I always dream about the house in my hometown from time to time.

Sometimes I dream that I'm still sleeping in the east room, and the moonlight shines on the silvery white of half the room through the window; Sometimes I dream that my parents are frying meatballs in the kitchen, and my sister and I are playing with each other in the courtyard; Sometimes I dream of a sunny summer day, my mother drying all the quilts and cotton-padded clothes in the cupboard in the yard, and I am shuttling among the quilts in the yard, with a warm smell of sunshine in my nose ... < P > I know that these things are clearly left in my memory, even though our family has already moved out of the old house and moved to the building in the town. There is no dust flying upstairs that my mother hates most, and there is no smoky fire that I hate most. We slept in a big bed two meters wide and used a gas stove. My sister and I no longer have to squeeze into a small bed of one meter and five meters, and the stool is blocked by the bed for fear of falling out of bed; You don't have to cook every time, you are choked by smoke and burst into tears; You don't have to face the dust that you clean every day but still can't sweep away.

However, the old house will appear in my dream again and again, and it is still the same in my dream. Three halls, a kitchen, a yard and a gatehouse.

it's an old house, but it's not old. The old house is the same age as me, and the wooden top beam is clearly engraved with "Built in 199", but it has only been 31 years. That year, my mother moved out of my grandmother's house with me. At first, there was no courtyard wall in my hometown, only three halls and a kitchen, and there was no electricity. Later, after my mother gave birth to me, I sold the eggs sent by my relatives, so that I could have money to install electricity. Then I slowly saved money to cover the courtyard wall and the gatehouse, and the whole home was complete.

As far as I can remember, there is white powdery alkali on the red brick on the outer wall of the hall and kitchen all the year round. When I was a child, I scraped it off with a knife and piled it up in a small pile. When I lit a match, it made a "zi zi" sound, which was very interesting. The inner walls are usually mottled white walls, full of traces of years.

The facade of the hall faces south, and the wooden door is painted with green paint, and the faded New Year pictures with missing corners are attached. In summer, in order to prevent flies and mosquitoes, a pair of screen doors with springs will be installed. When the screen doors are opened, they will be caught by the springs and then automatically closed. There is a small rectangular skylight above the door for lighting.

after pushing the door open, the first thing you see is a deep purplish red "square table" with a 17-inch "big ass" color TV on it. The trodden land has undergone several changes from cement to tile. Behind the "Square Table" is a bar with almost the same width as the hall. On the right side of the bar is a clock with a pendulum (Figure 1), two bottles of worn-out fake flowers and some messy objects. The clock clicks loudly, giving people a sense of urgency for the rapid passage of time, and it will also tell the hour or half. On the left, there is an old radio that can play tapes in the 198s (Figure 2), which can play and record. When I was a child, I would play some songs or operas. There are small cabinets at the left and right sides of the bar. There are some old pamphlets and books in the small cabinet in the east, and all the pesticides needed in the farmland are in the small cabinet in the west. Our parents warned us not to touch the cabinet with pesticides since childhood, which led to the shadow that we still don't want to touch even if pesticides are no longer stored. Well, the poor cupboard must envy the "brother" cupboard on the other side.

On the wall behind Tiaoji is a waterfall landscape painting. The right side of the landscape painting is covered with awards from my sister and me. The hall and the East Room are separated by walls. There are many newspapers on the east wall, and a photo frame inlaid with glass is hung. The photo frame contains parents' registration photos, family photos of the whole family taken more than 2 years ago and some scattered photos.

There are two purple leather single person sofa against the east wall. The center of the sofa cushion and backrest have been peeled off, and the armrest is also stained. There is a purple tea table between the two sofas. In front of the sofa is a square table made of jujube wood, which is used for eating. Just above the square table, there is a fan hanging from the beam, which is used to blow air in summer. When the square table is idle, it is stuffed under the "Eight Immortals Table", and there is also a large aluminum steamer under the "Eight Immortals Table". Eggs are stored in the steamer all the year round (I wonder why it is not put in the kitchen).

