Chai huo's story prose

When I was very young, my grandmother told me the story of my father chopping wood. Although the story is simple and lacks drama, it also left a deep imprint on my young mind. At that time, my father was only twelve years old, and my grandfather worked outside all the year round, so it was difficult to do housework. My father took on the responsibility of being a man with his tender shoulders. Every time I think of that photo, I feel so clear. In the vast snowfield, 12-year-old father led his second uncle, who was four years younger than him, wearing worn cotton shoes and bare toes, holding a machete and rope, cutting off the old branches of dead trees and gathering them into two bundles. Too much and too heavy, he reluctantly gave up part of it, then carried it on his shoulder or back and trudged through thick snow ... after listening to the story. Also, people say that seven things, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea rank first, which shows that its status is extraordinary. After all, human beings have passed the era of eating animals and eating blood. How can I eat uncooked rice without firewood?

Perhaps, due to the sparse population at that time, Shan Ye still had firewood to cut when his father was young, but when we were young, due to the proliferation of farming culture and land reclamation everywhere, Shan Ye not only had no firewood to cut, but also few thatched houses to burn firewood, so firewood became one of the biggest problems that plagued people's lives. It is said that mountains depend on mountains, but it is similar in our place. Those mountains that can't be cultivated are almost all rocks, and there is almost no soil cover. In addition, the climate is ten years and nine droughts, so at first glance, it is bare everywhere, without trees and thatch. So the straw of crops has become the main force of firewood, but these things are limited after all, and people have to try their best to find the source of firewood for cooking and heating.

In spring, wheat stubble (pronounced "Zhazi" in local accent, the so-called wheat stubble is the part of corn stalks buried underground) has become an important way for farmers to obtain firewood. Last autumn, the mature corn stalks were cut down line by line, and then transported home by cart for firewood. The remaining stubble of corn is exposed on the dark surface, like soldiers at the mercy of the ancient array, arranged very neatly and orderly, waiting for autumn and winter on the black land. The next year, after returning to the earth in spring, the ice melted, the land became completely soft, and the fields were full of people weeding.

Come to think of it, this kind of stubble cleaning procedure is very simple, that is, a pickaxe, with a wave of his hands, gouges the stubble with soil and roots, and then knocks off the sand on the roots with the back of the pickaxe. However, simple repetition often makes people feel boring. And the land has experienced autumn and winter, and it has become hard and hard. Without a little effort, you won't buy a pickaxe, and the stubble won't run out on its own, not to mention how uncomfortable it is to be sunburned by the wind and sand. However, hard work is hard work. After a busy day, I look back at the hills of stubble behind me. Even if I am sweating, even if my back aches, I will still be immersed in the joy of harvest. Most of these jobs are patents for the elderly, the weak and the sick. Adults are too busy to work in the fields, so how can they have time to dig stubble? And we students have become the main force of digging stubble. As long as it is a rest day, we put down our schoolbags and run to the fields with picks on our backs. ...

Chai Yuan is almost nowhere to be found in summer, and all the firewood used is saved before. In the courtyard of the northeast countryside, every family has a woodpile. The following floors are covered with corn stalks, covered with thatch, and the top is pointed, and the rope tied with stones is pressed on it, so that the wind can't run away and the rain can't be poured through. However, some large families have two stacks side by side, one is corn straw and the other is thatch. Whether a family is industrious and well-off, you can know a thing or two by looking at the firewood pile at the door. Those who lead a sloppy life often pile up in a mess, burn half of them and destroy half of their livestock. In summer and autumn, cooking becomes a problem. It is often cloudy in late summer and early autumn. Sometimes it seems that there is a hole in the sky and it hasn't stopped raining for three or four days. At this time, we must protect the firewood, otherwise there will be no cooked rice to eat. If there is really no dry firewood, you must make full use of the residual temperature of the stove to dry the firewood soaked by rain, but you must remember to clean up the ashes, otherwise the residual fire in the ashes will ignite the firewood that was difficult to dry, and there will be no firewood for the next cooking.

