Essays on rural prose

At noon in summer, the sun is burning in the sky. A city man came to our village. He was surprised to see several people still working in the field, so he called them home to cool off and be careful of heatstroke. He talked for a long time, but several people in the venue ignored him. Later, they realized that this was a scarecrow.

When the crops were about to bear seeds, the scarecrow came to Tianba. Those who wear flowery clothes and straw hats, with sticks in their hands and red ribbons around their necks. Two here, three there, just stand in the dam.

We invited them to go. They are also willing to go. On a dark and windy night, a wild animal sneaked into the ground and tried to dig out some sweet potatoes. When the Scarecrow waved his hand, the beast got a fright and learned that Suosuo had escaped. Several birds circled in the dusk, trying to take away two ears of wheat, watching the scarecrow keep pointing and not daring to land.

They have been standing there, not during the day, but at night. Maybe it rained and the villagers fell asleep. They are still standing in the fields, taking care of mature wheat, sweet potatoes, corn and rice.

Scarecrow is really a human being, a person from our village. Like our brothers.

The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

Bugs are small, but interesting. It's midsummer. After dinner, we sat in the yard and chatted in the moonlight. At this time, all kinds of insects began to sing-then, let's talk about insect songs.

At first, several bugs were tuning their strings. The voice is monotonous, stiff and dull. Gradually, smooth and round, radiant.

All bugs should be together, and thousands of voices sing together. In the grass beside the courtyard dam, on the rocks by the roadside, among the branches and leaves of the Woods behind the house, in the rice fields in the distance … or sing softly, or indulge in singing. Some are as smooth as girls, and some are as vicissitudes as old people.

Walking alone on the road, the nearby insects stopped singing; In just two seconds, it rang again-hotter and denser.

In the wave of singing, we sat in the depths of the village and vaguely saw the sound of insects dotted with the night.

It was late, we went back to the house to rest, and the bug concert was still going on.

The sound of insects is dense and thick, covering the whole village.

And the moonlight, still sprinkled on the ground, no one to wipe.

Ribbit

In summer, at night, frogs croak in rice fields. Soon, all the frogs began to sing in unison, but no one commanded them. They were in a mess. People walked by the field, and frogs in the grass jumped into the rice fields, swimming and singing in the water. When people pass by, they jump out of the water and jump on the ridge, where they croak and bulge their cheeks.

Rice is growing vigorously and frogs croak so loudly, as if to tell us that this year will be a bumper harvest year. Naturally, we like sitting in the yard, walking on the road and sleeping in the bed-listening to them.

If it is after the rain, the sound is louder and the density is greater, and it is often called ten or twenty times in one breath and ten or twenty times in one breath. At this time, other voices were suppressed, such as the barking of chickens and dogs, the barking of pigs and cows, and the shouting of horses, all of which retreated to the distance and could not be heard.

The frogs cried like this, and the village gradually entered the dream in the middle of the night.

Wind is like water.

On the left side of the dam is an open space, in which we planted some peonies, oranges, pear trees and a grape. In summer, the green grass is lush, the trees are shaded, and there are quite some garden scenery. Grapes are hung on bamboo and wood shelves, and the green leaves of vines shed a mass of green. Even in the hot sun at noon, walking under it feels cool.

After dinner, it was getting dark, and we sat in a circle under the grape tree, talking about the weather, rain, harvest and so on. The crescent moon hangs obliquely in the sky, and the shadows in the courtyard are dancing. Occasionally a gust of wind comes, and the leaves fly and bang. At this time, it reminds people of a sentence: the wind is like water.

There are many such good times all summer until early autumn. We stayed up all night until the noon of the moon or the moon set in the western hills.

firefly

I said, if you come to our country in summer, you can pay attention to fireflies at night.

On a good night with moonlight, there are some fireflies flying in the air, but they don't feel much, because the moonlight blocks their light and can't be seen. When there is no moonlight, fireflies are the most numerous, flying in the air or in the grass, countless.

Whether there is moonlight or not, on a clear summer night, we walk on the road without lights. That road is familiar. You can walk in the dark. On the other hand, fireflies light lanterns when the moonlight is good. One by one. Such a bright moonlight, still carrying a lamp, you say, isn't that extremely luxurious?

Their lamps are exquisite. I think God gave it to them. The creator only gave them such a gift. There are no other creatures, including humans.

Some clever children ask a question: they carry lights and shuttle through the village at night. What are they busy with? Adults can't tell. The primary school teacher said, observe each other. We have observed growing up for decades, but we haven't figured it out.

They must have secrets that we don't know.

So I said, if you come to our country in summer, you can pay attention to the fireflies at night.

snowflake

Snow began to fall in the morning. It was cold and there was nothing to do, so the family gathered around the fireplace to keep warm.

