Original title: The Heart of the Rice Field
【China Story】
Author: Wang Shan (young writer, published in a collection of essays and documentary works)
No one was the best for his father, only the rice fields.
No one made his father proudest, only the rice fields.
Mei Que Narcissus Diagram Axis (Qing) Wu Huan
The father, who had planted all his life in the Renhuai Mountains of Qianbei, believed that the rice field had a heart like gold, and it was its selfless dedication that made his father not have the humility of starvation in the difficult and difficult years, and only then did the family run by his father live out the light that it should have in the lonely mountain village.
The rice field is the root of my father's life.
one
In the early 1980s, my father was given a pearl-like rice field set deep in the mountains. Some of the rice paddies are on the mountain shoulders, some are in the bends of the mountain, some are in the nests of the mountains, and some are at the foot of the mountain, which are distributed according to the combination of distance, size, fat and thinness, and under the organization of the production team.
Clutching the rice field on the paper cast, the father hummed a little song and immediately went home to report to his grandmother and mother.
In the century-old wooden house, the grandmother in front of the stove is delivering firewood to the stove, and behind the stove, the mother is baking dry rice into the pot. In the mood of waiting for the field to be divided, the fire and the cooking smoke have become the joy in front of the eyes.
"Divided, divided, divided..." Father broke through the door. Longjing, Belly Belly, Wowo'er, Lotus Lotus, Gou Bian Bian, Shuijing Bay, Shan'er Tree, Reverse Back, Xintian, MaTangtian. No more, no less, ten hills. "The father is like the name of the child, and he points out the assigned field to the grandmother and the mother.
Each hill field has its own name, a history or story, and like a person, it has a lineage and should be treated kindly. Chewing on the dried rice dumplings, the father chewed out the past and present lives of each rice field and the future of the family.
two
Chinese New Year's Eve night began, my father was full of rice paddies.
Before the shrine, after the father sacrificed his ancestors, he took a small amount of food used for sacrifice and put it in a bowl and closed it, then placed it on the shrine table and waited until the Lantern Festival to take it off. In this bowl, I don't know what kind of wish my father is carrying.
When I remember, I asked my father, and my father only said: "What kind of crops are good this year, look for them in the fifteen bowls of the first month." ”
Is it not possible that the mysterious bowl on the shrine can grow crops? I don't understand.
Wait for the left and wait for the right, the Lantern Festival is coming. Opening the bowl, the father glanced at it, and looked up at his mother next to him in relief: "This year, the millet is the best, and the bud grain, wheat, and sorghum are secondary." The mother smiled back, "Well, God is taking care of us." ”
The food in the bowl of the shrine for fifteen days was moldy, and the colors of white, yellow, red, and green appeared. Mother explained that white represents rice, yellow represents bud grain and wheat, red represents sorghum, and green represents vegetables and vegetables...
I understand. What a miraculous prayer!
Whenever it rains, my father always listens to when the first spring thunder rolls in - thunder in the first month, thunder in the grave pile in February, and thunder in the chaff in March.
Fortunately, the first spring thunder always comes in February of the lunar calendar. Spring thunder in February, like a performance at the father's farming ceremony.
Watching the sky and farming according to the seasons are the most basic qualities of my father as a farmer.
Ten days before the Qingming Dynasty, my father soaked the rice seeds he had bought years ago in warm water for a day and a night, and then sprinkled them in the greenhouse prepared in advance. The father is meticulous, like caring for newborn children, not only to use fat mud to pad them with "nests", but also to cover a layer of gray soil "quilt" with high organic matter.
About a week, the buds emerge. When it is hot, the father should open the shed to dissipate heat and water, afraid that they would "heat stroke"; when it was cold, the father should seal the shed to keep warm, afraid that they would "get cold".
The mountains are spread over the wilderness, and the greenery is getting stronger. In the greenhouse, the seedlings are growing rapidly. Carrying a plough rake and leading a buffalo, the father officially went down to the field to clean up the seedling field.
Father's seedling field is set in the belly every year. The belly is on a mountain, shaped like the belly of a strong man, so it is called belly. After the autumn harvest, the father generally does not dry the water, but instead transforms it into a winter paddy field so that he can take on the responsibility of cultivating seedlings in the coming year.
