Appreciation of American Rural Literature: A Lonely Mountain Village

I haven't been home for a long time, and I don't know when the bus back to my hometown was changed to CMB. However, there are

Appreciation of American Rural Literature: A Lonely Mountain Village

I haven't been home for a long time, and I don't know when the bus back to my hometown was changed to CMB. However, there are still very few people driving like in the past.

The shuttle bus left the noisy market on time, crossed the Weihe Bridge all the way south, and crossed the village lane under the scorching sun in Chu Qing after the rain.

Our home is in a ravine at the foot of the Qinling Mountains. The ravine is not wide, but deep and long. A road leading to the village goes through several villages with the winding Panxi River, leading to the village in our ditch.

Along the way, the green hills are hidden, and after the harvest, the dark yellow wheat stubble is exposed in the field and shines in the sun. The Panxi River has not been widened by the rain a few days ago. On the contrary, it becomes narrower because the river is overgrown with weeds and the gravel is messy. In my memory, the surging of Panxi River in earlier years disappeared. Abandoned fields are overgrown with weeds, and fields where corn is planted soon after wheat is cut on both sides of the river. It's hard to see green corn seedlings now. Occasionally, there will be one or two grape stands in the field, full of clusters of grapes the size of fingernails, which stand out among the thin leaves.

The bus arrived at the village entrance and we got off. There is a shop at the entrance of the village, where the idle old people and children often gather. At that time, my mother, who could walk to the entrance of the village with crutches, often sat on the abandoned grinding stone in front of the store and waited for me when she heard that I was coming back. Stone is still silent in the bright sunshine, and my mother has been away from us for almost three years. Every time I go home, I can't help but look at that stone, and my heart is inexplicably sour. There is no one in front of the shop today. The door of the shop is still wide open, and a figure is shaking behind the messy counter of the shop.

Walking in the silent village, rows of houses with closed doors on the west side of the road stand quietly in the dazzling sunshine. In the east, there are all kinds of trees, flowers and cliffs. There are rows of irregular farmhouses under the cliff. There is a pomegranate tree opposite the boulevard in front of a house, and there is a green slate under the tree, which is also the place where my mother rests when she picks me up. Sitting under a tree, the towering Qinling Mountains are at the end of the village behind her, and the Panxi River flowing out of the mountain stream flows around the village in the distance. Every time I go home or leave, I can't help but stop and stare at the distant mountains when I come here. In the once noisy village, there were bustling crowds everywhere, women washing clothes, children paddling in the river, people working hard on the hillside on both sides, chickens flying and dogs barking in the village, and smoke curling up. However, today's village seems to be asleep and quiet.

The village committee located in the center of the village was converted from the original village primary school. Once in this big yard near the cliff root, I learned? b、p、m、f？ And then what? 1、2、3? . Because I am close to home, I go to school with my schoolbag on my back without my parents urging me after dinner every day, and play ball with my father's homemade wooden racket and my early classmates on the cement table tennis table on campus. It was not until the bell rang that I rushed into the classroom with my schoolbag.

It is also a matter of recent years that primary schools have been transformed into village committees. With more and more villagers moving to cities, fewer and fewer children need to go to school, and the primary schools in our village have to be merged with those in other villages. The vacated yard was renovated and became a village Committee. There is also a shop at the gate, with new sports equipment next to it. This new type of mobile equipment adds a touch of modernity to this deserted mountain village. Brand-new and colorful sports equipment looks lonely and dazzling in the sun, and it seems that no one has ever used it. Several seats in front of the shop are empty, and some sparrows are jumping on the iron fence door of the village Committee.

To the south of the village committee is our small village, where dozens of families live up and down on the dirt cliff beside the ramp. An abandoned old well stands at the fork in the road in the middle of the earth cliff. The rope on the wooden pulley only weathered into wisps, and the well was overgrown with weeds. This well used to feed several generations, and the noise of queuing for water every morning seems to be just yesterday.

On the stone bench in front of the first house at the fork in the road, my nephew, who was over 60 years old and had a stroke and hemiplegia, sat on crutches. Just like my mother's helplessness and loneliness, she wrote that wrinkled face. I can't help feeling sad. This is the first person we met when we entered the village. After the greeting, we walked on and came to our home.

