radicalducati Chapter 51 Dejection
Chapter 51 Dejection
In the summer, when school is closed, students carry baskets on their backs to cut grass in the fields, then line up and disperse after leaving the school gate.
A few of us classmates strolled towards our village.
The words "Develop the economy" are painted on the left wall of the "cooperative" and "Ensure supply" are painted on the right wall.
On the back wall of a house in Zhaozhuangtuo across the street, the slogan "Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture" is painted.
Looking up, you see the large pink and white characters on the hillside of Zhangzhuangtuo: "Prepare for war, prepare for famine for the people."
Looking due north, the hillside of Zhaozhuangtuo is marked with the slogan "Grasp revolution, promote production".
We headed north along the main road in the middle, then dispersed at the foot of the mountain.
When I returned at noon, I handed over the full basket of grass to the school, where teachers weighed and dried it on the playground.
The staple food in rural households is boiled sweet potatoes. My parents are over fifty years old, and when the sweet potatoes stick to their teeth, they hurt so much that they cover their cheeks with their hands, take a short break, and then continue eating.
Around the time of the Autumnal Equinox, the autumn harvest had not yet come in, and the food supply was tight again. My mother got up early to prepare breakfast and arranged for my fourth sister and me to dig sweet potatoes in our "private plot".
Mom instructed, "Go to the North River and wash the sweet potatoes."
We each carried a basket on our arm; mine held a sickle, and hers a hoe. At our private plot, I cut the vines, and my fourth sister dug. At this time of year, the sweet potatoes had formed, but they weren't very big. For a family of nine, we had to dig up more than a dozen plots to get enough for one meal—a much lower yield than during the peak season.
We picked up the sweet potatoes and put them in a basket, which wasn't full. Then we gathered the vines together and stuffed them into another basket to feed the pigs when we got home.
I carried the rice seedlings, and my fourth sister carried the sweet potatoes.
Back at the Jingbei River, the cool, clear water flowed freely. We squatted on the rocks and washed the sweet potatoes one by one, removing the dirt and revealing their red skins, fresh, tender, and clean.
My hands were stimulated by the cool river water and turned as tender and red as sweet potato skin.
"Dong!" A young man of about seventeen or eighteen—the cart owner—drove our group of oxcarts along the road. He sat on the edge of the cart, whip in hand, and shouted, "Four heads! What's that guy shouting about, the one selling lice and dog medicine?"
"Lice—dog lice medicine—big bald lice—!" Fourth Sister responded earnestly, imitating the hawking cry used by vendors selling this product in the village.
Dong chuckled and uttered those flattering words, which suddenly made me displeased, and I felt as if my face had been humiliated.
I reminded my fourth sister, "Don't you know he just wants to have fun with your incoherent shouts? You're still shouting for him."
Fourth Sister was unhappy, but she didn't take it seriously.
The school has given us a seven-day break for the busy farming season. The teacher said, "Everyone must participate in labor. When school starts, everyone must bring a labor certificate issued by the team. If you don't bring the certificate or your performance is poor, you will be punished when school starts."
Therefore, it was mandatory to participate in labor every day, and the family was very supportive, because the team would give work points for participating in labor.
Every household valued work points. Back then, there was a popular saying: "Work points, work points, our lifeline; without work points, we have nothing to eat."
After the Cold Dew solar term, the rain had just stopped, but the sky hadn't cleared yet; dark clouds were being driven by the north wind and drifted across the sky. The morning was exceptionally cold and gloomy.
The most urgent task right now is to harvest the sweet potatoes. If they aren't harvested in time, they'll freeze and spoil in the ground. Those who can swing a hoe and know how to dig should use a hoe, while those who can't dig should use a sickle to cut the vines.
My younger brother put on the green sweater his third cousin had knitted for him, while my fourth sister and mother found him an old padded jacket that belonged to my father. I had no clothes to keep warm, so my mother rummaged through the bottom of the closet and found a tattered padded jacket that belonged to someone else. She put it over the shirt I was wearing, and there were no more pants to wear. I was wearing a pair of thin trousers that reached my ankles, and my plastic-soled shoes were so worn that they couldn't even hold my feet up.
Three students from my family started working: my fourth sister, my younger brother, and I. We were all rice harvesters. My younger brother had hidden a sickle beforehand, and my fourth sister found one. When I came to look for a sickle after I got dressed, it wasn't there. There were no other sickles in the house, only a small vegetable sickle with a handle about a hand's length long. My mother found it and gave it to me. I took it in my hand. Could this rusty little sickle with cobwebs on its blade be up to the task of harvesting rice in the whole team?
Sigh—there's no way around it, I can't avoid getting out of bed, I'll just have to make do!
In the north wind, I was wearing thin trousers that exposed my ankles, and barefoot, dragging my slick plastic-soled cloth shoes, trudging along the muddy road, following at the back of this long and winding procession to the fields. I was so cold that I couldn't help but shiver all over, and my feet slipped out of my shoes several times, stepping into the mud and water.
My heart was already heavy with despair. Looking at Xiuyan walking ahead beside her father, she was about my age, but more robust than me. She wore a green floral cotton-padded jacket, a floral headscarf, and yellow rubber shoes with tightly tied laces, revealing socks underneath. She carried a gleaming sickle, enthusiastically "scratching" the tips of the roadside grass as she walked, testing its sharpness. Then I looked at myself, dressed in a garish, flowery outfit. I had no idea whether my sickle could even cut through the rice seedlings.
