Qingwei | rush to the New Year's set, let's go buy a pencil case."

Text | Ginger Shuqing

The twenty-eighth day of the lunar month is the last annual gathering of Puji Town. At this moment, in the middle of the night, I want to write a text related to the rush.

In fact, the idea of writing a text related to the rush has been around for some time, but it has never been put into action, but once the idea is not fulfilled, the feeling is like being hungry to eat something immediately, and when you are thirsty, you must drink water, otherwise it will be extremely uncomfortable. I once said something like this to my confidant Wen YouxiaJie: "A momentary thought and inspiration is like accidentally getting pregnant, if you beat it off, it hurts, but keep it, the belly is getting swollen, the body is sinking and tired, when this child falls to the ground, the body is light, and the heart is happy." "Since this is the case, Quan has been "conceived" for some time now, so today I have to "give birth" to say anything.

The reason why I want to write about the catch-up is because people always like to reminisce about the past years in middle age, and some of the clips about the catch-up always appear in the mind repeatedly during the day and play in the dream at night, so that it has become a rich material for me and my children when we chatted about childhood memories.

The earliest impression I had of the word rush was around the age of four or five. Saying that it was a rush to the market, in fact, I did not go to "catch", it was my mother who went to catch up. I can't remember whether the basket my mother carried was empty or what was in it before the market, but after a few days of small talk with my ninety-year-old mother, I learned that the basket was sometimes empty, and sometimes it was filled with a few eggs—it was under the family's diligent "cotton seed" big hen. The mother took the eggs to the set and sold them, and used the money to buy back all kinds of items needed for the family's life: sometimes a few needles and threads, sometimes a pair of cotton socks or a pair of scissors and sickles.

In the 1970s, when food and clothing had not been completely solved, adults rushed to the store to buy the necessary goods that were urgently needed for life, and the poor income and poor family were not allowed to buy snacks such as fruit snacks. But children are always gluttonous, always hoping to find out what they can eat from the pockets or baskets that adults have returned from the market. At that time, I could not see orange banana pineapple and other southern fruits, that is, apples and peaches and other local fruits are rare, the so-called fruit snacks are persimmon cakes, soft dates, hawthorn, peanuts and so on. Even so, it is enough to arouse the children's hunger, and to be able to eat it can also be regarded as a luxurious dream and hope.

Whenever my mother went to the market, near noon, I ran to the slope of the soil at the west end of the village and waited. The winding field path is like a small white dragon winding towards the Phoenix Mountain, turning over the top of the mountain, that is, Puji, and the mother who finished the set turned over the mountain and returned along this "White Dragon" road. I only want to express my anxious mood with the word Shanshan, in fact, the walking gait describing my mother's return from the market should be most accurate with waddling, because the mountain road is rugged, walking all the way, plus the mother is a small foot. When I finally saw my mother's figure from the long queue of market catchers (at that time, the people who rushed to the market were walking), I spread my feet in ecstasy and rushed away.

My mother took out a delicious one from the basket and handed it to me, sometimes a few soft dates, sometimes a persimmon cake. I sucked on the delicacies and pulled the corner of my mother's clothes to the house, feeling that life was so beautiful. When I was four or five years old, I didn't know how to describe my feelings and moods in beautiful words, and when I first learned the word "happiness" in the chinese textbook in the second semester of the first grade, this scene first came to mind.

I often talk to my daughter about the first time I ate the fire: around 1974, when I was five or six years old. Once my mother came back from a market, and there were a few more things wrapped in black paper in the basket. The mother unveiled the rough black paper stained with star oil, revealing three dough cakes, round and burnt yellow, which the mother said were fire. My mother broke the three fires into six parts, and in addition to one for each of our five children, the rest were wrapped in black oil paper, which we all knew was reserved for my father at work. You will never forget the feeling of the half of the fire after eating, this mixture of oil and noodles and baked by the fire is so strong and bone-chilling! So that the erosion of fifty years has not faded in the slightest, even if the intoxicating oily fragrance that I recall at this moment is still pervasive between my lips and teeth.

