A pair of red cloth shoes

Grandma has been dead for six years. Time can erase her mark on the world, but it can only erase the vivid memory of grandma in our minds. Grandma is like the group of flowers clustered in our hearts, watering it with her selfless love, allowing it to take root, sprout and bloom in our hearts, endlessly.

Grandma had no achievements in her life, and she was even ridiculed for being cowardly and incompetent. During those special and difficult years, the weak grandma was often bullied by those domineering women.

The only thing grandma could feel proud of in front of others was her pair of red velvet shoes with thousand-layer soles. Just like that pair of fiery red cloth shoes, no matter how time goes by, the emotions it flows in our hearts are like the trickling blood, which is still warm and jumping.

Grandma is not tall and her legs are uneven, which makes her body always tilt to one side when she walks. Her right hand is not very flexible, and her wrist is severely tilted to one side. She is very slow at making shoes. She can only put out about ten pairs of shoes for her children and grandchildren to wear every year. It is said that quantity is small but quality is good. Work begins every autumn and is not completed until the twelfth lunar month of winter.

I still remember that every day when the sun just appeared in the east, my grandma’s stove would already be billowing with smoke. Pots and pans were pinging ping-pong, chickens were crowing in front of and behind the house, and villagers in twos and threes were chatting and laughing on the road in front of their homes. Pairs of old Jiefang shoes and long boots that did not go up to the calves were stepping on the soft ground. On the dirt floor, there was a series of sonorous and powerful sounds of "thump, thump, thump".

The sun began to turn red. The big round face looked down at the entire village with scattered houses, and the high and low dark green mountain forest in front of the house was also dyed with a deep or light blush. . The thick white fog in the forest has not cleared yet, and the villagers can't wait to start the steaming days one after another.

There are two large water tanks in grandma's kitchen, fixed with custom-made wooden shelves. The vat on the left is filled with clear and sweet mountain spring water, while the vat on the right is used to hold sour water. A thin and long water pipe rests on the edge of the water tank on the left. Intermittent water columns like thick lines flow into the tank all year round, making a crisp "tick-tick-tock" sound in the tank. I saw grandma pour all the dirty water from washing pots, dishes and rice into the sour water tank, and then stirred it in the tank with a long stick. This kind of sour water can be used to mix pig food and fatten the house. native pig.

Grandma came out after finishing her work, still wearing the heather gray coarse cloth apron around her waist. The apron was sewn by grandma from two large pieces of gray cloth of similar colors. It really resembles the life that grandma put together.

Grandma raised her legs and stepped over the high thresholds one after another. She entered the room and took out a pair of worn-out reading glasses. The two sides of the frame were tied with a thick thread made of many thin threads. Walking one step at a time, he fastened the ropes on both sides of his glasses behind his big and long ears. The large square mirror almost covered the upper half of grandma's long, pointed face.

Grandma first wiped the square dining table in the kitchen with a clean rag several times, then moved it out of the house and placed it under the eaves outside the kitchen where there was better light. After setting up the table, she went into the house and brought in a stool and her work tools.

The sun hung high on the top of the mountain, and the morning fog in the forest was wiped away by the heat of the sun. A few black magpies landed on the telegraph poles in front of the house, chirping and jumping up and down, illuminated by the glow of the sun. They were all black and shiny, making the embroidery needle held up in grandma's hand shine with silver light.

Every time grandma threads a needle, she has to thread it many times before she can thread it properly. She holds the pin in one hand, and pinches the thread with her index finger and thumb of the other hand. She uses the thread in her mouth from time to time. The tongue licked again and again, and the needle moved around in the hand following the light, causing the reading glasses to slide down to the tip of grandma's nose. The hot breath from the nostrils immediately smeared the lenses. At this time, grandma looked particularly funny. Her eyes were looking through the lenses to see the needle threading. Sometimes she squinted and threaded the needle in this direction, and sometimes she turned her body to face the other side. Her eyes looked bigger and smaller. The stool was under her butt. It was also moved around, making a "squeaking" sound.

After finally threading the needle, grandma straightened her reading glasses and started to pick up the scissors on the table to cut the shoe pattern. On the square table is a stack of red velvet soles to be delivered that day, and sometimes two pairs of semi-finished shoes. At first, grandma's needle shuttled freely on the soles. As layer after layer of soles were added, grandma's speed became slower and slower, always gritting her teeth and exerting force.

