Father and Reed (novel)

Not long ago, I returned to my hometown in the countryside. Because the houses of parents living in the countryside need to be relocated uniformly. Use Sunday to help parents pack up.

His parents are already in their eighties and can be considered healthy. In life, they can also take care of themselves, which is called the children's peace of mind.

The house where my parents lived was built when I got married in the early nineties, and the house was a courtyard house. The whole house and courtyard were cleaned up by the parents.

While tidying up the house, the collar of my father's bed was somewhat yellowed and black, but the smooth reed mat was picked up by me and abandoned in the yard for garbage disposal.

Unexpectedly, this action angered my father, who shouted at me: "Take it back." ”

But I said indifferently, "What do you want from a worn-out mat?" I'll go back and buy you a new bamboo mat for your old man. ”

My voice fell silent, but I was hit by my father's heavy crutch.

I was just about to theorize with my father when I suddenly found that my father's bronzed face was tight and tight, and two bean-sized teardrops flowed down my father's cloudy eyes.

The mother hurried over and advised, "Child, this morning your father also said that anything can be thrown away, but the mat that makes the bed cannot be thrown away, and the mat that has been sleeping for a lifetime is comfortable to sleep on, and no one can put it on." ”

My mother's words reminded me of an incident last summer.

On a Saturday last summer, my wife and I came to visit my parents, and during the lunch break, I lay on my parents' bed and saw that the bed was covered with this old reed mat with yellow collar and some black spots.

I smoked with a feather duster and wiped it with a towel. The father who was beside him saw it and said, "Don't get dirty, go to sleep." ”

I looked at my father's sculptural face and hurried to lie down on the bed.

Somehow, a feeling of cool silk under my body suddenly implanted in my heart, and I fell asleep soundly.

I slept very sweetly that day.

Later, according to my mother and wife, they urged me several times, and I didn't wake up until it was dark.

Before leaving, I said to my father, "Change the mat, bamboo, and it is quite comfortable to sleep on it." ”

My father said, "No, I can't sleep on bamboo." ”

Mother said, "Don't spend money indiscriminately, your father and I are so old, how many more years can we live?"

I said, "The old ones don't go, the new ones don't come, buy a cool mat, the son can still buy it, besides, this mat has also been old, and it's broken and old, so get a new one." ”

The wife was also exhorting.

Perhaps the father was hindering the face of his daughter-in-law and said, "I have to change it for a reed." ”

I nodded yes.

The next Sunday, my wife and I went all over the county's large and small mat shops and supermarkets, and none of them sold reed mats, all made of bamboo or unknown thatched poles.

No way, after discussing with his wife, he spent more than 500 yuan to buy a bamboo mat.

I thought my father was very happy, but unexpectedly I ate a closed door.

That afternoon, I drove to my parents' house, put the mat in front of my father, and was preparing to replace the old mat.

The father asked, "How much did you buy it?"

I said, "Not expensive, more than 500 yuan." ”

Father: "Why is it so expensive?"

I said, "What are you afraid of, the quality is good, as long as you are comfortable in your old sleep, you can also be counted as a piece of filial piety for your son." ”

The father asked, "It was made up of lake reeds." ”

I said, "No. ”

The father said, "It was made up by the family reeds?"

I said, "No, it's made of southern bamboo." ”

"What? Didn't you make it up of reeds?"

I said, "Yes. ”

Father said, "Then don't, go back, I just want the reeds to weave, and I can't sleep with the rest." ”

I know my father's temper, the right reason, the eight big cows can not be pulled back.

I was about to explain further when my mother spoke from the sidelines: "Listen to your father, either you keep it for use, or you will go back." ”

I also have to explain that my mother gave me a hard look.

So I had to go back.

Savoring his father's life, he is related to the reed mat, and he has a special love for the reed mat.

The reed mat has brought pride and satisfaction to the father, but also brought pain and disaster to the father.

The reeds are divided into lake reeds and house reeds, and the woven mats are made of lake reeds. Lake reeds are thin and fragile. The reeds have well-developed roots, thick rods, and are easy to weave foil. The woven foil is used to dry things, or after peeling, it is used in the ceiling of the house or as a gable in the house.

My mother's grandmother's family is a person from Weishan Lake, and the people who live there rely on the lake to eat the lake. People living there in spring, summer and autumn rely on a small boat to fish for shrimp in the lake or pick some diamond horns, lotus puffs, chicken head rice and the like to fill their hunger. In winter, when ice and snow seal the lake, people will carry baskets and bags to the lake to pick up frozen pheasants, ducks or some water birds. Sometimes they pry open the thick ice and jump into the water to dig up some lake roots.