Nowadays, fire is already our staple food, but we can no longer eat that kind of aroma, or is the material and technology of production different from before? Or is it eating too much and the taste is numb? Whenever I talked about it, the old mother said, "Now that life is better, there is no shortage of anything, and people are eating tricks." ”

Later, I heard my mother say that the fire I bought was a dime a dozen. In the era when pork was more than seven cents a pound, a dime was a big money. My mother said that I was only willing to buy three burns that time because I sold twenty pounds of soybeans. That year the rain was abundant, and the family generously donated a lot of pods from their own wasteland on the mountain. "If you don't sell something, how can you spend it?" Do you remember the pencil case I bought for you? When my mother said this, my heart ached. pencil case! How could I forget that tin pencil case with five little people painted on the surface of the box, which I regarded as the most precious gift in my life? Its preciousness is not only in the price, nor is it only in my day and night longing to have, but the process of buying it, which I will never forget for the rest of my life.

That was in 1980 when I was in the fourth grade. From 1976 until the fourth grade, my academic performance has always been the second in the class, no matter the size of the exam, the first place is always occupied by the girl called the student, at that time always felt that people are the talent and intelligence that came with the womb, but today, standing on the podium for thirty-two years, I know that the root cause is the difference in learning methods and the degree of diligence, if the time can go back for more than forty years - alas, unfortunately, this train of life is only one-way and will not go back and forth.

The mother is skillful and capable, but she can't read a single character. The changing times and the experience of life have made her more and more aware of the importance of culture, and she wants her children to "change their fate with knowledge". Although my mother was uneducated, she knew that the "carrot and stick" education method was the most effective, so when I followed her to the market, I met the tin pencil case with five little people painted in the counter window of the Puji Department Store, and in the face of my greedy eyes and begging, my mother put forward her request: "When you are the first in the class, I will buy it for you!" ”

The price of the pencil case was five yuan and eight corners, which was a big piece at the time, but since the mother agreed, no matter how poor she was, she would not renege on her word. I must get that pencil case! I must break through the second and strive for the first!

Material and economic rewards and punishments in any era are the most effective. The exquisite pencil case suddenly inspired my diligence and wisdom, and I actually took the first place in the class at the end of the year final exam. When I handed my mother the "Parent Notice" with the test results and the class teacher's comments and the award certificate, she smiled: "It's really good!" The day after tomorrow is the twenty-third year of the Waxing Moon set, let's go buy a pencil case! ”

Three days is so long! Finally waited for the twenty-third year of the Waxing Moon set. At dawn, my mother put two bags of corn on the trolley - although the annual market must always sell grain first and then catch the market, otherwise who has the money to buy the required items? Moreover, because I had to buy New Year goods this time, I had to buy "big pieces" of rewards, which required a lot of money, so the grain on the trolley changed from one bag to two bags.

In the glimmer of the morning light, a large cart full of two bags of corn was pushed by her mother on the road to the market. The mountain road is rough and uneven, and the mother of the little foot pushes the heavy trolley as fast as a fly, which makes me puzzled that I am following closely behind. The stress of life always unleashes the enormous potential in the human body! To this day, whenever my ninety-year-old mother asks me to fix her deformed little feet because of the pain of walking, I am deeply struck by the greatness and resilience of the potential in the human body. This pair of wrapped and deformed little feet is not easy to walk, not to mention that in that era, it was necessary to push the cart to pick up the burden, busy outside, how to survive it? O my old mother, thinking of the suffering you have suffered and the sins you have suffered, I seem to hear the sound of breaking in my heartache.

On the twenty-third day of the lunar month, the once bustling grain market is deserted, this is the penultimate episode of a few years ago, people are busy buying New Year goods, so both sellers and buyers are far less than usual.

With my assistance, my mother unloaded two bags of corn from the cart and placed them on a terrain conducive to trading, and I stood next to my mother, watching the cart while watching my mother bargain with the occasional buyer who came to ask for a price. The cold wind, like a vicious insect, kept burrowing through the collar, cuffs and the barrel of the cotton pants, blowing the body cold and bone-chilling, the feet in the cotton boots were cold and painful by the frozen dirt road, I shrunk my neck, grabbed my hands, stomped my feet, anxiously and eagerly looked at the passers-by. Suddenly, my eyes were attracted by a little girl who called out to her mother and father in "edicts" (Mandarin), she was about two or three years younger than me, with small pigtails, a handsome appearance, a purple and red silk bow on her head and furry boots on her feet, and the sugar gourd she was holding, all of which strongly stimulated my eyes and heart, maybe she and her parents came from a big city to grandma's house or grandmother's house in the countryside for the New Year?