At this time, the iron ring on grandma's middle finger came in handy. The pin needs to be pushed against the iron ring to penetrate the sole of the shoe. Then the hemp thread is wrapped around the hand and pulled out bit by bit. When the hemp thread penetrates the sole of the shoe, it makes bursts of "cha-cha-cha". sound. The needle often slipped off the iron ring and pierced Grandma's finger. She would suck her finger in her mouth without any panic and spit out mouthfuls of blood sticky with saliva. After Grandma sucked several times in a row, she continued to thread the needle. .

Groups of children were playing on the field in front of the eaves. Grandma would always look at us through her reading glasses while picking up the soles of her shoes, and would give us loud instructions from time to time. , "Sister, Kui'er, don't be crazy, I'm sweating again and I'm covered in lice. I'm not itching to death." When we were fighting and noisy, grandma was too lazy to get up to break up the fight, so she tapped the table with scissors a few times to make a sound. She cursed twice, "We're fighting again, I'm here to fight." Grandma always said this and never beat or scolded us.

When we were playing around, we would always jump over, jump up the steps and squeeze in front of grandma’s square table. For a while, she picked up the shoe pattern she had cut and looked at it. For a while, she picked up a piece of red velvet and played with it in the palm of her hand that was still muddy. When grandma saw the naughty us holding her shoe samples and swinging the soles back and forth in our hands, she was so anxious that she coughed and hurriedly spread her arms to remove the soles and suede on the table. All of them came to one point on the chest, like a hen protecting an injured chick.

After we were driven away by grandma, we started fighting in front of the house again. From playing in front of the house to the roadside and then to the fields on the other side of the mountain, grandma's figure has always been fixed there. The setting sun turned red over the mountains and fields in front of the house, and smoke began to curl up from the roofs of every household. The children who had not finished playing were forcibly driven back home by the adults.

We sat quietly around grandma’s square table. Grandma stretched her sore arms, looked around, and leaned over to finish the day’s work.

Grandma always took her time to finish the long thread on the needle. At the end, she wound it a few times, tied a few knots hard, cut off the thread with scissors, and pinned the pin on the needle. That roll of twine. After collecting the needles, grandma folded the soles together and wrapped them in cloth, then stacked the red velvet in one place, and finally took off her reading glasses and iron ring. Grandma put these things into a basket one by one, rubbed her crooked wrist, beat her sore upper arm, stood up slowly with her hands on the edge of the table, and held the basket in her arms to cross the high threshold. Walking into the house one by one. Then he came out and moved the table and chairs into the house. Grandma is very thin, with no fat in her buttocks. She is so thin that the crotch of her pants is often loose, like a bag swaying in the wind.

Chickens and ducks began to come back to the house in groups from all directions to eat. The farmers in the fields went back to their houses leisurely. After a while, black smoke began to billow from grandma's cold stove.

Autumn is getting deeper and deeper, and the cold is getting heavier and heavier. Grandma is not in good health and often suffers from minor illnesses and colds. She always coughed from time to time, and when she coughed violently, her nose would also flow out. Grandma bent over and wiped a handful of mucus from her nose under the eaves, and wiped her hands and nose with the gray cloth apron around her waist. When grandma coughs violently, her neck often tightens, her throat expands, and her back arches. The figure really looks a bit like a big rooster croaking at dawn. Grandma's body is covered with plaster all year round, and every time she gets close to her, she can smell the strong smell of the plaster.

When the weather got cold, grandma’s butt couldn’t bear to sit on the bench, so she used some rags and cotton wool to sew a thick cushion, so that her buttocks wouldn’t hurt even if she sat on the bench for a long time. It hurts so much.

We wore autumn clothes, sweaters and thick cotton coats, and the wild geese on the horizon flew into the distance in rows or rows. Grandma's table was moved from outside the house to the inside. Grandma put a round-brimmed plush hat on her head, and wore layers of cotton-padded clothes. Grandma would sometimes put the table next to the firepit, and put the shoes under the weak firelight and dim light. Because the light was not good, Grandma would often put the suede in an irregular shape and had to redo it. When we watched our grandma put the suede into the soles of her shoes, leaving only the uppers intact, and then dismantle and redo them, we would always sigh in frustration. Grandma, however, acted like a normal person, stretching the suede as hard as she could to cover the soles of her shoes. Grandma saw that a large part of the heel could not be covered, so she held the half-finished shoe in front of the firelight and looked at it closely. She smiled at us and said, "Ah, it turns out that the sewing is not done well, there is a section that is empty and not threaded."

