brother came in a carriage and loaded a few of our old boxes into the carriage, which were all our belongings. My mother, second sister and I got into a carriage and left our hometown in the moonlight. In order to make it more convenient to study, my second brother went to my eldest brother's house first.
We have to take the train to Yangliuqing Railway Station, which is more than ten miles away. In my memory, it was my first time on a train. The hardboard seats are greasy and sleek over the years, and people are scrambling to put their luggage on the luggage racks, and the carriage is noisy.
Maybe it's the continuous excitement that wears me out and I don't know when I'm asleep. When I woke up, it felt so cold, and the train had entered the Great Northeast Territory. Outside the window, the leaves on the trees were gone, and the branches were black. It was not as good as I thought it would be to leave my hometown.
The next night, we arrived at the big brother's city, which was called the coal capital.
The eldest brother and the second brother came to pick us up, the eldest brother has not returned to his hometown for several years, and I have forgotten what the eldest brother looks like. The eldest brother touched the head of the ** affectionately and said, Xianzi has grown so big. I smiled, thinking that I had met my eldest brother and was about to arrive at my eldest brother's house. But the eldest brother told us that we would have to walk a little way to take a car called a motorcycle, and then walk a little more to get home.
The big box was handed over to the two elder brothers, and the mother carried the small box, and the little tiptoes walked with a twist and struggle. I followed my mother, lest I fall, and I couldn't bother to wipe my big snot for a long time.
The tram is smaller than the train, and has a large iron bow on the roof of the carriage connected by two thick wires. It was very cold in the carriage, and I was wearing a small padded jacket made by my mother, and I also put on a woolen jacket from my brother's childhood, and I was still shivering with cold.
The motorbike creaked and walked slowly, and occasionally a glimmer of light could be seen outside the window. The sound of clanging was in the night sky**, and my head was going to be stunned. Is this the city?The night in my hometown is so good, quiet, even the cat's meow is so good.
I wiped my big runny snot with my sleeve and leaned against my mom. After walking for a long time, the tram stopped at a platform called Toyama.
The eldest brother went to the ticket office to buy us tickets, and took out two shovels to handle the wooden sticks as long, one in his hand and one for the second brother. Mom asked the eldest brother, what are you doing with a stick?The eldest brother said casually that this road has to go over a mountain, and there are wolves.
Scared me to death, there are wolves?I was so scared that I was about to cry, and I took my mother's hand and said, Mom, I'm scared. The second brother said, don't be afraid, the second brother will protect you. As he spoke, he took my other hand.
Along the way, I wondered if the wolf would be the first to eat meI'm the shortest, and a wolf can bite my ass at once. The more I thought about it, the more scared I became, the more I felt cold, and I couldn't stop shaking, and I cried out out of nowhere. It wasn't until I saw the street lamps and the buildings that I stopped crying. Later, I wondered if the crying along the way was a sign of something
My sister-in-law was waiting for us at home, and they all said that they were not a family and would not enter a family. When I saw my sister-in-law, I was so surprised, my sister-in-law is so exquisite!Small and delicate like my mother, with curly hair, at that time, I had not seen a woman with perms. Wearing a green sweater, despite having a big belly, I think my sister-in-law is so beautiful. But I found out that she had a melon seed face, not like a small apple. So why is it nicknamed Little Apple?
The house is so bright, my eldest brother told me that the one that was on was the electric light. It's so warm in the house, and the second brother told me again that the piece of iron guy is called heating. Don't touch it casually, be careful of being burned. In front of my eldest brother and sister-in-law, I didn't dare to shout, in my eyes, they were still very strange. But I'm already in a state of ecstasy, I can't think of all this, it's amazing, the city is so good!
My sister-in-law prepared tomato soup and big white steamed buns for us, and a layer of eggs fell in the tomato soup(To be continued).
Documenting my romantic life