After ploughing twice and leveling them, my father cut half a man's tall seedlings such as oil wheat, broad beans, and peas and stepped on them in the mud to provide nutrition for the transplanted seedlings. The father figuratively said that the rice seedlings were like cubs, and they could only drink milk. The fertility of the seedlings after rapid decay is like milk, and the rice seedlings are easily absorbed.
In the seedling field, one box after another, the flat seedbed is all exposed to the water. Between the boxes, there is a ditch filled with water, and the role is to ensure that the seedbed and seedlings have sufficient water. This was built by my father for many days.
After the seedling field is cleaned up, the seedlings have grown to the height of the index finger, and it is time to transplant from the greenhouse to the wild.
Before the seedlings are raised, the father will tear off the greenhouse film and let the seedlings grow independently in the sun or wind and rain for three or two days before moving the nest for it. The tried and tempered seedlings can only resist the invasion when they are outside the greenhouse.
With the help of several farmers, the transplanting of seedlings began. Bending over, face towards the seedbed, buttocks facing the sky, left elbow resting on the left knee, right finger from the left hand to take the young seedlings, one plant after another, the seedlings were carefully planted into the seedbed. From this moment to autumn, fathers and farmers, thousands of times, have to repeatedly attack the rice field; tens of millions of times, they must repeatedly consult with the rice field; ten million times, understand that the rice field never treats them badly.
"Cuckoo, cuckoo, harvest wheat and plant grain..." In the trees on the hillside slope, the cuckoo's hurried slogan sounded, and the father looked up and shouted: "What kind of ghost, the waist is busy and broken?" Let's take a break and leave it alone. ”
In the father's witty remarks, everyone was happy. Sitting on the ridge of the field and smoking a cigarette, my father and the farmers "looked" at a green rice field; what they felt was the dignity of bending down to the rice field and not bending to anyone.
Qing Dynasty Yang Liuqing coloring New Year painting "Ruiqi Chuntai"
three
After transplanting the seedlings, my father began to clean up the rice fields.
After harvesting the rapeseed, wheat or broad beans that had been rotated for the first year, my father spent nearly a month in anticipation of the rain.
When it rains in the valley, the spring rain gradually increases.
In the night rain, my father always slept unrealistically, and from time to time he listened to the sound of rain outside the house. It was dawn, the rain had not stopped, and my father could not wait. "This rain is enough for the whole field."
Put on a bucket hat, put on a cloak, carry a plow rake, lead a buffalo, and walk on the mountain road. The figure of the father is a unique note of spring in the mountain village.
One night of spring rain, the rice paddies were soaked with water. In the ravine, Chunshui ran toward the rice paddies with enthusiasm.
In the field, the father shackled the buffalo.
The cattle are in front, the plough is in the middle, and the father is in the back. The father held the tail of the plough in one hand and held the cow stick high in the other, and in his shout of "up, down, walk, turn, shrink", the sensible cultivating cow swung its tail and fought forward. The plough is over, the dirt is tumbling, the spring water is stirred, the bugs are choking out... There were bugs, starlings, magpies, and crows, and the cuckoo in the bushes and the sound of the father's cattle became the mountain songs sung in duets. Grabbing water and tidying up the field is the most charming rhythm in the qianbei mountainous area.
In years with little rain, my father and mother would turn on horse lanterns in the middle of the night to meet the rain and complete the field. When we woke up at dawn, a hilly field had been remedied. "The rain is high and the fields are white, and the cloaks are ploughed in the middle of the night; the people and cattle are exhausted, and the East is unknown." Grabbing water to complete the field is a seasonal memory left by the ancestors.
Father is a master of the whole field, a hill of field, to repeated plough more than ten times, each time, to take a different plough path, as far as possible to ensure that the mud bottom is ploughed, so that the mud bottom is strong, only stable water. The fertilizer and leanness of each hill field are different, the thickness of the organic matter soil is different, the depth of the plough, and the number of times the muddy water is mixed are also different. The rice field ridge should be firmly hammered with a stick specially hammered to the field ridge, and then the thick mud in the field should be pulled with a rake. The surrounding area of the rice field should also be cleanly kept so that the weeds do not bother the rice. My father used to say that this is the place where the rice comes out and must be clean and tidy. Every hill that my father took care of did not leak, and my mother described that the water seemed to be in a bowl without leaking a drop, and no one could help it except the sun in the sky.