It's almost noon. Looking out the window, it's snowing harder and harder.

Our window is not big, and we can see a small piece of sky. After watching it for a long time, I suddenly felt that those snowflakes seemed to blow down from a tree. Like pear blossoms in spring, they have blown all over the village.

Well, you know, in a winter, the wind will blow away the snowflakes several times.

pocket

Relatives in the city came to the countryside to play and saw a cellar in the bamboo forest behind the house and asked what it was. We told him with a smile that it was a pocket, a pocket of land.

The cellar is where we store food. Sweet potatoes and potatoes were first dug out and piled on the ground. When it gets cold, it is stored in the cellar. The cellar is very warm, and sweet potatoes and potatoes will be as fresh as ever next spring.

Every family has a cellar to play indoors or outdoors. Small mouth, big belly. It can be six or seven feet deep and three or four feet in diameter. Can hold thousands of pounds. The cellar goes deep into the ground, so the cold can't invade and the food won't rot.

The cellar is like a piece of land. When food is inconvenient to keep, we put it in this pocket and let it keep it for us.

Outdoor, the pit is covered with firewood and covered with soil; Indoor, covered with boards. This land is tightly covered.

In the partner's yard, a boy sat on the ground, holding something in his hand and playing with his head down. A hen stood behind the boy and looked around as if she didn't know what to do. He turned his head, cocked his head, looked at the boy's back and pecked him on the shoulder. The boy ignored it and buried himself in playing. The chicken pecked again. The boy looked back at the chicken and said, "Why? Go away. " And then I played with him. Hearing this, the chicken giggled and strutted away.

listen to music

When farming is busy, such as early summer, we are usually busy until dark to call it a day. Rice is a mixture of rice, sweet potatoes and vegetable leaves, usually porridge and sometimes dried rice. We sat under the eaves or in the dam, holding bowls and eating one by one. At this time, the speaker installed on the pillar of the main room has finished broadcasting the news and is playing a piece of music-what symphony the announcer said is Beethoven.

In order to fight for the food we dropped on the ground, chickens fly and dogs jump. The insects in the grass beside the house are singing, and the frogs in the rice fields are croaking and singing. All kinds of voices are mixed together. At this time, Beethoven's works are playing on the loudspeaker.

Of course, at other times, there are other tunes, such as Mozart's sonata, China's guqin and Yugoslavia's.

But at that time, we were tired, busy filling our stomachs, and our brains were a little sloppy, and we didn't care much. After a long time, one day I suddenly remembered the scene at that time and felt very interesting. Think about it, listen to Beethoven's symphony, Mozart's sonata, China's guqin music ... How interesting.

Grow up like this

The mother weeded in the vegetable field, put the child on the edge of the ground and let him play by himself. The child can't walk yet, and he is crawling around on the ground.

Mom is busy cooking, carrying water, sewing quilts, preparing soil, busy ... Mom has no time to take care of the child, so she puts him on the ground and lets him play. The children are crawling around in the mud, crawling around in the grass and crawling around in the yard.

All the children in the village are like this. I crawled everywhere, crawling and crawling. I can stand and walk. Walk and grow. When he grows up, gets married and has children, he also crawls on the ground.

Generation after generation, the children in the village have grown up like this. Children who grow up like this will always remember the taste of this village no matter how far they go.

Exchange; connect

It began to snow at night. We warmed ourselves around the stove. The dog came in from the outside and squatted between my legs. It shook and trembled.

I went to the woodshed, spread some dry straw in the kennel, and found a broken cotton-padded jacket to spread it. The dog is lying in it, curled up and comfortable. I touched its back, and it looked at me, grunted a few times, stuck out its tongue and licked the back of my hand twice. It can't speak and express gratitude in this way. I patted it on the head, which means: you're welcome.

Katz and Portsmouth

It's late at night, we have slept, but we haven't slept for a while. Then I heard that the whole house was quiet.

The mouse is out, and it is ringing somewhere. In the dark, the cat shoots like an arrow from a corner, and then hears the short cry of the mouse. After that, it was calm.

Sometimes, it's a group of mice. They ran like hell, and the cat chased after them like hell. As if thousands of troops and horses passed by, there was no smell of human speech, only a miscellaneous and dense hoofbeat. We lay on our side, holding our breath, and Zhang Er listened carefully.

A cat and a group of mice, in the silent night, often staged such a life-and-death battle. And we, just waiting in tension, can't help the cat.

Chuanliuzhi

Insert a willow branch into the ground and a yellow bud will soon grow.