" Discovering the problem, grandma smiled, picked up the scissors, cut off the thread, and pulled the thick thread out of the densely packed shoe holes.

In order to avoid repeating this mistake, grandma had to move the table to the door of the main room. Working in the light of the day. The weather was too cold, and the charcoal fire under the table had no effect of keeping warm. From time to time, I would put my hands in my cotton clothes to keep warm. Grandma's nose would flow out like clear water. Grandma would keep wiping it with her gray cloth apron, which made a big red patch under her nose. We stayed by the fire to keep warm. When the twelfth lunar month arrived, the smell of bacon began to grow stronger and stronger in every household. Smoked and roasted, the migrant workers returned home joyfully with wallets that were no longer shriveled. The children’s hearts were also excited by the growing flavor of the New Year, and we were even more excited by the pair of red cloth shoes that were gradually taking shape on grandma’s desk. The whole body and mind are filled with joy.

"Sister, Kui'er... come and try on the cloth shoes. "Just one day that we were all looking forward to, grandma shouted with a voice that was much louder than usual.

We scrambled and jumped over one high threshold after another and went straight to grandma. In front of us, grandma opened her legs slightly, and there were several pairs of red cloth shoes spread out on the gray apron. We hurriedly put the shoes that grandma handed us to our arms, and the cold and hard soles were pressed against our hot chests. We couldn't help it. We couldn't put it down while stroking the soft and bright uppers. We danced, hummed, and moved stools to sit around grandma. We quickly took off the old shoes on our feet and put them on new cloth shoes. They are made to fit just right and feel very comfortable when worn.

The new red cloth shoes look particularly good on the feet, and they seem to match the old clothes we wear. Jumping around, he jumped over the high threshold and ran towards the road outside the house. The road was dirt and covered with weeds. The thick soles felt particularly good on the dirt road, which made the shoes feel particularly good. Wear them.

We came back after a few laps and happily told grandma that the shoes were really comfortable. Whenever the villagers saw the new cloth shoes on our feet, they would always lean over to look at them and admire them with admiration. Later, some villagers came to ask my grandma to make cloth shoes. At this time, my grandma would always She agreed with a smile.

For many years, grandma has been denied by others, but with these pairs of red cloth shoes, she finally got a glimmer of recognition. Whenever someone asks grandma to make shoes, grandma's smile is really bigger than this. The red cloth was even brighter. I seemed to understand my grandma’s focused and persistent expression as she sat under the eaves.

In those years, poverty was the hallmark of every rural person. There are only three or four pairs of shoes that are worn over and over again. Sometimes, wearing shoes is like wearing clothes. The second sister wears them, and the younger sister wears them again. However, many shoes are not as durable as clothes. I wore them out before I passed them on.

I remember wearing a pair of rubber shoes that cost about five yuan in spring and autumn, a pair of plastic butterfly-shaped sandals in summer, and a pair of red cloth shoes in winter. I look forward to another pair of sneakers during the New Year. Every time I put on a new pair of shoes, I feel a sense of satisfaction that lasts for many days. Often the toes of the shoes protrude, or the uppers are worn with glue, but they still work. Take it to a shoe repairman for some repairs. You must wear these red cloth shoes until they are discharged like a disabled veteran. The uppers become thinner and the soles become more transparent. The shoes were thin and rough, and the soles were even broken in the middle. On rainy days, my socks would become soaked after wearing them.

I still remember walking on the icy dirt road in the middle of the winter. The thin and soft soles will sting your feet when you step on the uneven ice. However, when you wear new cloth shoes, the ice will make a clicking sound when you step on the thick soles, which is very interesting. . Sometimes we deliberately stomped hard to break the ice on the small potholes on the road, causing the ice water inside to splash and wet our trousers.

A pair of red cloth shoes has accompanied us throughout our childhood, just like grandma’s love. We are so happy. Many children cannot even wear a pair of cloth shoes like this. Grandma is gone, and the red cloth shoes are long gone.

These beautiful things and interesting stories have become precious memories because they are no longer repeated.