Mom and Dad must be non-agricultural people who earn wages, they must have ready-made money in their pockets, they must not have to sell grain to buy grain, they may just be passing by in the grain market, otherwise why don't they pay attention to our two large bags of corn with full grains? When the family of three passed me, I was so eager for the little girl to look at me, but no. One of her hands with woolen gloves was held by her mother, and the other was holding a sugar gourd as she walked and ate very seriously. She passed me like this without squinting, without anyone else! She didn't notice me at all! Looking at her jumping back, my heart suddenly soured, my eyes were like being swept by two purple butterfly wings, suddenly a huge pain, to open my eyes, it felt sour and spicy, with the back of my hand, it was tears.

A woman is like a mother. The sour and silent tears were like gasoline that instantly poured the mother's heart burning and aching. In the face of people who came to ask for prices, she no longer stubbornly bargained. She took the money handed over by the grain buyer and muttered the money while dipping her hands in saliva. In the fourth grade, I was no longer faced with such arithmetic, and when I calculated that I had sold more than four pieces less than I had originally planned, I suddenly had a sense of guilt—it was my tears urging my mother to end the grain sale early, and it was my tears that greatly reduced the value of the two large bags of corn with full grains.

After selling corn, I had money on my body, and before I could buy New Year goods, my mother took me directly to the Puji Department Store - she planned to let her children get pencil boxes and then buy New Year goods, so that the happiness that came early might drive away the cold and let her children relieve the pain and numbness of their frozen hands, right?

Finally standing at the counter of the Puji Building, when I saw the pencil case from the transparent cupboard again, the ecstasy and excitement that was about to be obtained made my hands and feet that were numb instantly warm and itchy.

The young and beautiful salesman's aunt's voice was really good: "Little girl, I have picked the best quality for you, which belongs to its thick iron, heavy and strong." ”

I happily took the pencil case handed by the salesman's aunt, and was just about to open the lid of the box when I suddenly heard my mother's terrified cry: "Alas! What about money? What about my money? ”

The trouser pocket where the mother put the money was neatly cut by the blade, and a long strip was cut, along with the small handkerchief that was cut.

"My money was stolen!" My money is gone! I haven't bought pencil cases and New Year goods for my kids yet? "Panic, heartache, remorse, despair instantly turned a mother who was less than fifty years old and pitiful.

Mother's angry cries, self-reproachful sighs, helpless eyes, onlookers with regretful comfort, sympathetic eyes, vicious curses on thieves------ suddenly, tears poured down, no longer able to take care of shyness, I opened my mouth and cried.

I can't remember how I got home, but I knew that when I got home, I was sick, and the bone-chilling cold coupled with the ups and downs of emotions made me groggy and had a high fever. Taking medicine and injections, two days and two nights did not work, and my mother was anxious. On the morning of the third day, I suddenly muttered "pencil case --- pencil case" in my coma, and my mother could no longer wait for the twenty-eighth episode of the Waxing Moon, so the second brother took the six yuan given by my mother and trotted to buy the pencil box home in advance. It is also magical to say that the pencil case is really a panacea, when my mother put the pencil case into my arms, I suddenly woke up, saw the smile I showed, and my mother cried.

A blink of an eye, more than forty years have passed, the days are really not passed ah, this is not, a blink of an eye is the end of the year, tomorrow is the twenty-eighth of the Waxing Moon, just returned home from vacation daughter and I said: "Mom, tomorrow we go to Puji to catch the New Year's Fair, let's go to the department store where you bought the pencil box to see?" By the way, I'm going to buy you a bunch of sugar gourds—"

29 January 2022 (27 nights of the lunar month)

About the author: Jiang Shuqing, senior middle school teacher, member of Jinan Writers Association, Zhangqiu Writers Association, like literature and music, love to use words to record people and things around him, many articles have won awards and been published by newspapers and new media.

One point number Shandong financial literature