Of course, these physical tasks are done by men.

Before digging the lotus root, the men would put on thick fork coats and drink half a pound of homemade shochu. So that later, Weishan people were good at wine, drunk as fate, but bold, like Weishan Lake.

Women don't, they sit around the house peeling reeds and weaving mats.

The children would follow the adults behind the butts to pick up the mushrooms and pull the bottom line of the mat.

When my mother was fourteen or fifteen years old, she learned to cook with her grandmother.

The reed mat woven by the mother has angles and edges, and is square.

The reed mats are divided into zhang seats (large, 9.2 feet long and 4.6 feet wide), waist seats are also called strip seats (medium, 8 feet long, 3 feet wide), and seats are also called small bags (small, 6 feet long, 3.5 feet wide, and can only sit for five or six people).

Zhangshi, waist Zhuangzi seat can be exchanged for money. Seats are only used by people to sit on the courtyard or the front yard in the summer to cool off or pull home.

There is a strict process for the staffing. Reeds are selected according to the size, size, and finish of the mat. If it is a mat, choose a slightly thick reed. Peel off the outer skin and leave the bare rod.

At this time, the reed will emit a fishy, sweet taste.

Then pick out the same thickness and length from the bare reeds. Then use the scythe to split in two and break through the middle. After bundling, put it into the potting water for foaming. Because the reeds are thick, the soaking time is often longer. Put it in the water the night before and fish it out the next day. In this way, the reeds are soaked in water and somewhat weak. After emptying the water, find a smooth and flat open space to lay on it, and then use the rock to repeatedly crush, the front crush will make a "click, click" sound, and then it will make a "rustling" sound, which means that the mushrooms are crushed.

The pressed mushrooms are smooth and soft.

The woven mats look good and are durable.

The ten fingers of the weaver will not be pierced by the mushroom.

Weaving the waist zhuangzi mat, it is not so time-consuming and laborious, from the thick reed to pick out some medium thickness and general size, but do not use the sickle to break in the middle, but use a special tool for ploughing the worm (about 8 cm long, 4 cm diameter of the log, the middle is carved with a slot, the groove is inlaid with a fast knife tip, put the reed into the groove, the left hand is tight, and with the thumb pressed against the reed in the groove, the right hand pulls the head of the rod back gently). Then bundle it up and put it in the water, but the foaming time and rolling time are shorter.

The woven seats are made of the leftover scraps left over from the table and the waist table.

No matter what specifications of mats are woven, they must use bottom mats. Before weaving the mat, a mat is placed on the ground and woven according to the size of the bottom mat.

Weave from the middle of the base mat to the four sides.

Weaving also requires the head to pick out the head of the clam (for the beginning), two handfuls of mushrooms (for the middle) and three for the end.

In the beginning, my mother did odd jobs with adults.

By the time my mother was sixteen or seventeen years old, she would be able to make up a table a day.

Whether it is from the bottom corner of the mat, the middle of the pickle, or the final fold, the mother is extremely skilled.

No wonder the grandmother said to everyone, "Whoever marries my daughter-in-law is his elderly generation who burns high incense." ”

The vast Weishan Lake is full of reeds, and the weaving of reed mats has unique conditions.

People who live here don't have to worry about eating.

Woven reed mats are often bought here by outsiders, but the price of selling is often very low.

People in the lake sell more money, often put the woven mats together, and take a group to punch boats to Go to Nanyang. In addition to the round-trip fare, there is a lot left.

Sometimes you will encounter robbers on the lake, but there are many people in the gang, and often the robbers will just create momentum.

That's why, Weishan Lake people rely on to survive.

But before long, it became a forbidden area, and the reeds could not be cut at will except for fishing. In the winter, people's desire to make a living by weaving mats gradually disappeared, and some daily necessities were also few and far between.

People began to secretly go down to the lake to cut reeds, secretly weaving at night or at night.

The mother married her father at the age of eighteen.

Before getting married, Grandpa and Grandma used three days and two nights to weave two mats and three waist mats (reeds were picked up by Grandpa and Uncle by the lake), and secretly went to the market to change some coarse cloth as a dowry for their mother.

