Old house sentiments
Wen | Zhang Shutian
At the beginning of spring this year, my wife said to dig wild vegetables, but I didn't know where to go. I suddenly remembered my hometown, and I remembered the old house. Suddenly, a haunting emotion awakened. It was a feeling of desperately wanting to meet a loved one who had been missing for a long time.
The old house, the house in my hometown in the countryside, was built by my parents in the mid-1960s after they separated from their grandparents. At first, there were three low mud and grass houses. The walls are all made of adobe, and the slopes are covered with wheat straw roots.
At that time, the days were difficult, and the adobe was all taken off by my father when he was not working in the team in the morning and night. De-adobe is an extremely tiring task. "Take off the billet and hit the wall, and see the king of Yama alive." There have always been such words in my hometown. First look for a good piece of clay, then finely mix the clay and moisten it slightly, so that it is dry and wet. Then place the stripped wooden mold on a flat, thick stone slab and sprinkle a little hay ash on it. Then put the clay into the mold and pack it like a small mountain bag. Then he lifted the thirty or forty-pound stone rammed stone and smashed it hard at once. Until it was smashed flat, and then the mold was removed, and a twenty or thirty pounds of adobe was beaten. Then arrange them one by one, waiting for the air to dry, and then you can use it to build a wall. I could imagine my father sweating profusely as he stripped off the billet. I don't know how much sweat and strength my father spent on those adobes. Later, at the end of the 70s, our sister and brother were a little older, the house could not be opened, and my father picked up another one outside the West Gable, and by the way, the wheat straw and children were replaced by red tiles, so the old house is now four.
Later, two older sisters got married, and my brother and I also set up homes in the city, leaving only my father and mother in the old house. Because of the hanging of the old man, our sisters and brothers will take the children back to the old house every three or five minutes. At this time, the deserted old house was lively. Father smiled comfortably and said, Alas, the golden nest and silver nest are not as good as his own grass nest. The birds left the nest, taking the birds with them, but they still did not want this old nest.
The little nephew happily took his father's hands and asked eagerly, "Grandpa and Grandpa, where is the nest of the little bird?" You show me. It made us laugh together.
Squeeze a large group of people, sitting cross-legged on the warm earthen kang, like dumplings. I quipped, how could this fu Xiao Kang accommodate our family of six back then.
"Don't remember?" The mother was busy in the stove and smiled kindly, "At that time, you were all small and did not occupy the land. Kang Xuan slept soundly. ”
My mother also told a joke: at that time, my brother and I slept in a bed "heavy legs". One night, I dreamed in my dream that my mother had cooked a pot of tender corn, fragrant. I picked up a poop and nibbled it. As a result, my brother woke up in pain. My mother lit the oil lamp and looked at it, and in the dream I was holding one of my brother's feet and nibbling on it. My brother's feet were full of tooth marks and saliva. The mother's words made us laugh out loud, and the children laughed all over the place.
Yes, the old house is indeed a bit cramped, but whenever I think of the old house, my heart is always hot, surging with happiness and warmth. The old house is a nest of comfort, filled with the joys of my childhood, the paradise and paradise of my childhood.
In 1997, her father left, and her mother insisted on refusing to leave the old house, saying that she would accompany her father in the old house. Later, the old mother also drove the crane to the west. With an iron lock, the old house was idle.
The past is like smoke. Today, is the old house still good?
It's not far from the city to my hometown, and it's only half an hour's drive away. As soon as you enter the alley, the old house jumps into view. She is like an old man who has been weathered by the wind and frost, who has been in the wind and rain for more than half a century, and now she has shown a decadent state. Against the backdrop of the neighbors' tall and beautiful new houses, the withering and decaying, out of place, somewhat dazzling. There was a faint hint of inexplicable sourness in my heart. The old house, I've been left out in the cold for too long.
Opening the dusty iron lock, the courtyard was full of withered wild grass, and dry sycamore leaves and acacia leaves were scattered in it. A few tall wild artemisia poles stretched their necks, bare pestles in the grass, and suddenly brought me to "Liaozhai Zhiyi". There was some pain and remorse in my heart. I actually snubbed the old house to this part.
Entering the door, a musty earthy smell came to the nose, and spider webs of all sizes spread obliquely across the sky. In the southeast corner of the kang, a pile of dirt and broken bricks and tiles was piled up. Looking up, it was the inner wall of the flue that collapsed, and the big mouth with the black hole hole seemed to be pouring out to me about her loneliness and helplessness. The light that seeped through the chimney loomed in that big mouth. It turned out that the red tiles on the roots of the chimney had broken at some point, and the rain had soaked the walls with the flue.
"In the early years, the house was still worth a little money, and I told you to sell it and you didn't do it." This is good, but you have to spend money to find someone to fix it. People go up high. Today's young people are crowded into the city, and no one wants to sell it. The wife said to herself.
"If someone wants it, don't sell it!" I said with hatred, "No matter how good a bricklayer is, I don't have to do it for nothing." There is a lord who has been wronged, and the debt I owe, I will repay it myself, and I will have to atone for my sins! ”
The wife was stunned.
Later, she said, I was a bit hysterical, like a red-eyed gambler on a casino. She didn't recognize me anymore.
The old house is the foundation of the home left to me by my parents, and it is also the thought left by my parents, and it is a sin for me not to take good care of her. In my heart, the old house, like the "skin of the body", is "afraid to destroy".
Next, go to town to buy cement and sand, change clothes, clean the yard of grass, change the red tiles on the slope, and then use cement ash to wipe the chimney roots. Brick the flue was then used, and finally the façade was wiped. I gently smeared the wall skin with a gray board, as if carefully stroking the blood-dripping wound of the old house. I knew that I was far less good at my work than the master bricklayer, but I knew even better that the old house would forgive me and tolerate me. Because she was waiting for me in loneliness.
At noon, my wife asked what to eat. Because I have been holding a momentum in my heart, the work is not finished, who has the heart to eat! The wife laughed softly and teased, Yes, 'bitter in his heart, his bones, hungry in his body', you really learned the essence of Mencius at home - why is this bitter? Shame on yourself in this way. ”
"Life has a confidant, smart as my wife, empathetic, husband what to ask for!" 」 I smiled a little embarrassed and apologized to her.
The time has come to test the fire. Watching the chimney spit out green smoke without hesitation, my low mood suddenly refreshed with the wisps of light smoke, and the old house returned to its original appearance!
That night, we stayed in our hometown. During the day, my wife cooled the bedding. Lying on the hot fire, hot but not dry, warm body and mind, as if back to childhood. My rotten waist hadn't enjoyed such a comfortable treatment in years.
I have neglected the old house for so long, and she is still not bothered, always opening her warm arms to me - isn't this warm fire the best proof? The old house is like an idyllic and wise elder, ethereal and clear, generous and benevolent.
Man, there is nothing wrong with having to go up high. However, the roots must be left behind, and they must never be forgotten, nor dare they forget.
About author:Zhang Shutian, male, born in 1965. High school education, like literary creation, multiple articles published.
Submission email: [email protected]
One point number Jiaodong prose