After beginning of autumn, the climate becomes dry, and the water in plants will gradually decrease. At this time, cut the grass and dry it in the sun for a few days, then it can be used for cooking. There are generally two tools for mowing grass, one is a sickle and the other is a screwdriver. Sickle is generally suitable for use in narrow areas, but its working efficiency is relatively low, and it is easy to have backache. Using a screwdriver is completely different. The blade of a trowel is very long, about twice as long as a sickle, and the handle is a wooden stick two or three meters long. When using the trowel, you don't need to bend over, hold the handle with both hands in tandem, and the blade is close to the grass roots. With a wave of his hand, the grass falls neatly one by one, which is many times more efficient than a sickle, and if you use a trowel skillfully. There is also the brush sound of cutting grass with a knife, which makes people feel so sweet; When you look back after a busy period of time, the cut grass is arranged in rows, and the stubble left by the grass seems to have been planed into inch boards, so neat and clean, the joy of labor and harvest will immediately leap from the bottom of my heart to my brow. However, there are a lot of people and little land in rural areas in Northeast China, and there are few open spaces where grass can grow except for planting crops. Therefore, these grasslands have become a hot commodity for people, and people often have conflicts for grasslands. One year, my father used his rest time to beat some grass with a shovel. When he drove the carriage to deliver the dried things, he found that his hard-earned booty was gone. His impatient father immediately flew into a rage, called the thief wicked, and followed the clues left by the thief ... As a result, this amateur Holmes really had two hands, just sitting in the woodpile of the Liu family in the third team. Faced with a pile of stolen goods and thatch left all the way, Liu's family had to apologize. Finally, after adjustment, his family promised to pay a load of straw in autumn.

After the crops in the local area are cleaned up, winter will come as scheduled. At this time, most of the labor force is concentrated in the yard to thresh plants. ), a small number of young and middle-aged laborers fought in the battlefield and went up the mountain to collect firewood. Holding firewood is a very hard work, which lasts from early winter to early spring of the following year.

The tool for holding firewood is a rake made of steel wire, generally ranging from 18 to 22 teeth. A long wooden pole is fixed on it, with a bent wooden board at the end to cover the shoulders, and a basket curtain is hung on the wooden pole for thatching.

The place where firewood is held is usually on the hillside. Although the terrain is steep and difficult to climb, thatch has high density, good quality and high heat, which is more durable than electronics.

The hillside near us is bare. It's not an exaggeration to say that nothing grows, but there is very little firewood to carry, so we have to make a long-distance raid to Shan Ye, thirty or fifty miles away. Thirty or fifty miles is really not a problem today with developed traffic, but don't forget that it was a carriage at that time, and the speed was about 15 miles per hour. In order to come back that day, I had to get up early and get greedy for the dark. I remember when I was in middle school, I joined the firewood team every weekend or winter vacation. In fact, the shoulders are still immature and the figure is not long enough, but that was the case in the countryside at that time. I had to learn to work from an early age. It was a very sleepy time. At two or three in the middle of the night, my mother reluctantly woke me up from a sweet dream. I barely got up, washed my face in a hurry, sat at the table and began to eat breakfast. At that moment, no one had an appetite, but in order to have the strength to work, they had to force themselves to eat. You know, this breakfast will take at least ten hours. After breakfast, I walked to the production team in the dark with a rake of more than ten kilograms on my back.

The sky before dawn is the darkest. The stars that flashed all night seem tired at the moment, but they also blink helplessly. At this time, the weather is also the coldest, and the swishing northwest wind makes people tremble. At this time, seven or eight of us braved the cold, got into the carriage and ran to Shan Ye in the distance. At that time, cotton-padded clothes were very simple. A little better, that is, an old sheepskin coat was put on the cotton-padded jacket, most of which had broken the cover and revealed shiny stubble. The buttons of fur coats are mostly scattered all over the floor, and a rope or cloth belt is tied around the waist at will. Wearing a long-haired dog fur hat on his head and a pair of rubber cotton grass at his feet. The whole image of the robber is the same. In this way, on that cold morning, a costume could not resist for long, and after a short walk, I began to tremble. In order to keep out the cold, whenever the climbing speed of vehicles slows down, we jump out of the car and jog behind to warm up.

