Push grinding
Text/Manor
At the age of five, I started pushing and grinding.
In the yard of every household in our village, there is a plate of stone mills, and pushing and grinding pancakes is something that every family repeats every day. Generations of childhood, adolescence and youth have disappeared in the mill. But still not enough to eat, not good to eat.
After dinner on the first day, the mother took out a dustpan full of dried sweet potatoes from the stack containing dried sweet potatoes, put them in a large basin, and then scooped up the dried sweet potatoes from the water tank one scoop after another. The next morning, I don't know when, the mother had dried the soaked sweet potato early and chopped it into a tooth-like stubble (chai) with a stone knife. The first time I went up the grinding road, I held my father's deliberately thicker wax sticks made of a pushing stick—a circular tie made of iron strips on the pushing stick, and put it on the fifth sister's grinding stick—because there were only two handles on the stone grinding, one for the fourth sister and one for the fifth sister. I am an intern, so I put the pushing and grinding stick on the fifth sister's pushing and grinding stick, and it is okay to use no force, anyway, the fifth sister is the mainstay. For this reason, the fifth sister did not scold me less, thinking that I was playing a slippery head, just following the circle, not using force. I often dozed off as I walked, forgot to use force, and the grinding stick poked at the paste. At this time, Tim's mother gently slapped me on the head, woke me up, and then carefully stretched out three fingers to clean the paste on my grinding stick, and then counted me a few words, and then began to circle again. Because the sisters still had to work in the fields, when the chickens crowed for the third time, when the sun had just climbed up from the East Ridge, they had to grind a large basin of paste. After pushing the mill, the sisters went to work in the production team, and the mother baked pancakes in the pot house. Once, because I watched the Liuqin drama of the county theater troupe at night, I slept late, and my sister and I got up late. The mother shouted over and over again, her voice from low to high, calling words from nickname to gender and even more difficult to hear. I couldn't listen to it anymore, my sister and I rubbed our eyes with our sleeves, and put on the grinding stick loosely and lazily. The production captains all blew the whistle of the work, and there was still half a pot of stubble (chai) that was not finished. The fourth sister and the fifth sister hurriedly washed and worked on the face, leaving only the mother and me to push and grind. On that day, I used the strength to suckle, and my mother also turned her waist into a shrimp. We still walked very slowly and slowly, and when we finished pushing the mill, my mother and I were erupting with smoke-filled steam on our heads and bodies.
Pushing and grinding is the pain of my youth. That's really not a man's job—sleepy and tired, and it's endless. Until now, whenever I think of it, or whoever brings it up, I get goosebumps on my body, and sometimes I get a stir. It is also because of this era mark that will never return, leaving an indelible beauty and pain in my childhood, adolescence and even youth, and it is still so profound and clear when I think about it today. I kept recalling those difficult moments—squinting my eyes in circles in the mill with great reluctance, day after day, year after year, with no hope, no hope, even despair. All five of my sisters have expressed the same wish: to find a city man to marry, even if he is blind and crippled. City people don't have to push and grind.
Time can not only erase the pain, but also make the bitterness into sweetness. Over the years, I have seen it as a kind of happiness, perceiving the beauty of that time.
When I was a child, the family had a large population, except for the eldest sister and the second sister who got married, the third sister, the fourth sister and the fifth sister all worked in the production team; my father was a custodian in the team, taking into account the scene, generally without pushing and grinding. The third sister raised silkworms in the brigade headquarters, and there was no time to push and grind. The second sister rarely pushed and grinded before getting married, but sometimes the second sister learned Lei Feng to be an unsung hero, removed feces from the production team overnight, carried water to the five guarantee households to sweep the yard, and it was the middle of the night when she went home, and when she couldn't get up even when she was tired and sleepy, my mother shouted me up. Because there were many people eating, all of them were laborers, and they ate a lot, so at that time, the stone mill in my house was extra large, and one or two people could not push it. It is also because the dried sweet potatoes soaked in water are too "meaty" - the meaning of "soft", and it is too laborious to push and grind.
It was a spring morning. When the stubble (chai) in the basin was about to bottom, I was eagerly thinking of going back to bed to sleep, when I saw my mother bring a scoop of wheat from the pot house. This is a groundbreaking thing, our family can not get a few scoops of wheat a year, because the yield of wheat is low, most of the wheat in the production team has paid public grain, and the members of the company eat dried sweet potatoes. The mother has never been willing to eat wheat, which is to be eaten in dumplings for the New Year. When we were young, we looked forward to the New Year, probably for those dumplings. Our sisters and brothers ate very ugly, and they all puffed up their two cheeks, propped their stomachs into the shape of hemp seeds, and then drank cold water one by one. The mother laughed and scolded us: the poor eat noodles and do not leave the water tank for three days.
The mother seemed to read out my doubts, in fact, she was saying to herself: Your third brother-in-law has come to send a day this day, burn a few wheat pancakes for him to eat, new relatives!
The wheat was poured into the grinding eye, and the stone grinding began to become easier, much less energetic than pushing the sweet potato stubble (chai).
Today is surprising, after pushing the grind, I did not go to bed again, but helped my mother clean up the aftermath. When my mother went to the pot house to make a tweezer, I went to hold firewood; when my mother started to make a fire to burn pancakes, I went to clean up the yard. The mother glanced at me: What happened to the little sixth son?
The aroma of wheat pancakes rippled in our yard and was refreshing. I was busy in the yard, actually enjoying this extremely rare and wonderful fragrance. I waited for my mother to finish cleaning up the tweezers, and when she went to the house to clean up again, I slipped into the pot house. I stared at a pair of green eyes, and found that the mother deliberately put the wheat pancake on top, the circle was yellow, and the middle was red, compared with the black and dark dried sweet potato pancake lying below, it was simply Prince Charming! I counted it first, and there were three Prince Charming. The smell of wheat pancakes had already dragged my nose forward, forward, forward. The moment my nose came into contact with the prince, I could no longer control myself, and shamelessly stuck out my sinful tongue and licked it. Licking and licking, a piece of wheat pancake slipped into my mouth, and in an instant it was wrapped in saliva that had already come out, and grunted into my stomach. With this first bite, my hunger has long been like a wild horse that has lost its reins. I thought, it was the knife in the neck, immediately pulled me out and shot me, but also to eat another bite... So shamelessly, shamelessly, shamelessly, shamefully, unconsciously, I ate the wheat pancake on top—rather, "licked" it off—half of it. After licking off the madness of this half of the wheat pancakes, I suddenly felt afraid, this is what the mother used to entertain the new aunt, this is my family's top priority this year! My third sister is already a twenty-something girl, because she has not yet married, and she is naturally irritable. The mother is not optimistic about this aunt - as the old saying goes, there are women who do not marry Saigo Lang, lack of clothes and food, and have no new house. The family is the family of the third brother-in-law in a village in Xixiang, and each family of talents is divided into four places, drinking the river water of washing clothes, picking vegetables, and ducks and geese pulling urine - marrying in the past is also a poor day. The third sister gambled and said: You will leave me at home! My fourth sister also has people who have no one to say nonsense: Third sister, your face is really thick, you don't go away, and you want others to find a lord no... This "other" of course refers to the fourth sister herself. I knew that this wheat pancake was related to the marriage of my sisters, but I still ate the half of the sheet without stopping. Then like Lou Ah Rat, with two hands, no, two claws, slipped out of the pot house...
My mother asked me to go to the second uncle's house next door to find the lobby brother and come with me to accompany the guests- the third brother-in-law who gave gifts would come in a moment. In our hometown, the tribe that did not have five clothes is close, whether it is red and white, each family has a person, of course, the boss is the priority, because my five sisters are a boy, so every year there are many opportunities, whether it is a wedding feast or a funeral, these opportunities are of course a wonderful moment of "pulling hunger". The lobby brother is more than ten years older than me, and his nickname is Si Ya, which is ranked after my third sister by age. The boy took the girl's name, in Grandma's words, to feed himself. The fourth brother is very shrewd, but my mother usually does not like him to come to our house, because he is too casual, I have good food at home, once he sees it, he will eat it when he picks it up, never modest, more casual than in his own home. Many Hui niangs, as soon as they heard him coming to my house, quickly hid the good things - in fact, there was nothing good. When I couldn't see it, I secretly took some for him to eat. Mother said that when I was a child, my family came to the guests, and the four brothers always stood at the door of my house, put their fingers in their mouths and slipped hard, staring at the dishes on the table without moving their eyes, and the saliva flowed out of a sleeve.
The fourth brother first entered my house's shock shelter, took his nose out for a while, and asked me what it smelled like, so fragrant. I said you'd be able to eat it at noon. He slipped his nose out of the shock shed. I only looked at the villain's book "Red Lantern", and I didn't care about his whereabouts.
Little Six! Little Six! Little Six! The mother called me one by one, and I thought there was an earthquake. I hurried out, and my mother was standing in the doorway of the pot house, staring at me in panic: What about wheat pancakes? Did you steal it? Looking at niang's exaggerated expression, I felt the seriousness of the problem and said: I don't know. The mother shouted again: Four girls! Four! Four! The fourth brother came out of the hut with his pants. The mother stared at him with round eyes again: "You stole the wheat pancakes?" The fourth brother looks very innocent, what wheat pancakes? I do not know. Niangyi sat on the ground and cried with her neck pinched. Seeing my mother so sad, I regretted and was afraid, and I didn't dare to admit it. The fourth brother squatted down in front of the mother and said that the eldest lady has something to say. The mother cried, your third brother-in-law's family came to send the day this time, I specially burned three wheat pancakes to entertain new guests. You see, there's only one left... People are coming soon, what to do? The fourth brother said, "Big lady, you can rest assured, I will definitely let the third brother-in-law eat well, this matter is wrapped up in your nephew, you can relax your heart." The mother stopped crying, looked at the four brothers half-believingly, slowly got up from the ground, and went to the pot house to collect vegetables.
