【Hometown Month】Lane Tangkou, that poplar...
Original Du Honglian 8:00 pm 2022-01-19 15:21
Lane entrance, that poplar...
Poplar trees are a common tree species in the north. It is tall and tall, and often makes a poignant sound under the cold north wind, so in the poet's pen, the poplar is mostly associated with the sad wind. "Poplar is sad and windy, Xiao Xiao is sad", "Poplar sunset is sad and windy, Xiao Suo's cold nest bird runs alone", "It is rare to know the sound of sorrow, two lines of tears poplar wind" and so on. Coupled with the spot shape on the trunk of the poplar tree like a tear eye, in the eyes of the ancients, it became the embodiment of sadness. Since Mao Dun's "Poplar Praise" was selected for inclusion in secondary school Chinese textbooks and was widely recited, the poplar tree has suddenly become a symbol of perseverance and indomitability.
However, in the eyes of my childhood friends and me, the poplar tree not only has nothing to do with sadness and strength, but on the contrary, it is a symbol of happiness.
This common tree in the north, in my hometown, an old Jiangnan town, used to be a rare tree. Maybe it was because a cadre from the south from the north or a soldier stationed in the 771 Mine missed his hometown? -- "Plant it as if the hometown is by your side", since I can remember, in front of the old house on the bank of Tongshan Creek, in front of the entrance to the wide alley of Tongshan Creek, there stands a poplar tree that only about two people can hug. In the eyes of my childhood friends and I, this is a tree so tall that it is almost like breaking through the sky.
This towering tree brought endless fun to our childhood.
Every evening after school, we bounced to the entrance of the alley, and at a glance we could see its tall and tall body shining in the sunset, like a mighty sentry, welcoming us home. When a breeze blows, its leaves, which stand like the little hands we raise in class, will roar like a cheerful song.
Under the tree, a hen is leading a flock of chicks struggling to eat. Several water ducks rattled and came back from the Copper Mountain Stream in a row. A dog heard the sound of the little master coming back, and cheerfully wagged its tail to meet its little master, causing a flurry of chickens and ducks jumping under the tree. A little black cat with shiny coats sharpened its paws on the roots of the tree a few times, swooped up the tree, looked east and west, and suddenly jumped into the compound of the wall by the tree—presumably to find the traces of rats.
A little boy took his gunpowder gun made of wire and shot at the stupid green "caterpillars" on the trunk of the tree. Well, how could the "dirt" be piled up in a roll of fluffy ground near a circle of tree roots? Seeing the rare and strange appearance of a few of our girls, a boy with a small hoe digging up earthworms ready to use for fishing told me in a disdainful tone: "Little girl, it is really rare and strange!" What dirt, that's earthworm dung! ”
My friends and I threw our school bags at the roots of the poplar trees, and no matter how the mothers who were spinning the oil rope rebuked, we began to race to find the "weapon" poplar leaves of the "plucked poplar" game.
"Plucking poplars" (called "Ragel" by northerners) is a fairly old game. It originated from the ancient "grass fighting" game, and like the games of "Eagle Catching Chickens", "Officers and Soldiers Catching Robbers", "Hopscotch", "Throwing Sandbags", "Catching Children" and so on, it is one of our favorite games after school. The "Pluck Poplar" game is extremely simple, just two people each pick a poplar petiole and pass one through the middle of the other. After the two petioles were tightly tied together, the two of them used all their strength to begin to pull, trying to pull their own petioles hard and cut off each other's petioles.
The key to the decisive victory of "plucking poplar" lies not in human strength, but in the tenacity of the petiole. If the petiole in a person's hand has been plucked for five or six rounds and has not been broken, then the classmate will call it a "thousand-year-old root" in a proud tone, and "provoke" everywhere, which will arouse the envy of others.
Therefore, those colorful golden poplar leaves are more precious to us in childhood than the gold on the ground.
We quickly collected a handful of poplar leaves and brushed them off. But these petioles, which had just fallen from the trees, could not go to war. At this time, the petiole is full of moisture, tender and soft, and often broken. Veterans of "plucking poplars" know that they must pick the kind of "old roots" that are ripe and brown, and the leaf roots at this time are the most resistant. However, some brown leaf roots, if they have become extremely brittle and dried, will obviously be vulnerable to combat effectiveness.
A good "root" is not enough just by careful selection, it must also be good at "cultivation". In order to "cultivate" the petiole in his hand into a "thousand-year-old root", the children's eight immortals across the sea each showed their miraculous powers. Among them, the most common way for boys is to "cover their shoes dafa". They put the petiole under the insole and cover it, step on it for a while and then take it out, which can effectively improve the toughness of the petiole. This very "tasteful" trick is easy for boys to use, but girls have another trick. We bend the petiole, straighten it, bend it again, straighten it again, or rub it repeatedly in the palm of our hand, or hide it in books or pants pockets for a few days to make it "old"—in short, to do everything we can to increase its flexibility.
In the era of extreme poverty of material life, the game of "plucking poplars" brought endless fun to our childhood. Those brown poplar "old roots" that we have sandwiched in books and hidden in the pockets of clothes are our incomparably precious "wealth", and they are the treasures that even the best "triangle bags", "glass pinballs", "cigarette paper" and "milk sugar paper" will not be exchanged.
Our poor childhood was blessed by this poplar tree at the mouth of the alley. That innocent childhood time, so every year under the poplar tree, in the game of pulling and pulling with the friends, the dream flew by...
Naïve and naïve, I and my friends once thought that this poplar at the mouth of the alley would always stand at the wide entrance of the alley, waiting for us to go home forever.
However, it is never far away. In the year we were in junior high school, it didn't escape the fate of being a tree. The poplar tree is gone, and along with it is the large alley—it becomes part of a compound...
Now, whenever I return to my hometown and walk to the alleyway in front of my hometown on the banks of Tongshan Creek, I feel as if the towering tree that shines in the sunset has appeared in front of my eyes again. It sprinkled gold-like leaves all over the ground, waiting for people to gently pick it up...
Author: The author is a special writer of "8 p.m." Teacher of Quzhou No. 3 Middle School in Zhejiang Province