Title IV - "Single Stick" Two Brothers

Guangwen and Guanghe are two brothers, the two brothers have not married a wife and started a family in their lives, it is not that they do not want to marry, but they were too poor in that era, and the family simply did not have the ability to help all their sons marry their daughters-in-law. They were the second and fourth oldest, and there was a big brother on top, and as for the third, I had never seen or heard of them. However, such a situation was very common in the countryside of that era, and there were only two situations: passing on to someone else's family or passing away early.

The lives of these two brothers seem tragic to many people, including me, but perhaps they themselves never thought so. Because, in their world, there is no such word as "happiness", "misfortune", "sadness", they have lived a poor and tired life since they were born, and they have long been accustomed to this state. The height of the three brothers is less than 1 meter 6, the lower limbs are thick, but the upper body is all lean, and it seems that they are the kind of people who have a bad family and have to work hard.

Guangwen was the second oldest, the worst of the brothers, and I never spoke to him, or he never spoke to us children, because we would have tried to play with him, but he never paid attention to it. He probably spent his whole life at work, and he and Guanghe did not have their own land. Because they are "single sticks", they don't need to support their families, they can have a bite to eat, and they can have a nest. The others were given to the eldest brother's family, because the eldest brother was married to a daughter-in-law and had two sons. Compared with the two of them, the eldest brother is still lucky, at least at that time, the family gave everything to marry their daughter-in-law, but also gave birth to children, although the whole life is also in the endless work, but fortunately really experienced the warmth of the family, there have been children and grandchildren around the knee happiness. However, not long ago, the eldest brother also passed away. Guangwen did not have the good luck of the eldest brother, and could only hope that the eldest brother's family would be able to send himself a finale and bury himself a hundred years later. When the farmers were busy, he spent days and nights in the fields doing farm work. In his spare time, he would follow the logging team to earn a little money. The logging team only needed the above-ground part of the tree, and as for the huge roots underground, they didn't care. At this time, it is time for Guangwen to play himself, because this kind of work is not willing to be done by others, it is time-consuming and laborious, and the roots dug out cannot sell for much money. Guangwen didn't care, he was willing to do it, maybe he also had a clear understanding of himself. With a diminutive stature and varicose legs, it's nice to be able to do some of this kind of work and make some money. At its peak, in the open space in front of his house, there were thirty or forty huge tree roots piled up, and he didn't know how much it sold in the end. However, it can be known that he did not spend this money for himself, but gave it to his eldest nephew. I've always felt that he should actually be some thoughtful person, even if he doesn't have a little culture, but his life really ends in tragedy, and finally he is loaded into a suitcase-sized box and buried.

As the fourth brother, Guanghe is relatively much more cheerful, and he has the most contact with us children. Although he also had to work, he did not go on endlessly like the eldest brother and the second brother. He had a worn-out bicycle, and when he was idle, he rode around on his bicycle, mostly just around the village, sometimes going to the market, of course, he wouldn't buy anything, just to make a scene. Guanghe is also lean, there is hardly a little fat on the body, the two eyes seem to be a little faulty, the two eyeballs are not on a horizontal line, and there is a little separation. However, none of this seems to affect his mood, probably because he understands that he does not have the burden of finding an object, and his external image does not care at all. Every day I was optimistic, and when I was a child, I would fight with us little children, and the first horror story I heard came from him. I still remember that it was said, "There was a child who had to go to the field every day to cut grass and go home to feed the sheep, and one day, when he was cutting the grass, he suddenly found a big snake, and the child was not afraid, but took a sickle and cut the snake into several pieces." But before he could think, the snake picked up the snake itself again, and the child was frightened when he saw it, and quickly ran home. The snake also chased after it, and when the child arrived at home, she quickly told her mother, and the mother hid the child in the water tank. When the snake was ready, the mother quickly apologized to the snake, saying that the child was not at home. As a result, the snake circled the water tank 3 times, and then left, the mother was relieved, and hurried to pick up the child, only to open the lid and see that there was only one tank of blood left in the water tank. "At that time, when I listened, I was scared not lightly, it was simply a shadow of childhood, and now that I think about this story, I am full of loopholes and I have convinced myself." Guanghe was indeed lucky, in his old age, his legs could not walk normally, but he caught up with the government's good policies, the township gave them these "single sticks" to apply for five insurance households, and also built a clean board house, and even some people regularly went to give him haircuts, which was a hundred times and a thousand times stronger than his second brother. I haven't been back for a long time, I don't know if he's still here, I haven't heard of his news, probably no one cares about it.

Times have changed, I hope that there will never be such a situation as Guangwen and Guanghe again, and I hope that everyone can have their own happy life.