In the late 1970 s and early 1980 s, my hometown was still at the end of eating the same pot and producing cooperatives. At that time, the whole village worked and produced together. Every busy farming season, men and women in the village go out to work to "grab centimeters". Except for the old people, we were left in the production team. Of course, our children have nothing to do, and the elderly have other arrangements at home, such as drying (harvesting) millet, making a fire, cooking and taking care of children, while our children's things are naturally fun and often do things that adults don't like.
My family lives next to the village production team. There are five vacant buildings and a big stadium on the second floor, all of which belong to the village production team. The production team is naturally collective. The empty room is the granary of the village production team, where the village rations are piled up. Therefore, whether it is the autumn harvest or the slack season, it has become a venue for drying millet. These millet are collectively owned by the village and specially taken care of by the elderly at home. This has also become the work of these left-behind elderly people to "grab centimeters" to eat.
As far as I can remember, there were many sparrows at that time. These common small animals were not surprising or commendable to people at that time. Too many people cast contemptuous eyes. They are not only bored but also greedy. When they caught the food, it was less than 10, so people stopped paying attention to them.
Every day at dawn, I can hear sparrows chirping in my sleep. They often wake me up from my sleep. Their behavior always makes people feel a little boring. Because the sparrow's nest is always placed in the gap between the eaves and the walls, people call the sparrow "civilian sparrow" in their hometown. According to the statement at that time, it should also be regarded as "poor peasants and middle peasants"! .
As we all know, sparrows nest in the cracks between eaves and walls. As a result, cracks in the eaves and walls of every household have become their refuge. But I think sparrows spend the most time in the eaves and cracks of the production team. They fly out and fly in, screaming all the time. They fly in groups of three, sometimes to the tree, sometimes to the roof, sometimes chasing each other, fighting, twisting into a ball, falling back to the ground from mid-air, flying into the air in an instant, and then flying into the distance, much like a group of children who don't grow up, making endless noises, which is also the most difficult memory fragment in my life.
Sparrows are very alert animals. As long as you get close to them, they will fly far away. But it also has the most fatal weakness, that is, it has the habit of stealing food, or it always ignores its own life whenever it comes to delicious food. Whenever people are a little quieter during lunch break, they start to be presumptuous, stealing millet from empty rooms in droves to satisfy their hunger, sometimes even when the breeder is not paying attention.
There is an old man nicknamed "Boss Mouth" in the production team with a loud voice. He is an old man who guards the threshing floor. Because of his loud voice, the production team leader gave him this task, which was responsible for driving away the sparrows stealing millet in the empty room. At first, as long as his "horn" roared, five empty roofs and sparrows on the playground fled in fear. Looking at the startled sparrow, he burst into tears with laughter, showing a somewhat smug appearance. However, over time, sparrows have long been accustomed to his tricks, and his "horn" has gradually lost its function. Instead of him shouting at the scene in person, the sparrow pretended that nothing had happened, which made the "boss's mouth" angry. His "sparrow catching" line hovers between the roof and the playground. In the end, seeing that he was really tired, someone else thought of a way for him. They tied him up with a dozen scarecrows and put him in different corners of the roof to drive away sparrows. At first, this method worked, but in the end, it didn't work. He stamped his feet in a hurry and kept saying things like "damn sparrow, damn sparrow" ...
That year, it was the age when educated youth went to the countryside. Many educated youths, men and women, came to the production team, all living in empty rooms surrounded by bamboo fences, with southern accents and northern accents, and they talked like quarrels. Back then, I was poor! Rich people often can't buy meat for months, which makes the educated youth in rural areas hungry. It is often seen that several male educated youths catch sparrows in different ways, some with dustpans, some with slingshots, and some with gunpowder guns borrowed from villagers. Twenty or thirty sparrows can be knocked over with one shot, and a handful can be filled in a blink of an eye. I still remember that there were thick sparrow feathers piled on the open space in front of the empty room, which was enough for two people to move. Whenever night falls, there is a drooling smell in the empty room every day, as well as endless boxing and screams. At this time, the old lady next door always nagged, "I'm so happy to eat some sparrow meat." In the eyes of local people, eating sparrow meat is the most despised. Of course, for these educated youths, the locals also regard them with special respect, because they are all outsiders. Yes, when people were young, they traveled all the way from the city to the wasteland, where even birds didn't shit to get exercise and education, and they ate, lived and worked with local farmers. It's really great to think about it now.
