The girl at the door

Plum is a "doorman", I know, because everyone in the village calls it that. She is my classmate, I am 8 years old, and she is 1 1 year old. I sat in the first row, near the teacher, and she sat in the last row, as if the teacher had never seen her.

Our village is poor, with gray and soft yellow mud everywhere. When it rains, there are pits on the road. The house is short and made of yellow mud. The outside was coated with lime, and it didn't take long to peel off, piece by piece. On the walls of several families at the entrance to the village, the village cadres wrote in paint that "boys and girls are all the same, and daughters are also family heirlooms". They go in and out of the village every day and look at the big characters at the entrance of the village. The boiled pig blood is as dark as dark red, which is shocking.

Mei Zi lives in Uncle Lai's house at the entrance to the village. She came here to get it. The children don't like to play with her. She always wears a dress that can't see the color clearly. The snot on the cuff has become a lump, and her head is covered with head lice. She ran around with sparse hair and hatched many white eggs.

Her grades are not good, and she sits in the last row of the classroom every day without saying a word, as if there were no such person. I sometimes look back at her. She stared at the blackboard with glassy eyes and empty eyes, and her mouth was slightly open, like a dead fish.

Every day after school, the fastest runner is Mei Zi, who is completely different from her in the class. The teacher looked up and shook his head at the figure rushing out of the classroom.

Plum went to help the family, because she didn't finish the task arranged by her brother, and she was going to be beaten. In the morning, she is responsible for mowing the grass for the four piglets at home and taking the cows out by the way. The cow is eating not far away, and is cutting plums beside it. When we get up, the grass is green. Those adults always spits viciously behind plums: "The girl at the door of this short-lived ghost cut all the grass by herself."

Plum tied the cow to the pine pier, threw the pig grass into the pig shed and watched the children in the village go to school. I didn't have time to wash my hands. I ran and wiped my green hands on my trouser legs.

Come back at noon, plum will cook. She is short and the stove is high. She stood on a stool. You have to watch the fire in the stove. If the fire is big, open the stove door and pull the firewood out a little. If the fire is small, add some firewood and close the oven door.

2.

Once, I went to find my grandfather outside the village and passed by her house. I saw her standing on a stool cooking. Maybe the fire was too strong and the green leaves of the sweet potato vine were burnt. She lost her footing in her hurry. She threw herself on the stove, trying to keep her balance with her left hand. She pressed it in the pot and it bubbled in an instant.

Plum cried and her mother ran out of the back room. When she saw that the plum was scalded, she said, Go to the water tank, you short-lived ghost, what's the use?

Plum bit her lip, ran to the front of the water tank, scooped up the water with a ladle, put her hand in, and quietly cried, tears dripping into the ladle.

While cooking in the back room, her mother scolded, "What's the use of girls? Your real mother threw you into an old bachelor's house. If I hadn't promised the old bachelor to support you, you wouldn't know where to fool around. "

Plum burst into tears. I don't know whether my hand hurts, I hate her biological mother for throwing her away, or I miss her old bachelor father. I stood not far away and looked at her, not knowing what to say.

The childhood of rural children includes frogs, crickets, crisp pears, sweet grass roots, eggs in bird's nests and shrimps in streams. However, in plum's childhood, it seems that there is only one abandonment and endless farm work.

3.

Speaking of plums at home, grandma sighed and said it was sinful. The child is unlucky, too. It won't be a good day in a few days.

Plum first appeared in our village, in front of the old bachelor's house.

Rural people always keep a few chickens and a dog at home. In order to prevent these animals from entering the house to shit, a low door will be pressed at the door of every household, probably to the chest of adults, so that there is light, animals outside the house can't run in, and children at home can't run out.

It is said that when Li Shu's eldest son was over one year old, he forgot to close the low door at home, and the child ran out and fell into the fish pond at the door. His tongue was bitten off when he came up. Everyone said that there was a water ghost under the fish pond, so let body double bite off the child's tongue alive.

Li Shu's family wept bitterly. While beating their 4-year-old daughter hard, they scolded, "Why don't you die? Why my son? Oh my god, you let the lees finished ... "

The 4-year-old daughter opened her frightened eyes and looked at her swollen brother and vicious parents. She shivered and never spoke again. Fortunately, Li's daughter-in-law lived up to expectations and gave birth to another son. Like guarding a treasure, the Li family quit their farm work, and the whole family kept the incense all day.

4.

