"Ice" watermelon on a summer night in my hometown

The heat is still unbearable in Guangzhou in September. My husband often buys some iced watermelons from downstairs, which reminds him of the "iced" watermelons on summer nights in his hometown.

Summer nights in my hometown are not as beautiful as imagined. What is beautiful is just those hard years that can never be returned, and the mutual constraints and confrontations between people and nature.

In my childhood and teenage years, in the summer, when the sun was setting over the mountains and the sky was still full of sunset, adults would finish their work in the fields and go home, and have a bowl of eight-treasure porridge that had been cooked early and allowed to cool. The hustle and bustle of summer nights slowly began. The summer nights in my hometown left many beautiful memories for me in my childhood and adolescence.

At that time, my family’s conditions were limited. Apart from wild jujube fruits on the mountain, fruits and vegetables in the yard, and oranges grown at my grandma’s house, I couldn’t easily buy any fruit. The only exception was this summer watermelon. .

Summer without watermelon is not perfect, so when summer comes, my father will bring a watermelon back from the town. At that time, there was no refrigerator at home. In order to have a bite of ice-cold and refreshing watermelon, my mother would Clean the watermelon at once, then use a rope to put the watermelon in a small bamboo basket and hoist it into the well for "icing".

Although the water well is an artificial draft well, the effect of keeping warm in winter and cold in summer is no less than that of a native water well. Sometimes it is too hot, and you can cool down slightly by facing the well mouth and taking a breath. heat. So chilling a watermelon is more than enough. The watermelon bought during the day is kept in the well to freeze for a day. After dinner, it becomes a holy thing to relieve the summer heat and relieve cravings.

Eating watermelon is a particularly sacred thing in our opinion. It tastes really good when paired with cool and refreshing watermelon on a sweltering summer night. So every night after having a good meal and drinking, as long as my father gives the order, "Go pick up the watermelon," the three of us brothers and sisters will rush around to pick up the watermelon from the well. Those who can't grab the well rope will go to the table. , the stool was moved to the yard.

The watermelon picked up is cut by my dad or my mom according to the "Watermelon Eating Plan". I can still clearly remember the sound of cutting the watermelon. The watermelon soaked in the well was crisp and crisp, just like what Wang Zengqi said: "When the knife goes down, there is a clicking sound."

Mom handed the cut watermelons to us one by one, and we took the watermelons carefully. Just holding them in our hands relieved a lot of the heat in our bodies. Usually, in order to enjoy a watermelon for a few more days, one person can only eat a small piece in one night. Although we cannot eat in large pieces, this does not affect our mood when eating watermelon.

We each found a small stool to sit comfortably on a small stool while holding the watermelon, eating leisurely and leisurely. That was our happiest moment. The crickets and fireflies in the grass, the geckos and scorpions on the wall, and the snakes, insects and ants in the jungle behind the house can all testify for us.

We all have our own ways of eating watermelon.

Dad and brother usually wolf down their food, with watermelon juice all over their faces. The younger brother took one bite and poured it into his mouth three times, as if he had eaten more.

As for me, I gently smacked the juice on the edge of the watermelon, as if I was sucking some nectar. I didn’t open my mouth to eat easily. I waited until everyone else had almost finished eating, then I started to eat slowly. Bite slowly and slowly.

Sometimes my younger brother would make trouble and take a big bite out of me when I wasn’t paying attention. If my brother doesn't cause trouble, I can eat a small piece of watermelon all night until I go to bed.

Every time after dividing the watermelon, my mother would sit aside and shake her cattail leaf fan, saying that she had a stomachache and couldn’t eat it. When we all finished eating, she would pick up the remaining melon rinds and eat them again. Sometimes, my father would laugh at my mother's lack of luck, and we would also laugh at my mother who would not eat the melons but insisted on chewing the rinds. At this time, my mother would stubbornly say:

The flesh and rind of melons are all melons. , equally thirst-quenching and equally nutritious. It’s true, let’s try it too. That serious look can actually fool us every time.

After we had almost eaten the watermelon, the moon slowly climbed up the treetops, and we gradually fell asleep quietly under the moonlight.

Fireflies flew into the dream, decorating the young man's smiling eyes.

The watermelon at that time was really sweet, so sweet that I would smack my lips in my dreams, wishing I could eat a whole watermelon in my dreams. Nowadays, we no longer lack watermelon to eat, but we can no longer taste the taste we had back then.

A cattail leaf fan and a watermelon chilled in a well gradually became blurry and transformed into childhood memories, like old photos, dim but still fresh in my memory.

?"Summer Night in Hometown"

Summer Night in Hometown,

One family, one yard,

An old well, A watermelon,

A moon in a place, a summer of time.

The children are jumping, the insects are chirping,

Dad’s erhu stirs up the noise of the summer night,

Mom’s cattail leaf fan carries flying The laughter of the moth,

The moon changes its pace, chasing a human romance.

The summer night in my hometown,

as quiet as the stars in the sky,

as noisy as a natural concert,

as dreamy as the outside world The stars are brilliant.

The night is deep and the melons are gone.

The moon is perched on the branches.

People from "foreign places",

are also It's time to miss home.