Upon reaching the plot of land at the foot of Wujiafen Hill, the sweet potato vines had been frost-kissed, turning chestnut black and curling up to reveal the tender pink stems beneath. Everyone stopped at the edge of the field, and the deputy team leader spoke: "Those with sickles, cut the vines first. Each person cuts two rows, walking backwards, rolling up the vines as you cut. Everyone roll them up and drag them backwards. Get down to cutting the vines!"
Xiuyan and her uncles, aunts, and other relatives from Tiandetang stood at the top, followed by several female laborers, boys and girls from Nandang Street who were older than Fourth Sister, and finally Fourth Sister, my younger brother, and I.
Everyone else was crouching down, cutting down the seedlings and dragging them backward, but my sickle wasn't long enough. I couldn't reach them by crouching down, so I had to squat down to cut them. The blade wasn't very sharp, so I couldn't cut them. I couldn't get any strength in chopping either. It took a lot of effort to cut down one seedling, and then I got up and dragged the seedlings backward, and my shoes fell off.
Cutting down the seedlings and pulling them back was a single movement that required me to squat and stand up several times; I was putting all my strength into it from the start. The north wind howled, and I shivered, my feet almost touching the cold seedling ground with each step I took.
We hadn't gone far when we were left behind by those above. We were practically face-to-face, the digging field was almost up. The field above was a dozen steps away from our digging spot, while we were only a few steps away. I was anxious, frantically swinging my small sickle, hacking and pulling. Oh no! The sickle slashed my little finger, the wound extending past two knuckles. Blood gushed out, staining the sickle, the seedlings, and the ground. The wound hurt terribly. I was stunned, staring blankly at the wound. My fourth sister saw this and tore a strip of cloth from her sleeve to wrap it around my finger, but the blood still wouldn't stop flowing.
A kind woman took out a clean handkerchief and wrapped it around my neck. She pressed it for a while, and the bleeding stopped. She then returned to her ridge.
My younger brother took pity on me and led me to the edge of the field. From a blue sleeve buried under a clod of earth, he pulled out a small bird with blinking eyes. "I found a bird, take a look, here you go." I took the bird and held it in my palm, examining the bright green bird. Strange, why wasn't it flying? It wasn't injured at all! Just as I was wondering, "whoosh," the bird flapped its wings and flew away, right from my hand.
My heart sank into an abyss of self-blame. I couldn't bear to look at my younger brother, and I didn't know what to say. I blurted out, "Heaven doesn't bless me—" and aimlessly returned to the ridge to cut rice seedlings. My fingers ached terribly as I grabbed the seedlings, so I stopped. I couldn't do it anymore and wanted to go home. My fourth sister saw what I was thinking: "I'll talk to the team leader, and I'll take you home." My younger brother saw us going home and followed us back.
I walked back with a heavy heart, feeling as if a row of rice-cutting men were mocking the three of us. "Look how incompetent they are. The team provides lunch today, but they went home halfway through the work without work points and won't get a good meal." I felt it was my fault. We were like defeated soldiers, having achieved nothing and even suffered injuries.
Just then, the north wind blew away the dark clouds, and the sun shone brightly on us, warming us considerably. This only proved that returning like this was a mistake.
As soon as we entered the gate, Mom was hanging sweet potato slices on the roof. Seeing us return looking dejected, she came down from the roof and asked why we were back. She said that lunch today was millet porridge with tofu. I lowered my head, feeling utterly ashamed. My fourth sister told me about my injured hand. Mom washed my hand, applied some flour to my wound, re-bandaged it, and then covered me with a cotton-padded coat before going back upstairs.
I lay on the warm kang (heated brick bed), closed my eyes, and tears streamed down my face.
The busy farming season ended and school started. The school sold hay and gave me 16 cents based on the weight of the hay I delivered. When I passed by the cooperative, I went in and used that 16 cents to buy a small handkerchief and returned it to the older girl there.
After the autumn harvest, the village's courtyard was much smaller because it was surrounded by piles of straw and other things. Except for the sweet potatoes that were brought back from the fields, which were piled up inside, and distributed to each household as food in the evening, making room for them.
The work recorder presided over the drawing of lots and the ranking. The eldest brother, educated youth Ma Shouren, deputy team leader Zhang Shixue, accountant and others used a large scale to weigh the baskets.
Ma Shouren was a highly enthusiastic educated youth from Tianjin. They received their own food rations and were exempt from the unpaid nighttime labor, but he was always there wherever there was work to be done. He was not afraid of getting dirty or tired, had a lively and cheerful personality, and spoke with a Tianjin accent and loved to joke.
When it was our turn, because there were many people in our family, we were allocated a lot of money. After the money was weighed, we were taken to a relatively remote place, far from the lights so we wouldn't be able to get any light. We also needed to leave someone to watch over the place. Mom took my third sister, second brother, fourth sister, and me to move the money home.
None of the six of us were able to work, and since we lived far from home, we couldn't pack too much. We couldn't make it back in one trip, while others made three. Often, everyone else had finished packing by the time we got halfway there. By then, the sweet potatoes were all gone, and everyone had left. My younger brother didn't dare stay, so my mother kept me here too. When we finally made our last, exhausted trip home, it was already late at night.
I vaguely put the basket on the courtyard floor and went inside. Under the dim light, Dad was leaning against the stack of quilts, and Grandma was dozing off. I lay down on the kang (a heated brick bed) and fell asleep immediately, and I don't know anything about it anymore.
Auntie, the dumplings that many families eat on New Year's Eve were not in vain. She really gave birth to a big, fat boy in late autumn, whose nickname is "Huifu".