Among this group of educated youth, there is Li Debiao, a dark and thin man, about 30 years old, with a baby face, who often visits my house and tells my grandfather about their local production, life and customs. Because I was young at that time, I didn't study, I didn't know much Chinese, and he was full of local accent. I was just an outsider when they spoke. Grandpa told me that Li Debiao lives in a deep forest, and now he can't remember the place name. It seems to be somewhere in Yunnan, where the roads are impassable and the climate is cold all the year round. The food is mainly potatoes. He asked me if I wanted to eat potatoes as his son. Although grandpa was joking, I was really scared. Sometimes Li Debiao will echo me and tell me that he will take me as his son. At this time, I will cry in fear. It's really funny to think about the scene at that time.
With the long-term communication, Li Debiao and I are no longer strangers and have established a good relationship. He often makes me happy. When he saw me, he called me big eyes (my eyes were very big when I was a child). He often hides with me, fights with stones and teaches me to read. I still vaguely remember the Arabic numeral "2" he taught me. At that time, I could write the word "2", which was very fulfilling.
Li Debiao is an expert at catching sparrows. He can catch them in many ways, such as dustpan or brick. His marksmanship is a bit cruel. He is the man who knocked over twenty or thirty sparrows with one shot. Li Debiao specializes in catching sparrows. He first swept a clearing on the roof, sprinkled some millet on the clearing, stabilized the dustpan with a short stick, tied the lower end of the short stick with twine, then held the other end of twine at a distance, waited for the sparrow to enter the circle, quickly pulled the twine, and the dustpan covered the sparrow all over the floor. All the sparrows caught in this way are alive and kicking. As for grasping with bricks, the effect is not ideal. At most, a dozen birds are caught a day, and most of them are dead (sparrows are killed by bricks with organs when they steal food). To please me, he didn't use this method, and I didn't want it myself.
He also has a way of catching birds' nests, which can't be done at any time. Usually he has to wait until the evening, after the sparrow returns to its nest, and it is very dangerous. I often dig nests under the eaves downstream under his leadership. He borrowed the longest bamboo ladder and portable flashlight from the production team and dug a sparrow's nest in the marked place. For the convenience of operation, I cooperated with him on the roof. My task is to receive the sparrow he caught in the birdcage. In an hour, I'm sure I can catch a cage full of sparrows. For me, this is a very simple task and an interesting activity.
Eating sparrow meat is a very enjoyable thing. Whenever I have lunch or dinner, I will take my special tin bowl to Li Debiao's kitchen to have dinner with him. There are many recipes, there are several kinds of sparrow meat, but I like to eat fragrant fried sparrow meat, and I can eat more than a dozen at a time. At that time, sesame oil was a very strange thing, which not only smelled good, but also smelled good when cooking, not to mention sparrow meat.
Li Debiao has been in our village production team for 8 years, and has been able to speak the language of our nation fluently, and has also found a partner in the village production team. She is the most diligent and beautiful "Xiao Fang" in the village production team, and those days can make him happy. It can be said that everyone is happy. Time flies, in a blink of an eye, eight years have passed, and Li Debiao is going back to his hometown with his beloved daughter-in-law. On the day of farewell, I cried like a mute, holding his hand tightly, but I couldn't stop the sadness of parting. I stood on the hill at the head of the village and waved until he and his daughter-in-law disappeared at the end of the horizon ... I haven't heard from Li Debiao since he left, until now.
Strange to say, in the second year after Li Debiao left, the sparrows in our area disappeared instantly, and the chirping of sparrows could no longer be heard. People were not used to this way of life at first, but as time went on, they gradually forgot it. After all, people are still alive, and the sun rises normally.
According to the old man in the village, the sparrow was taken away by Li Debiao. At that time, what the old man said was a matter of course, so I believed it.