After that, Grandpa and Grandma spent two more nights weaving a table and a waist table, and asked Grandpa to push a wheelbarrow to send it. In order to change some food to fill the stomach of the whole family in the most difficult time of life.

Unexpectedly, the day after Grandpa delivered the banquet, an old man in the village passed away. When the old man was buried, the family did not even have anything to cover the old man's body. The old man's son had to come to my house and kowtow to his parents.

Kind-hearted parents promised the old man's son.

In this way, the old man's son buried the old man with a mat.

That was the year when the Yellow River burst its banks and flooded, engulfing villages and fertile fields. Floods have hit us here. The whole Weishan Lake is full of water. The reeds, which had just grown to waist-high, were flooded by the water, and for more than two months, when the flood receded, large areas of reed buds were soaked to death by the water. The lake people's livelihood for the next year became a bubble.

In this way, most of the people in the lake abandoned their boats and went out.

In the spring of the following year, my father and mother also went out with the army of begging for food.

Along the way, we came to a small mountain villa in Jincheng, Shanxi.

When my parents first arrived, they were doing physical work like everyone else. Later, it was learned that there was a large family in the village who hired people to weave reed mats all year round.

The parents were overjoyed, and the mother's ability to weave the table was used to send the field.

Here my father learned to peel reeds, break mushrooms, and even learn to weave mats with my mother.

This large household also stipulates that in addition to managing food and housing, all those who come to the table from other places will also be given a certain salary according to the size and specifications of the seats and the number of seats.

Parents are grateful to Zero.

My mother kept weaving from morning to night or even late at night.

The hardest part is winter, when it's surprisingly cold. Father broke the peeled reeds and bundled them into bundles, smashed open the thick ice in the pit, soaked the reeds into the water, often waiting for more than half a day, the reeds were fished early, soaked in water, the crushed mushrooms were hard, not soft, and the mat boards were hard. And the reeds will also puncture their fingers. Ten fingers connected to the heart, the mother could not sleep in pain at night, and ten fingers were wrapped layer by layer with tape. It was too late to fish, and the ice cave that was smashed open was frozen again, and then smashed open. repeatedly.

Despite this, parents still get up early every day and go to bed late.

Fortunately, the father and mother are young.

So that later, the mother's waist was bent like a bow, and the swollen finger joints had a lot to do with the mother sitting on the ground for a long time.

In order to earn more money, the whole family can have a better year, and after the year, the family's oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and the family's clothes are supplemented.

Father and mother weave mats in black and white.

Towards the end of the year, most of the people in the village have returned, and when people talk about whose family makes how much money they make, only their parents know better.

A year later, my parents repaired the two houses that were on the verge of collapse where my grandmother lived, which made the old and young masters in the village look hungry and had to follow their father to Shanxi to make a banquet.

The father was grateful to his mother, knowing that he had married a good daughter-in-law who was industrious and kind and would make up a meal.

During the most difficult period of those three years, my father secretly pulled some reeds from my grandfather's house, made up a feast at night, and then secretly pulled it to the lake to exchange some money, so as not to borrow the west and grind like other people's families.

He really responded to what my grandmother said: "Whoever marries our daughter-in-law, it was cultivated by several generations in his family." ”

However, my father also beat my mother once, so much so that my mother did not return home for half a month when she returned to her mother's house. My father came to the door several times before he took his mother back.

One autumn, most of the grandmothers in their seventies did not know what kind of disease they had, and their stomachs were like food, swollen and bulging, and they needed to go to a big hospital for surgery.

My father went to all his relatives to borrow it, but he didn't borrow a penny.

Seeing that Grandma was dying.

At that time, my second uncle was eighteen years old, and he was digging a river in the field, and when he learned that my grandmother was not lightly ill, he rushed home overnight.

In the evening, the second uncle looked at his father and mother with a sad look, and went out without saying a word.

Two days later, the second uncle found his mother and said, "Sister-in-law, this money is for our mother to see a doctor, my brother wants to ask, you say it was borrowed from your mother's house, if I tell the truth to my brother, he can beat me to death." ”

The mother asked, "Where did this money come from?"

The second uncle said, "Don't ask, sister-in-law." ”

Mother asked again.

The second uncle could only tell his mother the truth.

After saying that, the second uncle was gone.

When the father asked the mother about the second uncle, the mother said: "There is a shortage of people in the river, and I rushed back overnight." ”

When my father asked my mother where the money came from, my mother said, "It is the private money I have saved up, and I want to add a dress to my grandfather and grandmother." ”

Father didn't ask much.