The old bachelor is over 50 years old and has no wife and children. The whole family is not hungry, and life is fairly comfortable. His ancestors left two rooms, raised some geese and planted some rice, and dozens of tea oil trees were distributed on the mountain, which was enough to eat.

At that time, there were no entertainment activities in the countryside, and only a few wealthy families had black and white TVs. In order to save electricity, they drove the villagers out after watching the news broadcast. Everyone went to bed early, and the night was as dark as a box, except for a few barks, and there was no sound at all.

The old bachelor was awakened by the barking of a dog in the middle of the night. He got up to relieve himself. As soon as he opened the door, he saw a paper box, which was just stuck between the door and the low door. The old bachelor opened the box in a daze, and there lay a child.

The child is wearing an old dress, which is very big. There are no pants under it, wrapped in an apron, and they are already wet. The old bachelor looked around. It was dark and there was no one around. He quickly carried the carton in and didn't bother to pee.

The child has no missing arms or legs. She looks healthy, but she is a worthless girl. The old bachelor found some soft close-fitting clothes, put them on the girl and put them on the bed. The girl suddenly woke up and cried and opened her mouth. Although the old bachelor has never raised a child, he has never eaten pork. He has seen pigs run and knows that the girl is hungry.

At night, I couldn't find anything for her to eat, so I poured a little warm water from the hot pot, threw a rock sugar down, melted it, and threw it into the child's mouth with a spoon. After feeding for dozens of times, I stopped crying and fell asleep in the arms of the old bachelor.

The next day, everyone knew that the old bachelor had picked up a baby girl, which was nothing unusual in the countryside. At that time, it was the most stringent years of family planning. As long as the second child was a girl, she was thrown away and died inexplicably.

It would be nice to sneak it in a family without girls in the dead of night like this. Because they are all placed in low doors, these girls all have the same name as the "girl at the door", and some girls will even register with this name.

My primary school is built at the foot of the mountain in the village. I have to cross a bridge when I go to school. The water under the bridge is very urgent, which scares me. Even more frightening, I always remember that there were babies on that bridge, all girls, wrapped in aprons, loaded with fertilizer bags and sleeping directly on the bridge.

Every time I see them, I feel scared. I think those children are monsters. If I go, I will definitely be pushed into the river, and then they will become like me, go to school instead of me, rob my house and rob my mother. I always thought so, because before long, those children disappeared until they were replaced by other children.

Once, another child was left on the bridge. It was early for school that day, and I didn't know it was a draw, so I ran close to see it. That child is ugly and wrinkled, his face is gray and he is covered with ants! I ran away quickly, and I had a high fever that night and talked nonsense all night.

5.

The old bachelor fell in love with the girl he found and named her Plum. The arrival of the child seems to bring him hope for the rest of his life. He took the rice from home to town and ground it into powder. He added water and steamed it in a pot to feed his daughter. After five months, I chewed up the rice for the children to eat.

Although life is not rich, father and daughter are also very happy, and Mei Zi has grown up slowly. Just as the state reduced tuition and fees, Mei Zi went to school smoothly.

Unfortunately, Mei Zi is doomed. In a few years, her good days came to an abrupt end. When the old bachelor went to the roof to cover the tile, he fell down and struggled for a few days before he died.

Before he died, he begged the Lai Da couple in the village to take Mei Zi in and let Zi Mei continue her studies, and then took her last breath.

The old bachelor's father left, leaving nothing but two old houses and his reluctant plumbing project.

Because everyone has only one son and no daughter, they want to take Plum as a child bride and bring Plum for free in the future.

Plum lives in Lai's home. Not long after, village cadres publicized family planning, and painted the slogan "Boys and girls are the same" on the walls of several families in the village. For families who drag out an ignoble existence, village cadres make a surprise attack in the middle of the night in twos and threes, and if they catch it, they will go home to uncover the tiles.

You catch, I hide, and the plowman becomes a guerrilla and fights with the cadres.

6.

Plum has no place to coquetry anymore. She became not only a "doorman" but also a "child bride". She doesn't like reading and her classmates because they always laugh at her. She is Lai's wife.

When I was in junior high school, Mei Zi didn't go to school with us in the town. Listen to grandma, Lai asked Mei Zi if he wanted to marry his brother and have a baby immediately, or go out to work to earn money to support his family. Plum tidied up the old bachelor's house, locked it and chose to go out to work.

Later, I met her once. She is fat, tall and mature. I found that she is actually quite beautiful.

I haven't seen her since. I only heard that the bride price for my brother's wedding is 38 thousand, and 28 silver dollars are from plums.

But I believe that she must have a good life.