Text: Wang Jing
Figure: From the network
My family has eight brothers and sisters, and I am old and young. My mother was born when I was 41 years old, and since I can remember, two of our eight children have died of illness, and one has died before I remember. So externally we all say that my family is five brothers and sisters, a family of seven.
When I was a child, the material conditions were extremely scarce, and I remember when I was a child, I had a small square red box of my own, so small, but it contained all my clothes in the spring, summer and autumn, except for a fat cotton jacket in winter.
Because there are very few clothes, only two sets can be changed. But whenever I think of my childhood, I feel infinite warmth from the bottom of my heart, I feel a taste of happiness, I am old and young, and I often get the love of my family.
My parents spoiled me very much, my brothers and sisters also took good care of me, and my mother often said to me: Little one, study well, my mother will save money for you to study, your little arms and legs, can not bear the suffering of the countryside.
My eldest brother, I was 18 years old, he went to secondary school, and later he was assigned to work as a worker in a machinery factory in our county town, and the salary was very low. The second brother, the third brother and the fourth sister have no books to read, and the family cannot afford to provide for two children who read, and they all go home to farm after graduating from primary school.
When I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, my eldest brother was thirty years old, and that year he finally got married. The eldest brother has a low salary, and from time to time to help the family, the city girl can't look up to him, and then found my sister-in-law, working in Xinhua Bookstore, not a regular worker, but the family conditions are OK, there is no drag.
In their generation, there was no drag on the good family. On the eve of my high school graduation, my father died of illness.
I was admitted to high school, the tuition fee is 660 yuan, the high school has to live in the school, and the weekly living expenses, my mother is more than fifty years old, and I have no ability to earn money for me to go to school in the countryside, I have many times I want to give up school, my mother does not agree, she sold a pig ready for the New Year before I started school, the pig is a little small, only sold for more than 360 yuan.
Later, my mother pulled some grain to sell for me to make tuition, sent me to school is my eldest brother, he went to the academic office to pay the tuition, came out and handed me 10 yuan, this is my first week of living expenses, I brought my own rice, you can call it for the school canteen for meal tickets, but you need money to buy vegetables.
At that time, from the second week onwards, the weekly living expenses were 5 yuan. Later, my mother could not get out the money for five yuan a week, the eldest brother often received me, and the eldest sister-in-law also knew that there was a contradiction, because the eldest sister-in-law rarely went home with the eldest brother, but she still let the eldest brother help me, and I was still very grateful to the eldest sister-in-law from the bottom of my heart. The eldest brother and sister-in-law had a daughter after three years of marriage, and the eldest sister-in-law was able to manage the house, and her life was better than when the eldest brother lived alone.
The second brother has never been married, wandering around, basically not home. Because the poor second brother in the family could not marry his daughter-in-law, his mother was very guilty. The second brother began to inquire about marrying his daughter-in-law, no one was willing to marry him, and then he was tired, no responsibility, everywhere he was fooling around, the cat played at home in winter, sometimes gambled a little money, the weather was hot and he worked odd jobs everywhere, and he didn't care about the family.
The third brother got married in his 28th year, the village next door, as poor as my family, after marriage and the mother separated from the family, the next year the eldest nephew was born, the mother helped to take the grandson, followed the third brother over, I returned to the third brother's home on the weekend, invisible pressure, feel that there is no home. So I read harder.
I only have one sister, the reason why I call her fourth sister is according to the rank, and everyone in my family calls me the fifth sister, also because I am the fifth sister. The fourth sister is honest and dutiful, and the brother-in-law is also an honest knot. The fourth sister was not far from married, and it took forty or fifty minutes to walk back to her mother's house, and then it took ten minutes to have a motorcycle.
The fourth sister was also poor and white in the past, but from her marriage, her mother's food and clothing were basically arranged by the fourth sister. Not worth much, but sweet. From socks and underwear to coats, I bought one or two pieces a year, but my mother was satisfied and happy. As long as there is something delicious, the fourth sister will always take some for her mother to taste.
I remember that one year during the planting season, the fourth sister's family asked someone to help with the work, made a table of dishes, including tamales, and when the work was done at night, the people were sent away, and the second sister stepped on the moonlight to send a bowl back to her mother, and then stepped on the moonlight to go home, back and forth for nearly two hours.
The mother was distressed by the fourth sister, criticized the fourth sister for not arranging, and said that it was too late to send it the next day, and the fourth sister smiled and left. Later, the mother lived in the third brother's house, and the fourth sister came back less. The greatest blessing that my mother enjoyed in her lifetime came from my fourth sister.
The fourth sister was good to me, she basically did not take money to me, only once in my memory, that weekend I came home, my mother said that the fourth sister had not been home for a long time, and she read it to me several times.
When I returned to school on a Sunday afternoon, I secretly took a special detour to the fourth sister's house, the fourth sister just came back from outside, saw me, she hurried to make a fire to cook, I said I just ate it, the fourth sister said, you eat dinner, back to school to save a meal.