Grandma went to the hospital for surgery and got better.

The second uncle was gone. (Later, I learned that the second uncle stole the reed mats of the supply and marketing cooperatives and went to the lake to sell them that night, and then he was afraid of being caught, so he went to the northeast overnight to join a distant relative.) Fortunately, the supply and marketing cooperatives did not find fewer mats. )

The Spring Festival has arrived, and the people who went out to dig the river have returned one after another.

The father did not see the second uncle and asked the other people who had returned.

The person who returned told his father: "As early as a month ago, the second uncle heard that his mother was not lightly ill, and he never returned to the construction site after he returned. ”

The father asked the mother.

Mother does not say.

The father asked the mother again.

Mother still doesn't say.

Seeing that her father was about to be anxious, her mother told her father about the second uncle stealing the mat and selling money to his grandmother for treatment.

Father's anger was thunderous. She complained that her mother had failed to stop the second uncle and had failed to tell herself. Beat up her mother fiercely.

The wronged mother led her sister (the sister was two years old) back to her grandfather's house overnight.

After thinking about it, his father, who knew that he was wrong, felt ashamed of his mother, and went to his grandfather's house several times to pick up his mother, but was blocked by his grandfather.

Finally, the father peeled the reeds at my grandfather's house and broke the mushrooms. "Labor" lasted for more than ten days. The mother followed her father back home.

The father knew that he was wrong with his mother, and he loved his mother even more.

Grandma asked about the second uncle, and her parents always told grandma under cover-up: "The second uncle is very good, working with relatives in the northeast." ”

In the mid-1970s, farmers were allowed to do small businesses, but they were not fully liberalized.

One winter, just after Passing Lapa Ba, my father and a brother in the village used a flat cart to pull a few reed mats to Podong (today's Tengzhou) to change some dried sweet potatoes, but unexpectedly halfway to the road, they were found by the market industrialists and merchants in the nearby commune. The father and the brother saw this and pushed the car like crazy. The shoes were lost, the foot board was full of thorns, and he was still caught up by the industrial and commercial personnel.

The car and mat were confiscated.

After inquiring about the situation, he sent my father and the brother back to our commune.

The next day, at the New Year's Fair, the market was crowded, and my father and brother were wearing a tall paper-paste hat on their heads with the words "Speculators and Bad Elements." Pushed by people, I swam all morning on the street.

The father knew that he was ashamed and embarrassed, and he was greatly humiliated, and he thought of dying.

The mother pleaded bitterly.

It was the tears of my mother and my family that kept my father.

Father did not die, but his boldness became smaller and smaller.

Whenever I go out to work, I always speak carefully, afraid that any sentence will be caught by others.

Later, when my uncle showed his certificate at school, the school advised my uncle to draw a line with my family and break off relations.

Fortunately, Grandpa and Grandma know the great righteousness, and would rather not let my uncle go to school, but also recognize my family's relatives.

As my grandmother's health became worse and worse, my sister and I were born one after another, and my mother also suffered from years of exertion.

But the father and mother insisted on the family.

In the early 1980s, the village implemented a co-production contract responsibility system, and some families with flexible brains started small businesses.

Because my family has old and young, it only has to go around a few acres of responsibility fields.

Fortunately, the father and mother made up the mat well. The father bought a large number of reeds through relatives in the lake, and the whole family mobilized.

Every day after school, I always worked with my sisters and sisters to help my parents peel the reeds and plow the mushrooms.

There are fewer and fewer reeds in the lake, and the price of woven reed mats is becoming more and more expensive.

My mother also learned to weave some baskets and eel cages with reeds, and sold them at a good price at the market.

Just by relying on the weaving mats of those years, the family had some savings. Old houses were torn down and new brick houses were built.

Sometimes my parents also asked my sister to learn to weave a mat, and instructed my sister: "Learn well, some of the reeds in the lake are, and in the future, if you have a hard time, the mat is also a craft." ”

My sister smiled and said, "If there are any hard days, you can only get better and better." Besides, what kind of craft is weaving?"

The mother said, "Why not?"

My sister said, "How can it be?"

Mother said: "The weaving mat can be exquisite, the size and size, the folding edge, the folding corners, the anti-pry, etc., there are learned here." ”

"Isn't that a craft?" The mother continued.

The father shouted at the side, "Isn't this still a craft?" If your mother hadn't made up this craft, the whole family would have starved to death. ”

What my father said was not unreasonable.