Several walnut trees outside our gate are covered with fist-sized walnuts, and the dry brown flowers at the top of little persimmon are the size of small buttons, smiling among the green leaves. A piece of leek in the garden near the gate, full of white flowers, has become another kind of scenery. The locust tree, which grew crooked when I was a child, escaped being cut down because it could not make purlins. Now it has grown into a thick tree with a crown, still not smooth, like a rough trunk that stretches in all directions at will, and its lush foliage is unique.

There are many other families in the south of our home, and a wide cement road leads to the end of the village. The clearing by the roadside is full of weeds. Even in the cracks in the middle of the road, weeds grow tenaciously, as if no one had walked on this road for a long time. The gatehouse lost its color in the wind and sun, and the gray one was lifeless. I still remember when I was a child, when everyone was eating, they gathered together with rice bowls and squatted outside the gate. Those warm and happy scenes still become sweet memories.

Our door was ajar and we walked in quietly. There is a row of bungalows in front of the door, opposite to a two-story building. My parents live in the south wing of the building. Since my mother left, my home has become more and more deserted. My father is the only one who goes in and out of the usually open yard and room. Just entering a small vegetable garden opposite the gate, my father's tomatoes have grown to more than one person's height, and my father built a shelf. The branches are covered with green tomatoes. My father planted a vine near the courtyard wall on one side of the vegetable garden. Grape branches climbed a wall along the wire support on the courtyard wall, covered with strings of grapes. Another vine planted in the inner side of the gate climbed directly to the gatehouse, wrapped around the wooden frame put up by his father on the gatehouse of four or five square meters, like a small green house, and hung with a Drury grape.

While studying, my father heard the noise and said hello.

When I entered the room, I saw the World Cup on TV. I sigh? The village is so quiet. ? Father said,? Nowadays, young people don't live in the village, but all go to the city to buy a house. Adults come with me and help with the children. There are few people in the village, so it is naturally quiet. ? There is a trace of loneliness and helplessness in my father's smile.

There are two caves at the bottom of the cliff behind the yard. There is a cave that used to be a cowshed, and the cow trough of brick base is still there, which is full of sundries. At the beginning, a lot of wheat straw was piled on the ground where the cattle were tied. When I was a child, every household was fed with cattle, big or small. When harvesting seeds and grinding fields, people and cattle were very busy. At that time, farm work was inseparable from cows. Almost every cow is a strong labor force and a member of the family. Qinchuan yellow cattle, which has made great contributions to our breeding and sowing, has not been seen for many years.

In another kiln, there are baskets, baskets, plows, shovels and heads retired from the traditional farming era. There are many sickles and ropes hanging on the kiln wall. Sickles have been useless for a long time, and some of them have obvious rust spots. Father stroked those sickles and said regretfully? Nowadays, people only plant flat and convenient land where they can walk, and all wheat is cut with a wheat harvester. I used to sharpen a sickle, but now it's useless. I have no chance to use my sickle. Your brother has said many times to throw away these useless things. But I thought, what if I need it one day?

Chatting with dad while cooking. Speaking of the fact that there are no corn seedlings in the field now, my father lamented. If you want to grow corn, you have to hire someone to plow and sow. After seedling emergence, it is necessary to simply plant, add rows, fertilize and water. It takes a lot of money and effort, and the harvested corn only sells for six or seven cents a catty. Young people are more troublesome and think it is not cost-effective to grow corn. We are too old to do it. Only when the land is not cultivated will wheat be planted in autumn. ? I remember when I was a child, the people in the village planted a lot of land, cleared the land and dug grass, wishing they could even plant crops on the road. It is common for people of all kinds to argue with each other. Nowadays, with the rapid development of society, there are fewer and fewer older farmers who once regarded land as their life. The traditional agriculture on which we live is becoming less and less attractive in the face of various technologies, and the younger generation of farmers have lost interest in land and farming. And our village, in the face of the tide of reform and opening up, has gradually become the scenery when people who have lived in cities for a long time occasionally pass by for leisure.

There are fewer and fewer left-behind children and elderly people, and our village is quiet and deserted, as if asleep. The sun is still warm, overlooking the silence. When will rural land be as valuable as urban land? We eat every day, and all the food comes from the land. We are a traditional agricultural country and cannot do without land. We are full of expectations, looking forward to the day when the farmland in the village will die in spring.

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