I thought about it for a while, so the fourth sister, the fourth sister made a big table that the family thought was delicious, I ate a good meal, the fourth sister took out an empty canned bottle and filled me with a bottle of vegetables, so that I didn't have to buy the next day's dishes.
Before leaving, the fourth sister went back to the room to come out, hard into my pocket 5 yuan, I pushed or picked up, in addition to the mother, the fourth sister is the closest, to pick up the fourth sister's money without psychological burden, although it is not easy to know her.
The fourth sister has two sons, and life is also tense. After returning to school that week, the mood was very good, and in the evening, I took out the money to buy myself a bun to eat, when the bun was two cents a piece, it was the most delicious thing in the school canteen, the food in the school canteen was very difficult to eat, and I had to plan to eat.
The rice in the school canteen is steamed in a large iron box, not fragrant, I think the water is put more, often a lump, a smell of water, some students said that the canteen sold the good rice handed by the students, and the poor rice bought was cooked, which was difficult to eat.
For 5 yuan a week, I often beat a dime of clear water cabbage to boil vermicelli, and then beat a spoonful of other dishes. Chinese dinner a meal of three cents, breakfast generally cost two cents to three cents, so one dollar a day, Friday dinner home to eat, so I can often have fifty cents of the remaining money, so sometimes at night hungry, just buy a bun for supper.
The fourth sister would occasionally buy me clothes, and I had bought two coats in high school, which the fourth sister had saved a little bit from between her teeth. Once she was given a pair of her pants, new one, she was reluctant to wear, the fourth sister was taller than me, helped me fold up a section of sewing up inside, I was also very happy, because there was really no clothes to wear.
There were a few girls in the class, only daughters, who wore food that I could not compare, and now that I think about it, I still think they are quite fashionable. My three years of high school were full of inferiority and sensitivity, but I still tried to persevere, because I knew that life would still give me an answer.
I went to high school for four years. The high school I was in had a very low rate of progression, and there were only a few people who could be admitted to college every year, and the first year was four points worse than going to college, and it was already a good result in that high school, and the whole school took seven undergraduate and fifteen colleges that year.
One day at home during the summer vacation, I know that I have not been admitted, and I feel sad, can I repeat the study? No one can negotiate. On this day, I lived alone in an earthen house that my mother and third brother had separated from each other, and the eldest brother and sister-in-law came home with a few years old and a little niece for the first time.
My sister-in-law and little niece invited me to her house for a few days, and I just wanted to breathe, so I packed up a set of clothes that I had changed and washed with me and went to my eldest brother's house.
The eldest brother's family lives in two houses in the unit collective dormitory, it is quite spacious, the little niece is unattended during the summer vacation, I accompany her at home, she is about to go to elementary school, I teach her some simple mathematics, pinyin, etc., the sister-in-law is very happy, let me live in her house for a while, and then help me find a temporary job in their bookstore, that is, every day at five o'clock in the afternoon, the bookstore will pick up new books, tidy up the warehouse, and work for almost three hours a day.
I watched my little niece during the day and brought her to my sister-in-law when I went to work. Every day when I finish work, it is usually at eight o'clock in the evening, and then I stay in the bookstore to read books for two hours, and I still think about continuing the college entrance examination, and I will go home when the bookstore is going to close.
Twenty-one days of work, the sister-in-law said to take me to get a salary, I got the money to count, a total of two hundred and ten yuan, almost ten yuan a day, I was very happy, on the way home, I took my little niece to buy food, the sister-in-law smiled, acquiesced, that day I remember spent eighteen dollars, the eldest brother came home and said I spent money indiscriminately.
When I was in my third year of high school, my living expenses had risen to fifteen yuan a week, and 210 yuan was enough for me to live for more than three months. I still want to reread. The next day I said I was going home, and my sister-in-law took out an envelope, and it was money, and I knew.
My sister-in-law said to me: You still have to repeat a year, no matter how hard it is, this year is not bad, let's go to college, we are indeed not generous, but reading is still important. I took the money, tears swirling in my eyes.
When I got home, my mother told me that the teacher had arrived at home and would take me to repeat the study. Because of the good grades, the school reduced various fees, the money given by the sister-in-law to my mother to save, I took the money I earned can spend for several months, and my heart was relaxed. After a year of re-study, I was admitted to college. Then start making up tuition.
I had a cousin who had a wealthy family, and my mother said she went to my cousin to think of a way. Cousins and cousins are very fond of supporting children who read, there are few people in the countryside who have spare money, and the cousin's family is a minority, generally can not borrow money, but as long as it is a matter of children reading, cousins will borrow.
Mom borrowed five thousand yuan to come back, the first year's tuition and living expenses have fallen, and the cousin said that there are difficulties in asking her for help later.
My university was successfully completed with the help of many people, and later I paid my cousin, who insisted on no interest. After graduation, I would take time to visit my cousin and uncle every year.
After years of hard work in the city, when I was thirty years old, I made a home in the city, and I took my mother to live in my house, and my mother was once proud of me and very happy. After living in my house for less than a month, all kinds of discomfort, the eldest brother came over and took his mother back. In the winter of that year, my mother died at the age of 72.