The sister was speechless.

Behind the village, there are nearly five or six acres of pit ponds, which are covered with reeds. After the land contract, the reed pit was also divided into households, and one person was assigned a few cents of land, and the largest population combined was only two or three points. People are difficult to manage. Some families simply gave up. In winter, thick ice freezes in the pits. People would go along the ice to the reed pond to catch some frozen water birds, etc., plus some animal waste, full of pits and ponds of reeds twisted from side to side, folded, broken. Some of them are used as pot materials after they are found at home, which is a pity.

Father saw it in his eyes and hurt in his heart. Find the village to negotiate, at a price of 100 yuan per acre to contract over.

Father calculated that the investment cost of reeds is small, according to the current price of weaving reed mats, deducting the cost, weaving into mats or various blue seeds and baskets woven with reeds. You can also earn eight thousand.

My father signed a fifteen-year contract with the village.

It was by relying on these acres of reed land and the hard work of my parents that three of my brothers and sisters were admitted to college one after another.

Although my sister did not learn to weave mats, she was admitted to a southern arts and crafts college, specializing in woven design.

In the early 1990s, my parents took the lead in building a beautiful courtyard on the basis of the original tile house.

The parents also sent Grandma away in a beautiful way, so that Grandma did not leave any regrets.

Due to the large amount of reeds, all of which were not managed by their parents, my father recruited idle women from the village to the family or scattered to the household, and woven the reed mats in a more laborious way.

My family's days are getting more and more prosperous.

Just when my father's business was going well, something unfortunate happened.

One day, a man with a southern accent approached his father and said that he had opened a trading company in Suzhou and needed to export a large number of reed weaving products, and the reed mat was one of them. He said that he had a crush on the reed mats woven by my family.

The father was overjoyed, thinking that he had met the "God of Wealth", and agreed.

The man also promised that each mat would cost two cents more than the market price according to the size of the specifications.

So the father signed a long-term supply contract with the man.

For several days, the man ate and lived in my house, discussing with his father how to expand the business, how to improve the quality of the mats, and how to use the reeds to develop new products.

The father regarded the man as a benefactor.

A month passed, and the man threw down the booked money and rented a trailer to pull the reeds worth nearly 10,000 yuan away.

When the man left, he promised his father that he would remit the payment after returning to the company.

Father believed.

A month has passed, and half a year has passed.

When the father contacted the man again, the man turned off his mobile phone.

My father couldn't sit still and went to Suzhou with the contract alone.

After arriving in Suzhou, after investigation, this company did not exist at all. It is a leather bag company.

My father returned home in tears.

In this way, nearly 10,000 yuan hit the water.

The mother advised my father: "If you want to open some, you can spend money to buy a lesson." ”

The father said bitterly, "This is ten thousand yuan." ”

The mother said: "Ten thousand yuan, as long as we remember this lesson, how long are we afraid of not making money?" Hasn't that been the case for so many years? People can't let the urine die. ”

The mother once again ignited the father's desire to start all over again.

However, it backfired.

Just a year before the end of the contract period, a fire burned my father into the bottom valley.

That year, in late autumn and early winter, the weather was particularly dry, and it did not rain for several months.

It was the time of harvesting the reeds, and my father hired some helpers to prepare to harvest the reeds the next day.

Suddenly there was a fire at night, the fire borrowed the wind, the wind borrowed the fire, and when the people in the village rose up to fight it, the entire acres of reeds had turned to ashes.

The next day the three of my brothers and sisters rushed home.

Mother wanted to report the crime.

Father stopped.

The whole family unanimously believes that it has offended someone, or that someone else is jealous and deliberately set on fire.

As soon as the contract expired, my father wanted to renew the contract, but was stopped by the three of us brothers and sisters.

Fortunately, the pit pond was favored by a timber boss in the village, and the contract price was several times higher.

In this way, my father helplessly gave up the business of weaving reed mats for many years.

With people's increasing desire for materials, the mats that appear in the market are mostly bamboo products or thatched stalk products.

This reed mat gradually withdrew from the market and withdrew from people's vision.

In addition to the father's feelings for the reed mat mentioned above, the mother also said: "After a hundred years, the father must cover the urn or coffin with a reed mat." ”

This is my father's greatest wish.

I have heard the old man say that the coffin is covered with a table, which means that future descendants can occupy a place in the official career. (Zhen Xitong)

One point number the hometown of Kong Meng