Ancestral field preparation techniques are always to be handed down.
In the lotus field, my father began to teach me crafts. In the depths of my memory, my father never taught me anything to learn, nor did he ask me to learn anything, including going to school, whether you scored zero or full marks on the test, he had an expression. But the whole field, he taught very well. His father had several crafts, he was a famous stonemason in the village, he was a smith in the family, he was a coal digger for the coal in the family, and he also toasted wine for drinking. My father felt that you are not alone. Whole field is the only skill my father left me. Having a field, being able to farm, and not being hungry at any time is the most basic way my father taught me to make a living.
After the fields were all straightened out, my father asked us to carry cow dung from the cattle pen to the fields one by one. "How much fat you carry into the field in the spring, how much grain you can carry back in the autumn--people don't coax the ground, the ground doesn't coax the belly!"
shop
After the small full, the seedlings have grown to the height of chopsticks, and in the blink of an eye, they will start planting seedlings.
On the first day, my father confessed to my mother: "In the evening, prepare the bacon, stew the whole bacon bone and platinum beans together, and eat it to have a taste... Steam the wheat and beat a few pounds of wine to come back..."
The next morning, before my father could reach the seedling field, the farmer who was helping had already arrived. No need to ask for directions, no need to lead the way, where the field is, farmers can find it with their eyes closed. Tian was their closest friend and closest person.
Nearly twenty people, about ten o'clock, finished pulling out the seedlings, and carried the seedlings to every mound.
At this time, the mother in the stove room has poured the meal into a mouth-watering manner. Standing in the open, I pulled up my throat and shouted to my father and the farmers to let them go home and eat. At the dinner table, my father always liked to persuade two cups. Sipping wine and eating meat, farmers never felt the exhaustion of the busy season.
After the meal, the father's "straw door" was officially opened.
Following the direction of the field, the two people first pull the rope and plant the seedlings along the rope, and the distance is about two meters, and the range of these two meters is the area where one person plants seedlings. In the big line, according to the general essentials of the nest distance of five inches and the line spacing of eight inches, each person inserts seven more lines, and the rows must be neat. Bending over, stretching, retreating, through countless postures and movements, a hill of sparkling rice paddies, draped in green.
Stretching out his waist and taking a deep breath of fresh and warm wind, my father and the farmers tasted the refreshing taste of the rice field - "Hands plant green seedlings all over the field, look down and see the sky in the water; the six pure squares are the way, and the retreat is originally forward." ”
In the evening, the planting of seedlings is over and the "rice door" is closed.
Inside the house, under the warm light, my father persuaded the farmers who had been tired for a day to drink and relieve their fatigue. The sound of guessing fists, intermittent minor tones, drunk in the mountain village, drunk in early summer. When the farmers were drunk, I saw that their hands and feet were full of wounds after the sand had been scratched. These mouths that could not arouse the pain of the peasants became the medals of selfless rice weaving in their rough and open-minded disposition.
five
After planting the seedlings, water became the father's first priority.
Every three or five minutes, my father always ran to the field. On rainy days, worry about the rain washing down the rice fields; on sunny days, worry about the seedlings being dried. What made him most anxious was the long dry and rainless days in the summer.
In order to replenish the rice paddies, my father had to go far away to carry a water pump to pump water. More than a dozen pumping machines quickly pumped out the water in the small pond. The pond sees the bottom, still does not see the rain, why not?
Looking forward to the rain, my father looked forward to it. In the evening, the sky is covered with fire clouds - the morning burns the sky is not waiting for darkness, and the evening is burning for half a month. Rain, for a moment and a half can not fall to the ground.
Can't wait any longer, have to find water.
In order to save the belly of the child, the father came to the eye of a underground water spring called the Ringing Water Cave and waited. After two days in line, it was my father's turn to release the water. At this time, the belly of the belly, the edge of the field has cracked a small mouth, fortunately, it is about to quench its thirst.