There is just room for a sewing machine behind the door on the right side of the room (Figure 3). When I was very young, my father was still working in the "Family Planning Office" and my mother had no job. She took care of me and used this sewing machine to help the villagers sew and mend, earning a little extra money. But once, I put my hand into the rotating wheel of the sewing machine. Although it was nothing serious, my frightened mother never took over the job again, and the sewing machine was covered with a piece of cloth all the year round.

Next to the sewing machine is the door of the East Room, and the door painted with green paint is pasted with New Year pictures. On the wall above the door hangs a rectangular wall clock about the width of the door and inlaid with shells. It's beautiful, but its hands haven't moved since I can remember.

There is a small bed facing north and south in the southeast corner through the door. For cleaning, a circle of cloth is tied on the wall behind the bed. The floor of the East Room has always been a concrete floor. In summer, you will feel cold when you lie on it with a newspaper. There is a table next to the bedside in the south, and there is an edge sewing machine (Figure 4) in the gap behind the door in the west of the table, which is used to sew the edges of some fabrics that love spinning.

Behind the desk is the front window. The window frame is made of wood, and the outside is inlaid with strips of steel bars. There are two layers inside, three square fixed glasses below, a fixed rectangular glass in the middle, and two windows on the left and right sides that can be opened inward. In summer, in order to prevent flies and mosquitoes, a screen window will be nailed on the outside. In winter, it will be replaced with a transparent plastic sheet to resist the invasion of cold. The whole window is very big, and the moonlight outside the window can shed half a bed. There are several pots of lush chlorophytum on the windowsill (Figure 5), because my father likes playing with flowers and plants very much.

On the north wall, there is a portrait of the God of Wealth. Above the portrait, there is a small square rear window. Below the portrait, there is a big gray "water" tank with a censer on the cover. There are important family documents and some passbooks in the water tank. Mother said that the God of Wealth should take care of it.

When we were young, we didn't live in the East Room, but lived in the Westinghouse with our parents, because bags of threshed wheat were stored in the East Room, mixed with an old smell, and rats rustled all the year round. Sometimes my parents will put some rat poison, and then I have a big white cat. The big white cat has given birth to several kittens. What I remember deeply is that it once gave birth to a small white cat with blue eyes. It has long hair and two curls of white hair on the tips of its ears, which is particularly cute. When I was a child, my cat always kept it free, and it would go home automatically at every meal. In winter, when it was cold, it would crawl under my bed to sleep. When I accidentally kicked it, it would "ha" and "woo" me angrily. Sometimes it would crawl into the bottom of the stove and its white hair would be dyed carbon. White cats are particularly fierce. One night, my mother touched something sticky and cold in her sleep. When she turned on the light, she saw that it was the cat that brought a snake to the bed to eat, which scared her mother to throw the cat and snake out of the door, and the window was closed, so that she would never let the cat in casually again.

Later, this cat didn't know where to eat rat poison. I saw it lying on the ground in the yard, twitching all over, foaming at the mouth and stiff. His eyes were full of pain. When I looked at it, I felt helpless for the first time ... My mother went to the village clinic to ask for advice, but the white cat died after all ... I was very sad at that time. But compared with cats in the countryside, this cat is also considered "long life".

Behind the door on the left side of the main room stood a red-jujube writing desk facing east and west. When we were young, we often wrote our homework on the desk. There are three drawers at the bottom of the desk near the desktop, and one cabinet at the left and right near the legs. There are some "ruler powder" (Figure 6), rulers and chalk in the drawer. "Ruler powder" is used to mark and sample cloth when my mother is a tailor, and "chalk" is used to draw for us on the wall when my mother is a teacher. In the cupboard, the "fruit scissors" and some other tools that my father used to take care of the branches of fruit trees are usually kept. My father's cutting and grafting technology is particularly powerful, and people in Fiona Fang for several kilometers have asked him for help in grafting.

Next to the writing desk is a desk, and to the south of the desk is the window of Westinghouse. The window of Westinghouse is the same as that of the East Room, except that about one meter outside the window is the north wall of the kitchen, which blocks a lot of sunshine and moonlight. There are shoes to wear at any time under the table.

