Grandma's Cabinet | Author: Tapping Heartstrings

Grandma's cabinet

Author: Tapping heartstrings

In the memory, there was almost no decent furniture in the grandparents' room: a board cabinet, two or three wooden boxes resting on the shelf board opposite the kang tail or the earthen kang; the table was not there, so they intercepted a few trunks with the thickness of their arms next to the earth kang, with their backs against the earthen wall, and inserted a piece of kang blank on the ground, which was used as a table.

The cabinet is the largest piece of furniture in the grandparents' room, but it is also extremely simple, not to mention the arrogance, unlike the one in the parents' room, although it is not perfect, but it is also painted and painted by hand; perhaps it was once brushed with tung oil, even so, but it is not because it will be a shelf of clothes, it will be a pivotal piece of furniture in the grandparents' room! It wasn't originally made for the room, but it was just four legs that looked like a cabinet.

It is a water tank, as the name suggests, its function is to pull water or store water for a short time, and the four legs added have changed its use, and also made it free from the erosion of the moisture that constantly overflows from the yellow soil, thus ensuring the dryness of the clothes placed in the cabinet. I always lament the superb craftsmanship of the carpenter master in the past, but I wonder if the current carpenter can still be proud of it? The water was originally seamless and could not be stopped from spreading at will, but it was cleverly tied in the cabinet by the master and could not come out.

The cabinet is a wooden color, much darker due to its age, and the degree of shade is different and mottled; coupled with artificial scars and stains that are difficult to wipe, it looks very unsightly. There is no pattern painted on it, and its original use also determines that it is not necessary to do more. But I don't know who wrote a few words with a brush, but the right is counted as its decoration! I was the eldest grandson of the family, at that time, I was still young, I couldn't dance, I didn't like ink, only the third father in my father's generation liked calligraphy, maybe his masterpiece was unknown, but he always forgot to ask.

The rich people's board cabinet will be separated vertically from the middle, the outer side is made into several drawers, without opening the cover on the board cabinet, it can be directly pulled open, taken out or put in; the outside part is similar to the structure of the large box, which together with those drawers will divide the things in the cabinet as carefully as possible, and it is much more convenient to use than the pure cabinet. Grandma's cabinet was not originally made for the cabinet, naturally there is no such a complex design, it is an enlarged wooden box. The clothes are basically wrapped in large and small bags, and if you want to rummage through the things at the bottom of the cabinet, you have to take them out one by one and place them on the earth kang a few steps away. If I am, naturally curious, naturally mixed, Grandma is busy, and my busyness is even worse than her. Eyes between the big bags, small bags to look over, always want to find something that they think is funny, can be called a baby, but in the end there is no. A stack of neatly arranged home fabrics (which may also be wrapped in bags), some dyed, some undefined, dyed or not dyed but none of them have anything to do with me; and they can't be neatly arranged, they can only be wrapped in the baggage, there are unwrapped quilts, and the sheets used for washing; there are clothes that are still worn, there are clothes that have been lost for many years but are reluctant to throw away; there are shoes that Grandma herself has sewn, there are shoes that have been completed; there are hand-sewn cotton socks, of course, there are also woolen knits. And the yarn comes from the spinning wheel that squeaks and creaks every night... In short, there is a mess of everything, but after all, it is not what I have in mind, in fact, I really don't know what I am looking for.

There may be only one place in the whole cabinet that I am obsessed with, that is, the corner on the side, where there are always some things, of course, those things are constantly updated, constantly changing patterns, they are all delicious! This is not very big, pushing the corners of the east and west squeezing out of the corner always has a mouth-watering fragrance for a long time of the year!

Grandpa likes to plant trees, especially fruit trees, apples, pomegranates, persimmons, walnuts, plum plums, mulberries, apricots, dates... Almost all of them are common. Our family is a single family, the yard is open, there is no land dispute with other families within a few meters outside the courtyard, the courtyard is planted, the courtyard is not idle, in addition to the back wall outside the planting of some crops, the other three sides have one or two mixed between other tree species. When the fruit is ripe, it is naturally harvested, or it is exchanged for money to supplement the family, or distributed to relatives and friends to share the joy of the harvest. But there was always a part to keep, and this part was kept by the grandmother, and eventually most of it was given to her children and grandchildren.

Plum plums, apricots, mulberries are not easy to store, pick and eat as you go, too much, they will be sold or sent, early gone; pomegranates, persimmons hanging in the air, or on the wall, or on the tripod of the shelf; walnuts naturally go to the green skin, dry and refreshing; there are not many dates, not yet waiting to dry, there are few left; as for apples, they may be put into the cellar, in order to take it conveniently, they will also put a few in the cabinet, and at the same time there may be a bunch of dates, a pear sent by relatives and friends; walnuts are already placed inside. It was held in a small pocket of coarse cloth with a blue checker, which needless to say. They and those pomegranates and persimmons hanging in the air have a faint fragrance floating in the air, inadvertently pushed by the people who come out and in, suddenly rich, suddenly light, of which the fragrance of Marshal Huang is particularly distinct, it is the intoxicating aroma of wine! Although I was hungry, I was not pestering, and I knew that as long as I opened my mouth, Grandma would take out one with a smile and hand it to me lovingly. Of course, at that time, I was also very busy, such as teasing a cockroach in the corner, playing with a group of ants under the steps, going to see a butterfly flying over the wall, chasing a rooster that jumped on the window sill... In short, it's not necessary to think about them every day.

Grandma distributed it to her children and grandchildren at the right time she saw, and she had a plan! Her plan allows the cabinet to retain its characteristic taste for a long time after harvest, and it also makes us nostalgic for its left and right without feeling hopeless, and the intoxicating aroma it emits, although seductive, but the fruits have been eaten not long ago. Not only that, but it even made the shadow of the cabinet continue in my heart to the point where I was no longer salivating over a few apples or pears.

Grandma rarely took pictures in her life, and when she died, she only left a full-body photo taken in an unknown year, the photo was too small, the face was naturally not very clear, my father found someone to take a picture, but it was always different, and finally this photo was lost. More than ten years after grandpa passed away, the wooden box and the board cabinet left behind were no longer used, and one day suddenly remembered that the last remaining wooden box was broken by whom at some point, shattered to the point that there was no trace, only the copper lock and the handle were thrown on the window sill, helplessly bearing the wind and sun of the four seasons; the board cabinet was still there, but it was also dilapidated, of course, when it was first used as a board cabinet, it was already an old thing, I once thought that the words written by the third father were faintly visible under the thick dust cover. It's Grandma's cabinet! There is no fruit fragrance wafting in the room; there is no plate cabinet, it is deadlocked, even if it is opened, it is definitely just a choking musty smell, and it will be mixed with the dust that was originally floating in the air in an instant, and it can be pushed in my hands and feet, but there will never be a strong or light seductive atmosphere, it is clearly not the same as the cabinet in memory, it betrays itself in the continuous passage of time!

Grandpa did have a few pictures, one enlarged, framed, and rested on the cabinet in his parents' room, full of kindness. Looking at his pictures, there are always many memories, including grandfathers, trees that are tall or short in the courtyard, leaning forward and backward in the wind, weeping in the rain; grandmothers, pomegranates hanging on the wall, dried out of the skin, persimmons that have lost their strength; and naturally there is also the cabinet that seems to always emit fragrance and can never be abandoned outside the memory.