That night, my father invited me to be with him. When I got to the entrance of the cave, I flashed a flashlight for my father. With a flashlight, my father used a hoe to dig ditches, divert water, and release water...
An hour later, the groundwater from the ringing hole flowed into the rice paddies. In the faint flashlight of the rice paddy, I saw my father smiling at the dark face of the straw.
Following my father, I returned to Xiangshui Cave with my father. Outside the Xiangshui Cave, my father found a rock wall platform.
Climbing to the platform, I snuggled up with my father, waiting for the water to flow quietly and wait for the rice field to flow. At some point, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was covered with a coat brought by my father, and my head was resting on my father's clothes. Looking up, I saw the stars in the sky, and my father, who was two or three hundred meters away, holding a flashlight in his mouth, and his hands were grasping the mud paste that had cracked the field.
For the sake of the rice field, for the sake of the family, my father did not dare to stop. I did not call out to my father, but the tears were aroused by the figure of my father's late-night labor.
There is water in the field, the rice is saved, and the seedlings are indispensable.
Before the summer, in the rice waves, my father still bent down, grabbed the water weeds with his hands, and used his hands to plane the mud at the root of the rice, so that its roots were more developed, the long seedlings were strong, and the knotted ears were abundant.
Near the beginning of autumn, the rice seeds were carefully cultivated by their father and began to draw ears.
At the sound of frogs, my father paced around the field, with unspeakable joy in his heart. Lifting up a nest of rice, my father counted the tillers of rice, a total of twenty, each of which drew out more than three hundred ears.
Putting an ear of rice in front of his nose, my father smelled it, and it was really fragrant, and the smell of rice flowers was consistent with the aroma in the bowl. In memory, the father never kissed his children, but in the rice field, he had to smell and kiss repeatedly.
To the left and right of the white dew, the ears of rice in the rice field stooped to the soil. The stooped ears of rice are the gifts that the rice fields give to their fathers, and they are the thickest rewards for their fathers.
Earned! Father said that this was the most cattle trade in the world. My father bent tens of thousands of times in the rice field, in exchange for the million-level humility of the rice field, in exchange for the father's straight waist after bending down. Father said that in this world, only the rice fields are the best for him. The heart of the rice field is the most sincere, the most selfless, you are humble to it, it will repay your harvest.
Picking one plant, the father rubbed it in the palm of his hand. The white rice exposed from the shell makes the father's mouth and stomach overflow with the sweetness of the four seasons.
land
In the blink of an eye, the harvest season is here.
At this time, the father always had to proudly search and compare to see whose rice was still standing proudly, and whether there were still rice flowers that provoked bees. "Bai Lu does not bow his head, cut to feed the old cow"! Look at our family's rice fields, golden and heavy, the breeze blows, and the rustle whispers.
The smug father waited for a sunny day to prepare for the autumn harvest.
In the old street of the market town, in the iron goods shop, before his father could speak, Chen Blacksmith asked head-on: "Brother Wang bought a sickle, right?" "No matter what season, no matter what kind of thoughts the peasants have in the town, they can't escape the eyes of Chen Blacksmith."
"Yes, Master Chen."
"How many?"
"Five."
"Okay. Is the grain OK this year? ”
"Yes. The wind and rain are smooth, the fields are fighting for gas, the grain is too good, you sickle, afraid of cutting the broken. ”
"It's okay, it's okay, my sickle quality assurance, cut me to pay."
"The grain is good, I am happy that the sickle is broken, I don't want you to lose..."
"Hahaha... Look at you big brother. ”
The father took the scythe, bought another piece of meat, and rushed home full of energy.
The next day, taking advantage of the good weather, my father invited the farmer again, one sickle and one sickle, and bent down and waved at the rice. The rice in the rice field, which has experienced spring and autumn and wind and rain, is cut into the hands of farmers in an instant. One by one, they were tied up and dried on the rice farms.
After two days of drying on the rice farm, dark clouds overwhelmed the rice fields. Seeing us running to harvest rice, farmers passing by, and teachers who had finished their classes at the village school all rushed to help. You hug, I carry, he picks... Before the rain had fallen, my father's rice was ushered into the church house.
