Blacksmith, smoke, white candy seeds and my 16 years old! ‖ his hometown of Xuchang
Wen ‖ Cheng Caifan
Although my uncle was far less famous than Zhou Ye's uncle, Mr. Lu Xun, he had a small prestige in a few small villages around our Xingguo Village.
As far as I can remember, my uncle was fifty or sixty years old. He was tall, with a slightly hunched back, and stuttered when he was in a hurry. He often wore a white old coarse cloth cardigan and black crotch pants. Even in the hot summer, he dressed neatly and never opened his chest and back. In the past, there were daughters-in-law in the yard, and the old people dressed very well.
My uncle was a blacksmith, well-liked, very kind; good temper, like my father, I had never had a red face or quarrel with my neighbor in my life, and I was very kind to me.
The blacksmith of a few decades ago was the one used by a hundred families in the village!
This family's pot leaks, take it to let him nail; that family's basin is broken, let him mend it; your scissors are blunt, let him grind it; my family's rake is bald, he picks it up...
To do these small things for others, my uncle never charged, and he didn't even smoke a cigarette from someone else. Even at the mouth of the rice, just picked up the rice bowl, as long as someone is anxious to ask him to help nail the pot to fill the pot, he will immediately put down the bowl and chopsticks, happily and carefully repair these things, never bother. Because, at that time, most people were relatively poor, and there were few rice pots and vegetable pots, and if they were not repaired in time, I was afraid that the family would have to starve.
In their spare time, my uncle and his second son (the brother had a bit of a leg disability) would make some iron to make two dollars to supplement the family. At this time, the disabled brother used large pliers to clamp hard a piece of bright red scrap iron, and the uncle tied a canvas apron around his waist, wielded a twenty- or thirty-pound hammer in both hands, and slammed into the red-hot scrap iron, once, twice, three times... Mars sparkled, and under the sweat and magic of my uncle, in a few moments, the red-hot scrap iron became a delicate scythe, a hoe, a rake, and so on. When his uncle had time, he would drag these items to the market or to a nearby village club to sell.
The iron tools made by my uncle were not only exquisite in appearance, but also strong and durable, and many people in nearby villages also found his family to buy them.
Uncle's popularity is particularly good, all year round, every night, there are many people who talk to uncles, and they often sit around the small West House.
My uncle and aunt lived in two small houses in Westinghouse. On the north side is the bedroom inside, and the outside one is a guest room. Two hoop chairs were placed against the west gable, and a small wooden bed was laid on the south wall, and a thick cloth quilt with a checkered pattern was placed on the top of the bed. However, at night, uncles and aunts never live in this bed, most of them come to talk at night as stools, some people talk for a long time, do not want to go home early, who is sleepy and tired, squinting on it for a while. People who come to the door sit on the bed, on the stool, and stand when they go late.
At the east end of the wooden bed by the window was a worn-out wooden table with drawers, often with a small wooden cigarette holder on the table. As soon as he drank the soup, my uncle sat on the edge of the bed and rolled a large cigarette roll with crushed tobacco leaves.
As soon as the door-to-door visitor comes, you are one, and he smokes one by one and drinks the hot water poured from the bamboo basket tea bottle. For a while, the kung fu hut was cloudy like a fairyland, and the coughing sound, laughter, and the story of the ghost god of The East Lassie... It spread out from the hut and reverberated throughout the courtyard.
Most people go all the way to leaving in the middle of the night when the chickens crow. I also went to the hut to play from time to time, and as soon as I stopped by the bed, my uncle immediately put down his work and carried me to the bed.
My uncle treated me like a daughter-in-law, and since I can remember when I was four or five years old, my uncle's family has been slightly better than my family's. His four sons can earn work, two are married and have children, the family eats surplus grain every year, my family only has parents to work, and there is a shortage of food and drink all year round.
Whenever his family improved their lives and ate miscellaneous noodles and noodles, my uncle always clipped a large chopstick for me, and also picked out the scarce tofu in the bowl for me to eat piece by piece, and never forgot to catch a few for me when eating dumplings.
The aunt was a little reluctant when she saw it occasionally. Whenever this happened, my uncle always smiled and said, "Let her eat, and when the girl grows up and goes out (married), she will give us both white candy seeds to eat." "(Because my uncle and father have only one daughter in both doors) The eldest mother will laugh with her after listening to it, and she is embarrassed to say anything more. At that time, I couldn't understand the meaning of my uncle's words, and I just took a big bite of the food he gave me.
When I was a little older, five or six years old, I would occasionally go with my uncle's granddaughter, Shufeng, who was the same age as me, to go to Luoji to catch up with my uncle, and when I got there, my uncle always bought a dime bun for each of us, and at that time the bun could buy 8 for a dime, and it was much bigger than it is now, enough to eat. We ate with relish, and my uncle stood next to us and watched happily.
In the summer when I was seven or eight years old, I went to play with the five sisters of the four families, and a big yellow dog in her front yard bit me, and I cried. My uncle, who was pulling the straw, heard my cry, picked up the fork containing the straw, and as soon as the fork went down, the dog was destined to return to the west.
After another two years, the sons of my uncle's family have married and had children, and the family has a large population, and my uncle's family has built a new house in the east of the village far from our old courtyard. The sons lived separately, and the uncle moved away.
In the winter when I was sixteen, my kind, kind, and amiable uncle left me forever, and in the end he did not taste my in-laws' white candy seeds...
【Author's Profile】Cheng Caifan, teacher, screen name "Years of Quiet Beauty", likes to read and write, and has published many articles in the media.
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