Fear is finally replaced by curiosity. I'd like to see how the four brothers can feed all three of us with a pancake.
The third brother-in-law came to my house with a small rubber truck and a gift. The mother prepared four dishes. The fourth brother and the third brother-in-law symbolically drank a little wine. At the dinner stage, the four brothers brought the surviving wheat pancakes on a plate. The surviving wheat pancake had been divided into four pieces by the four brothers. Only to see the fourth brother take out a piece first, extremely solemn hands and hand it to the third brother-in-law: Brother, this wheat pancake is specially baked for you by my eldest wife, that is, support - death, you will also eat it. Hold, solid!
When the fourth brother said the words "support - death", it was very slow and heavy, and he dragged the sound. I saw the third brother-in-law take the piece of wheat pancake and chew it slowly, little by little, for a long time before eating it. My four brothers and I also ate a piece each. When the fourth brother handed the last piece of wheat pancake to the third brother-in-law, the third brother-in-law repeatedly said that he was full, full, and how to persuade him not to eat. Sending the third brother-in-law away, my fourth brother and I laughed into tears, and my mother also wiped her eyes and giggled.
Our family actually ate wheat pancakes in the second year after the land was divided. My family contracted five acres of land, and in addition to paying public grain, there were still three large tanks of wheat left. The mother first mixed the dried sweet potato and the wheat to eat, and then simply did not eat the dried sweet potato, all ate the wheat, and the sweet potato dried into pig feed. Unfortunately, the mother had just eaten wheat pancakes for a few years and left.
Later, I received a group of journalists from Beijing, went to the Yimeng Mountains to interview, and saw that the farmers in the mountainous areas also ate wheat pancakes, and everyone was very happy. But we were asked to cry by an old lady. When she heard that it was a guest from Beijing, she asked: Are you from Beijing? I am just curious, is Chairman Mao now able to eat wheat pancake roll eggs every day?
When my hometown was demolished, I moved our family's stone mill to the Happy Town community. Originally I wanted to be a cultural relic, but then I really didn't want to eat the biteless pancakes bought at the market, so I said to the third sister, I still want to eat the stone mill wheat pancakes I used to eat when I was a child. The third sister did not say a word, panning wheat, pushing stone grinding, spreading pancakes, it was still so skilled. When the first pancake was pickled, I smelled the unforgettable fragrance again. I took some hot wheat pancakes from my third sister and divided them into two portions. The two brothers and sisters ate and laughed. The third sister suddenly said, if the mother should be how good... We all stopped chewing and started wiping our tears.
The elderly in the community came to taste it, and the third sister gave them a few sheets. Everyone said it was delicious, and they all told about the grinding during the production team. Later, the third sister simply organized some old sisters and set up an "old sister commune", not only making water mill pancakes, but also making tofu, raw stubble bean sprouts, weaving fishing nets, and making small cotton jackets. They were talking and laughing and working, and the product was very popular. I saw that the third sister's body was also much tougher than before, although she was busy, the smile on her face was more.
In order to find the memories of my childhood, I invited my third sister, fourth sister and fifth sister to the happy town to relive a grinding experience, using the stone mill that was moved from my hometown. People are still those people, grinding or grinding, but the mood is very different: before pushing and grinding, we feel sleepy, tired and bored; this time, we feel joy, satisfaction and nostalgia. What comes out of nowhere is a sense of happiness.
After pushing the mill, the three sisters grilled pancakes around the tweezers. I rolled up a wheat pancake just about to taste, the third sister suddenly asked me: That year, our mother-in-law entertained your third brother-in-law's wheat pancakes missing two pieces, did you steal it?
【About the author】Manor (male), real name Zhuang Chenggui. He is a member of the Chinese Essay Literature Association, a director of the Linyi Writers Association, and the vice president of the Linyi Municipal College of Literature. In the 1980s, he published 10 literary works under the pseudonyms zhuang ge and square grid, but quit writing after entering politics. Since the beginning of 2019, he has begun to create amateur literature, mainly novels and essays. His works have been published in more than 10 newspapers and periodicals such as "Qinghai Lake" and "Essay Hundred Houses". Author of the anthology "Swiftlet Love".
One point number mantra of chastity