The father's way of gratitude was still a glass of wine and a bowl of meat. Farmers and teachers who are left alive and dead, guessing boxing is naturally indispensable. In the sound of autumn rain, they shouted out the spring, summer, autumn and winter of the year, bitter, spicy, sour and sweet. The parents next to them poured wine and vegetables, and their faces could not hide the look of returning to the warehouse.
Seven
In the fields, the cuckoo sound of spring ploughing can no longer be heard. Knowing that the summer is torn to shriveling, maybe it is back to the dirt. At the autumn equinox, the rice fields that are dedicated only begin to relax for a short time. In front of the poplar, the leaves began to turn yellow.
Autumn is becoming more and more distinct, but father is still busy like spring.
The golden wind is thin, the night is low, and the Chang Gung star is hanging high. At Li Zhishu's home, his father was discussing with Zhishu about selling rice. The family's expenses are all in the valley.
"Isn't it urgent to use the money now?" Li Zhishu asked.
"I'm not in a hurry, I just want to let out the news of selling rice."
"That's fine. Sell now, you know, the price will not go up, and the price will go up later. I remember that you were going to sell rice. ”
After bidding farewell to Li Zhishu and returning home, her mother began to chant: "In a few days, Uncle Zhao's family will marry his daughter-in-law, and he will give a gift of five pieces; it will cost forty or fifty to buy two piglets to breed; when it is cold, he will add some clothes to the children..."
My father carried rice to a market town more than ten miles away from home.
The sun is westerly, and no one cares. Rushing people, neighbors, as if every family is not short of rice. The wind and rain are smooth, much so.
The field was gone, and my father had to store the rice in an acquaintance's shop and sell it again in the next session.
That afternoon, I was leaving the junior high school in the market town, and when I was leaving the school gate, I saw my father waving at me from afar.
At a glance, my father suddenly grew much older. The polyester kabu clothes on his body and the liberation shoes on his feet were already white. I felt that his waist was not as big as before, thin and not so straight, perhaps because of the long bending of the rice paddies. This is the conclusion I came to when I looked at my father after I had just met a teacher who was about the same age as my father.
From the out-of-school crowd, I ran to my father, "Dad, why are you here?" ”
"It's not selling rice yet." Didn't sell, didn't have any money on me... Hungry or not? Otherwise, I'll find an acquaintance restaurant and make a bowl of lamb powder on credit for you to eat. ”
"Not hungry! Dad, let's go home. ”
My father took a handful of melon seeds from his pocket and handed them to me, which he had brought with him when he left home in the morning to relieve me when he picked me up. From morning to now, my father has not even taken a sip of water, is not hungry in his stomach, and he does not want to plug his teeth with melon seeds?
More than ten miles on the road, my father's back was getting thinner and longer in the sunset light. The sunflower seeds that my father gave me made me smell the deepest memory - my father took me home from school and never again!
In the second period, my father sold rice at a low price, seven corners and eight per kilogram, two corners and five lower than before the harvest. My father's heart ached for a long time, but it was good rice grown in a good field!
Stepping into the depths of winter, people who buy grain and rice come to the door. It seems that Li Zhishu's words work.
Buy grain and buy rice people,most of them have no fields or less fields, and my father understands the difficulty of not having rice, and he owes credit, when it is OK. Don't raise the price, how much last year, how much this year. His father handled things similarly to the rice he planted, with a mango on his body, but his heart was as pure as rice.
Year after year, the family's livelihood depends entirely on the rice fields. Rice field is the father's proudest family member who is more powerful than his son.
Today, my father has been dead for many years. In the rice fields of mountainous areas where mechanization is difficult, the farming skills of farmers are still passed on. Mother adheres to the concept of fatherhood, and we must become people who love the field, and we must not forget its deep and righteous love and the duty of a farmer.
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(Source: Capital Museum "Four Times of The Wind and The Age of Huazhong", "SunXia Chunhe" - Beijing New Year's Season Culture Series Exhibition)
Guangming Daily (2022.02.11. 14th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily