Chao news client Li Xinzhang.
Forty years ago, my eldest brother, who had just graduated from high school, went to work on a farm in Chongming County. In the reply, he said that he was very homesick, saying that when he thought of the smoke in his hometown, he thought of his grandmother's gray hair; When I think of the sound of the oars in my hometown, I think of my father's fishing nets; When I think of the water bridge in my hometown, I think of the clothes that my mother washed. Now, the hometown has changed dramatically, the liquefied gas stove has replaced the wood stove, and the cooking smoke is gone; The wide road replaced the waterway, and the sound of the oars was gone; Tap water replaced the tank, and the water bridge was retired. The long years that once flowed on the water bridge have gradually faded.
The water bridge is not a bridge, but a set of stone stairs erected between the river and the bank, which is the place where Jiangnan people went to the river to wash rice, wash vegetables, wash clothes, and carry water in the early years. The wind and rain in the south of the Yangtze River are smooth, the rain is abundant, the water system is developed, and the stone slabs at the bottom of the water bridge are generally buried in the water, and then follow the slope of the riverbed, climb the steps, step by step low and step high. There is a water bridge in the east bank of my house, and the bluestone slabs of one color are as smooth as jade, and they have already been ground out of the pulp of the years. On the right side of the water bridge, there is an ancient beech tree, the upper part of the trunk is slightly bent and leaned back, like a hunchbacked old man looking up at the sky. The dense branches and leaves of the old trees slipped out, and when the wind blew, the dappled sunlight shook off the ground, like scattered coins, on the water surface, on the stone steps, clanging.
The wheat waves are golden, the wheat butterflies are white, the dragonflies are brick-red, and the dragonflies are blue-gray. The summer vacation of the friends is colorful. Of course, we also have to help adults harvest wheat, shoot rapeseed, pull seedlings, and plant seedlings. When he came back from pulling seedlings, he carried a small wooden stool covered with mud and adults with his bare feet and carried a small wooden stool covered with mud, and went to the water bridge with the adults to wash his hands and feet. Listen to adults talk about pests and diseases, whether the purchase price of wheat is up or down, the girl from the owner is admitted to the "medical college", and the old man at the corner of the field will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow, etc. We're well-informed, and we're proud. But my grandmother told me to only listen, not to speak, let alone comment.
Every morning, the male general always gets up in the dark, goes down to the bridge first, presses two wooden barrels into the clear water that has been settled for a night, fills them with water, and one by one, picks up the buckets and rushes home. The back of the bouncing flat shoulder is attached to the clear dawn, just like the clear Tianshan song attached to the ear. Carry water to the house, fill your own water tank, put a few alum into it, this tank of water is the whole family's daily living water, is the elixir that maintains the life of the whole family. The women's eyes were worried, and their hair seemed to be lazy and casual, but they had deliberately oiled their hair and dressed up. They all came to the water bridge, or carried a rice basket filled with white rice, or carried a large wooden basin full of dirty clothes, in groups of three or five, each occupying a corner of the water bridge, accompanied by the ripples of the water surface, the sound of cicadas on the trees, and the looming bird song, washing a basin, a basket, and a basket of watery life. When washing rice, the hollow broken rice grains will float out of the rice basket and float on the surface of the water. The schools of wicker fish that have been waiting around the water bridge for a long time are calling, jumping, and coaxing between broken rice, like falling rain, like embellishment, like playing.
In the twilight of midsummer, the sun has not yet set, and the Red Star Port has become a natural swimming pool for children, and the water bridge is a place for them to live in childlike fun. In the setting sun, the originally calm river surface boiled one after another, and more than a dozen or twenty childhood friends of different sizes crowded to the water bridge, or splashed water on each other for a while, or jumped, and a swallow turned over and no one was in the water. The older children would bring a wooden basin and let it float on the surface of the water, while they would hold their breath and dive to the bottom of the river, pull the mussels and other shellfish out of the river mud, and then drill out of the water and put the river fresh into the wooden basin. Hongxinggang is the mother river, the clear river water is like her milk, fattening a wide variety of fish, shrimp, crabs and mussels in the river, so that we know the grace of the river since childhood, and also learn to fish for eels, net carp, hairpins, turtles and other skills, since childhood to develop a smart, diligent quality, understand the "do it yourself, abundant food and clothing" truth.