Before the sun came out, when the eastern sky was just red, we were close to our destination. We were found a place where weeds were relatively lush by experienced drivers, stopped the car and started the work of holding firewood. Holding firewood is not only a physical activity, but also a technical activity. If you have a bad eye, you will not choose a place. Rakes run more roads than others. Even if you are sweating like a pig and your cotton-padded jacket is soaked, it is always difficult to fill baskets and curtains. On the contrary, those who are experienced and have a good eye may not run fast. As long as we choose the right place, we can soon install a basket of curtains ... let's have a rest at two or three in the afternoon. The technical content of this kind of loading is not low. It is necessary to put the car into a quadrangular octagon with beautiful appearance, and all the thatchs should be connected into a whole and tied firmly with ropes. Otherwise, it will fall apart halfway, but it will become top-heavy, leaning to one side and easy to roll over. It stands to reason that the return trip is the most moist time of everyone's day. The carriage was full of the fruits of a hard day's work. Everyone may sit or lie in the thatched pile, take a nap or chat, and feel relaxed and happy. But at that time, I was always worried about the rollover, and my eyes looked at the road from time to time, and one hand never left the rope that tied the grass. And those old members are used to roll over. It is not a good attitude for them not to roll over. They often stand by the river, how can they not wet their shoes? Moreover, the roads at that time were all natural roads, with high mountains and steep roads, and many mountain roads were tilted to one side. If you are not careful, people will roll over. Then everyone got up and helped to lift the car straight, then climbed into the car and continued on their way. In fact, in order to load more firewood, the carriage was built with wide poles. Even if it is overturned, a pole will be propped up if it is slightly tilted, and the situation of overturning the sky will hardly happen. As long as you don't fall on your head and get hit by a rake, it's not a big problem. My fears are almost unnecessary.

In the evening, we returned to the village. Although we are hungry at this time and our strength has become a spent force, we still have to bite our teeth and unload the thatch from the car and put it neatly on the crib before we can call it a day.

One morning, it was very cold, and everyone was shivering with cold no matter how much they wore. When the carriage began to climb a big slope, everyone couldn't wait to jump off and chase it for warmth. After running halfway to warm up, the naughty nature resumed. I took the front pole and pushed it left and right to test the strength of the iron horse. Who would have thought that the wheel on my side suddenly ran over a stone and the pole suddenly lifted me off the ground. I was unprepared and missed the pole, and then I fell to the ground, and the wheel was right on my thigh. At that moment, I had an idea in my heart-my leg must be broken ... After the carriage passed, the cook with too many people pulled me up from the ground and shouted, "Take two steps! Take two steps ... "It doesn't seem to hurt at all when I go into shock. After a few steps, I feel really lucky. It seems that my legs and feet are not injured. At this time, everyone said, "Don't take the bus, just run after it, or you will be injured." I have been an obedient child since I was a child, and I have no experience in this situation. Of course I have to, so I just ran the remaining ten miles of mountain roads. Strangely, I carried the most firewood in the car that day. On the way home, I repeatedly asked the people on the bus not to tell my father what happened today, but the driver, Mr. Wang, still kept his mouth shut. When he drove into the team compound, he told my father about today's dangerous experience. At the dinner table, my impatient father scolded me.

We are most afraid of heavy snow in the firewood season. If it's a thin layer of light snow, it's okay. When the sun shines for three or two days and the northwest wind blows, the thatch is exposed. If it rains too much and the thatch is covered, we won't be able to hold firewood, and burning firewood for a year will become a big problem. At this time, everyone crossed the sea to show their magical powers. It's a little better at home. I paid for it. Most families are not rich and can't afford firewood at all, so they have to find another way. There is a place called Baiyinzalenge 30 miles away from my home, where the mountains are covered with wild oak trees, which is an excellent firewood. But tussah is planted there, and the ownership of trees belongs to other people's silkworm farms, so it is strictly forbidden to cut them down. However, food is the most important thing for people. Without firewood, food can't be cooked, so at this time, we have to cut down oak with the reputation of stealing. There I have an uncle named Buhe, who is both a guide and an accomplice every time he steals a tree. We usually go into the mountains in the afternoon, cut enough cars and tie them up, and the sun goes down. Night always comes early in winter. In the twilight, Uncle Bubu took the whip off the handlebar and sent us all the way to the southern end of the village. On one occasion, people from the silkworm farm met at the entrance of the village and came to check it at night. The alert Buhe and Uncle have already discovered the shadow on the roadside. When the whip shook, they said "hurry, hurry" several times, and the wind blew at the feet of four horses and roared all the way. At the intersection, the man tried to intercept, and the whip in Uncle Bu's hand snapped and exploded. The men drew back their hands and feet from the street. In an instant, the carriage rushed through the barrier, and I couldn't help breaking out in a cold sweat. ...

Now, my hometown has been electrified. With liquefied gas, people have many choices for cooking and heating, which is convenient and beneficial to health. People no longer have to worry about burning firewood, and even braved the cold to hold firewood and steal trees for several days.

There is a life in an era. After experiencing poverty and hardship, I have seen earth-shaking changes in rural life, and I am really happy for it. A small essay records the sad history and wishes my hometown better and better in the construction of a new socialist countryside.