At that time, we were curious about such things as sprouting branches. There is a willow tree behind our neighbor's house. We like the way willows hang down, so we asked for some branches and cut them into small pieces. We came back and planted a row on the grass next to the dam. After that, we observed how they germinated, how they germinated and how the leaves grew day by day. Growing a little every day brings us many surprises. The leaves are tender and I think they are really cute. I always want to look at them and make myself feel good. Bud is as fat and pleasing. It is often unexpected to watch the new life grow bigger and bigger every day, and there is a lot of joy. You just have to try. I won't say any more.

Wheat cutting

Women are cutting wheat in the field. So big a piece of land, the wheat in the field is yellow, and she works alone. The wheat behind her has fallen, and the wheat in front of her is neatly lined up, standing there in a large yellow area, making people see the flowers.

She cut several handfuls of wheat and looked back. In the wheat field behind her, a black umbrella stood there, forming a tent, in which her baby was sleeping. Her baby is only a few months old. She has had enough milk and fell asleep in that tent.

That's what happened: in the sunshine in May, a woman spread floral clothes on the wheat stubble and built a canopy with an umbrella to let her baby sleep in the shade.

It was May, and the farm was busy. She took the children to cut wheat in the field.

urinate

There are still some things I want to say in the village, but I have never said it. I always feel that these things are hard to say.

Sometimes, women in the village work in the fields and suddenly need to take a nap. Because it's too far from home, I pretend to be looking for something and go to the Woods there to find a place to squat for a while. When they come out again, things will be solved unconsciously. This kind of thing is very small, I think it's really hard to say.

The other day, I don't know who put a newspaper on our dining table. I flipped through it and came across a paragraph and said something I couldn't say. Only a few words, just copy it down:

"A woman who looks like a village woman is squatting on the edge of a ridge on the side of the road to pee. Her chubby ass is very strong, but she is very fit, which reminds me of an oil painting whose name I forgot. I hurried to speed up my steps and hurried by. Suddenly there is a joy of being illuminated by the sun. "

A piece of sunshine

It's summer or autumn. Clouds are piled up in the sky like ink paintings. It looks heavy and seems to be moving, but it hasn't moved for a long time.

Occasionally a gust of wind comes, and those clouds seem to make people smoke and run away. In a hurry, a piece of sunshine suddenly fell into a gap in the clouds. Although it is very thin, it is very big and can cover half the village. It runs like a shining wave in the village, from the south to the north of the village, across the mountains, ups and downs, but it is silent, not broken by stumps or stones, or a complete piece.

The shape of this sunshine is very deformed. It is as white as cotton, but it is surrounded by black edges, which makes it brighter. Our eyes follow it, and occasionally we can see a few bright flashes among the leaves, which are thin silk torn from the tree by spiders.

At that time, we had already learned maps at school. We imagine that this piece of sunshine may come from the north, through grassland, Yinchuan, Xi and Hanzhong, and come to us. It may also come from other parts of the earth, such as crossing the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, Greece and India, coming to China and Sichuan, coming to Bazhong, coming to our village and landing on us.

This sunshine, it travels all over the world. Now, after leaving our village, it has gone to the north. North to north, it seems to be the county seat.

Call you

When I was a child, I think before I was ten. Adults always take pains to warn me: if a stranger calls your name at night, you must never promise-it is a lonely ghost who comes to double his body. If you do this, your life will be lost. So, every night we are a little nervous and afraid of being called our names. Sometimes, someone does call, and we almost answer it, but suddenly we remember that we stopped talking and listening. It turned out that it was my father or mother, and then we agreed. If someone else is calling, just hide somewhere and listen in fear, afraid to breathe. At this time, adults or brothers and sisters will come out to answer your questions, ask what is going on, and deal with a thrilling past. If the shouts came from the mountains behind the village, we would be frightened. There is a grave garden with many graves. My Lord said, where did the ghost come from?

It took many years to realize that there are no ghosts in the world. All these years of tension and panic have been in vain. However, the fear has already formed. No matter whether there is a ghost or not at night, I will first keep a word of fear in my heart to restrain myself from doing anything wrong. In this way, I have lived safely until now. Now, we also tirelessly warn our children: If a stranger calls your name at night, don't promise.

stop

Aunt Zhao next door was only in her sixties and passed away yesterday. But she is still sleeping in the main room. This room is shared by me and her family. She slept there, of course we agreed. In the future, if someone in our family dies and sleeps here for a few days, her family will agree. The dead will have to sleep in the mourning hall for a few days before they can go up the mountain.

In the evening, her children sit beside her and accompany her. She slept there quietly, listening to them cry. We listened in the next room and felt a little sad. We almost cried. We think the dead Aunt Zhao is still alive. Of course she can hear what they are saying, but she doesn't speak any more.

On the third day, we helped each other and went to the back hill to dig her grave. The land also agreed to give up a small piece of space. Since then, she has slept there, just like those who died early, waiting for us who are alive.