Those children who can't swim yet sit on the smooth bluestone slabs, watching their brothers and sisters pose in the water, and share their happiness. The third brother was also among them, and he didn't know how to swim at that time, and when he sat on the bridge and watched us play in the water, his heart itched, so he followed our example, poofed, and plunged into the river. Guowen, who was touching the mussels on the side, found a ball of black hair floating on the water, grabbed it and saw that it was my third brother who couldn't swim, so he immediately rescued him. Fortunately, it was discovered early and a life was saved. For this reason, the eldest brother came up with a good way to let the third brother "go down the river", he and I worked together to remove the wooden door of my south house, and with the buoyancy of the wooden door, put it on the water, let the third brother lie on the door, and then push the ** of the river. My eldest brother and I were laughing and swimming on the water amid the screams of the third brother. Every child was tanned, and from a distance, it looked like a flock of inky black ospreys making trouble in the river.
The autumn water is too cold to swim in, but the water bridge will not be left out in the cold. The partners chose a corner of the water bridge to sit down, quietly picked up a thin bamboo, and the buoys on the water surface were discarded sponge slippers, cut into a dozen pieces the size of rice grains, and worn on the fishing line. As soon as the buoy is pulled, the flatfish, crucian carp and ang stinging fish that have bitten the hook hidden in the water will be caught one after another. They are either steamed or braised and decently placed on the dining table of each family, nourishing our childhood, making our childhood have a longing and expectation for water and fish.
In late autumn, the partners have already entered the school, the grains have already entered the warehouse, the wheat seeds have already been sown into the ridge fields, and the white straw has already been piled up into stacks. The water towns in the south of the Yangtze River have entered the slack period. In order to keep the river clean, they pushed the cement boat into the river, stood on the boat, and scraped off the silt at the bottom of the river with bamboo poles and net bags, and fished it into the cabin. This process of dredging the river and scraping fertilizer is called "Biaohe mud".
As I grew up, I became literate and could read the rice paper slogans on the walls, such as "Fewer children and more pigs", "Pigs eat a hundred kinds of grass, and grow fat and fat". Gradually, it became a trend to stock the river with water hyacinth, water fox, oriental grass and other pig-eating forage. The river is no longer wide, the water is not clear, and it is undrinkable, so every household has dug wells to get water, and they have used well water to wash rice, vegetables, and laundry. In the middle of summer, a few playful companions jumped into the red star harbor crawling with pigweed to swim, and when they got up, they had a rash.
Later, I had a "faucet" at home. The organic fertilizer of river mud has also been replaced by chemical fertilizer, and in our generation, the traditional craft of "river mud" has also been broken. The river channel that has not been dredged for a long time is getting shallower and shallower, the river water is getting dirtier and dirtier, and the idle water bridge is covered with slippery moss. Gradually, the water bridge in my house, almost submerged in knee-high grass, like a forgotten outdated calendar, barren and decadent, finally collapsed due to disrepair. Looking at it, there is always some melancholy and some expectation in my heart.
I have the impression that when I was born, my family's water bridge was already old, and it seems that it was never young. Until two years ago, with the construction of the "Beautiful Village", I saw that many young water bridges reappeared on both sides of Hongxinggang, which were beautifully designed and uniform, like a beautiful picture scroll connecting the past and the future, showing a unique scenery of the new Jiangnan.
Perhaps, they have long been unrecognizable compared to the water bridges when I was a child, and perhaps they have long lost their original role of washing rice, washing clothes, swimming, and carrying water. However, they sit quietly between the river and the bank of Hongxinggang historically, connecting the past and future of the new Jiangnan, like a Tianshan song through time and space, brightening the past and present life of the new Jiangnan, and the endless pursuit of life and happiness of the Jiangnan people who have loved life and yearned for happiness for generations.
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