Text/Hao Xiaode
An autumn rain and a cold.
Several autumn rains have lowered the temperature, and the weather makes people feel a little cool. No wonder, I opened the calendar and looked at it, there are ten days to start winter, and the day is going to be cold. I took off the summer sheets on my bed and replaced them with a brand new mattress. In this way, it is warm under the body at night when sleeping. Looking at the mattress on the bed reminds me of the past, my childhood, and the straw mattress I used to use at home.
Grass mattress, hence the name, is a kind of mattress made of wheat straw. Its preparation process is very simple, that is, sewing a large bag with old coarse cloth, filling it with crushed wheat straw, and sewing it with needle and thread. Before making a straw mattress, you have to measure the size, and the average person measures the size of the family at all, and people have to measure it by hand or with a small rope. There is no specific standard for grass mattresses, as long as they are as big as the pits at home, the reason is that they can't be put in, small can't cover the pit surface, and people sleeping on them are easy to roll down. Don't look at the grass mattress is made of straw, but it is really warm, because at that time, the rural people were poor and had difficulties in life, and people slept in adobe pits. People sleep on it, just lay a layer of mats or felt or something is good. Because the adobe is earthy, after a cold day, the adobe pit is like a piece of ice, and people sleeping on it for half a night are warm but the bed is not nested, sleeping a night is frozen several times, the cold brings endless pain to people, let people suffer. After having a grass mattress, there is a thick layer of wheat straw inside the grass mattress to separate it, and people sleep on the grass mattress and then cover it with a quilt to naturally warm up.
I remember when I was a child, it was particularly cold, and in the winter, the north wind was whistling, the cold wind was biting, and the ground was frozen so that the cracks could reach into the feet. On a snowy day, as soon as the sun comes out, the snow on the roof melts and flows down the eaves, and it will immediately be frozen into a long icicle, ten and a half days can not be dissolved, it becomes a beautiful scenery, naughty children take the pole to hit down, the beaten icicles fall to the ground piece by piece, the children pick up with their hands, wipe it with the worn cotton sleeves, put it in their mouths and eat it like a popsicle: giggling, clucking, clucking... The sound was clear and distant. Icicles are cold, eat a mouthful of cold teeth numb, the heart trembles, but the children feel sweet in their hearts, piece by piece eating more fragrant than today's chocolate! At that time, the houses where people lived were adobe houses, and there was no heating in the house, only a small station stove, but in order to save coal and not wait for the family to sleep, the fire ceased, so the house was particularly cold. Those who have the conditions to light the stove will suffer less sin, while those who do not have the conditions to produce the stove will suffer a great sin. The adobe pit is completely packed with billet forks, and the pit surface is laid out horizontally by billet, and a thick layer of wheat bran mud is on it, and when it is dry, people can sleep on it. Because it was cold in winter, it was too cold to sleep only on top of the adobe pit, so people had to add a layer of corn oranges, corn leaves or wheat oranges to the bottom of the mat to avoid the cold. If not, people only lay a layer of mats to cover a bed of quilts to sleep on the pit, the cold pit makes people warm for half the night, drilling into the quilt is like drilling into the ice cellar, at night I don't know how many times I have to be frozen, people are really offended by sleeping. There is no toilet in the house, and the only way to defecate is to go to the fence in the yard, and to freeze half to death after a trip back. People are too lazy to get up and defecate at night, so people think of putting a urine jar or urinal in the house for urine. Later, people invented grass mattresses, but it really became a treasure for rural people, became people's "big savior", don't look at it simple and simple, but heating is really like a "small fireball", always bringing warmth to people.
The broken grass mattress was paved with pits, and the wife and children were warm. The second uncle of the neighbor's family often sang like this. Oh, yes! An inconspicuous straw mattress can be regarded as a "meritorious man" for a family and a family. With grass mattresses, people sleep on grass mattresses, have a "partition wall" to shield the wind and cold, and have a warm "nest", bringing happiness and happiness to people. I was in the second grade of elementary school when my family first used straw mattresses, and I remember that one Sunday morning, although it was already a cold season, the warm sunshine on my face made people feel warm. The mother began to sew a straw mattress coat after breakfast, and because of the large area of the mattress, the mother stitched and threaded, and it took a lot of effort to sew it. Subsequently, the mother went to the captain of the production team at the time to apply for the wheat straw straw in the family team, and only the team had the wheat straw for the grass mattress, and the captain happily agreed. This is not only a family looking for the captain to ask for wheat straw, the members of the team who install grass mattresses are also used in the team, the individual family does not have it, but must be approved by the captain. Before eating lunch, the mother pushed the trolley to the team headquarters to load up a straw full of straw, put it on the cart and pushed it home. That night, my mother spread this straw mattress on the pit where we slept, and that night we slept on the grass mattress and personally felt the warmth brought to us by the grass mattress. At night, I had a dream, dreaming that I and a few friends went to the river to take a bath and catch fish on a hot day, and I wanted to pee on the way, and I couldn't help but find a secluded place to pee, and I felt so comfortable after peeing. But when I woke up, I actually peed all over the grass mattress, and I was wet with a large piece. The next day, when my mother found out, she did not accuse me, but asked me and her to help carry the grass mattress to the yard for cooling, just telling me that I should drink as little water as possible at night, otherwise I would urinate. Since then, I have tried to drink as little or no water as possible at night, and I really haven't peed in the pit again.
Time flies. Soon I was in junior high school and high school, but our house pit has been covered with straw mattresses, and in the blink of an eye, grass mattresses have accompanied me through childhood, adolescence, and youth. Later, the party's policies were good, the rural areas implemented large-scale dry work, various economic projects also developed rapidly, the peasants' lives were better, the living standards were improved, new houses were built and furniture was added, people welded iron beds and wooden beds, and the original adobe pits were dismantled one by one as fertilizer and transported to the ground, the adobe pits ended their lives for many years, and the grass mattresses also disappeared. Later, whether it is a city or a countryman living in a building, the home is heated, the winter is like other seasons, the house is always warm, people enjoy the new era and the present happy life, and everything in the past is gradually eliminated in people's vision and mind with the change of the times. But there are also some things that are deeply unforgettable, such as the grass mattress, although it has disappeared for many years, and it may be rare that few people think about it and remember it, but it has always been deeply impressed in my memory and mind, because it has done a great job in warming and sleeping for our family in the most difficult time in my family.
(Image from the Internet)
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