In the southwest corner next to the table is my parents' bed. The bed is made of wood, facing north and south. The ground floor is covered with something called "foil" woven with sorghum stalks (Figure 7), the middle is covered with a mat woven with broken sorghum stalks (Figure 8), and cotton mattresses and sheets are covered on it. The part of the bed that sticks to the wall is surrounded by a circle of woven mats one meter wide. My sketches and gouache paintings are pasted on the wall, and there is a small round wall clock.

There is no wall between Westinghouse and the hall. My mother separated the hall from Westinghouse with a 2-meter-wide amaranth wardrobe and a cupboard. The side of the wardrobe faces the back wall, leaving a gap one person wide in the middle. When I was a child, I often hid in it. The front of the wardrobe faces the hall, with double doors, a mirror in the middle, and two phoenixes painted on the lower end of the mirror. The kitchen is divided into three floors: upper, middle and lower. On the top floor, there are double doors with green screens, which usually contain steamed buns, steamed buns and vegetable rolls. There are two drawers in the middle and a cupboard at the bottom. Usually, my mother puts some winter cotton-padded jackets and trousers, and sometimes we always hide in it when we play hide and seek.

The distance between the cupboard and the writing desk is just one or two meters, which is regarded as the door to the Westinghouse. In the west room, there is not only a big bed in the southwest corner, but also a small bed in the northwest corner. When we were young, we sometimes slept with our mother in the big bed, and our father slept in the small bed by himself. There are several stacked wooden cabinets between the bed end of the big bed and the bed side of the small bed. In the cabinets, there are some new sheets and some new embroidered shoes with different sizes. When our feet grow up, we will change a pair. On the top of the cabinets, there is an old-fashioned dowry suitcase.

There is a cupboard behind the cupboard, which is full of textbooks for our primary school, junior high school and senior high school. It is very heavy. The cupboard is full of clothes to wear in the season.

In the summer vacation of childhood, we especially liked to play in the big bed of Westinghouse, turning out clothes and sheets, putting them on our bodies to play the role of White Snake and the Monkey King ... We also liked to play "knocking the bottle caps" and "sprinkling sorbet sticks" on the lime floor of Westinghouse ... At that time, a simple and boring game could be played for half a day.

From the hall to the yard, we usually have to go down a step first. This step is built to avoid running water into the house in rainy days. But sometimes it rains heavily and urgently in summer, and it still sneaks into the house through the crack of the door. Ah, it's always a rainy night when I think of it. Our family is crazy about sweeping water with a broom. It's really painful!

Out of the step is a small slope about two meters long paved with patterned square cement bricks. In summer, we often spread a summer mat on this land to enjoy the cool, shake the cattail leaf fan, watch the stars blink and chat. This is the most pleasant moment in my memory.

There are two hibiscus trees planted on the land on both sides of the entrance of the hall (Figure 9). Perhaps it is common since childhood. I have never found this flower beautiful. In my opinion, its powder is an old and faded powder, which is not as bright as the rose. When it withers, it looks like a "frost-beaten eggplant", dejected and dejected, and it is still soft to the touch. Now, in fact, this flower has its own unique beauty, and now I especially like the word "hibiscus", which is probably the so-called treasure after losing it.

The southwest side of the hibiscus tree is our kitchen. The kitchen door faces east. We open the gauze curtain covered with soot and push it through the door. What we see is the lime wall and the stove in the southwest corner, on which stands a big aluminum pot cover. The mouth of the stove for adding firewood faces the east, and the south of the stove near the south wall is a "bellows" (Figure 1), which is used to supply air for firewood and make the fire more prosperous. On the north side of the cooktop, a platform flush with the cooktop is stacked with bricks, on which there is a large ceramic basin for kneading dough. Usually, there is half a basin of water in the basin, which is convenient for washing bowls and pans.

The northwest corner of the kitchen is a platform built of bricks, and the top layer is covered with cement. There are a series of kitchen supplies such as salt cans, oil tanks and kettle on it. There is a small water tank and two buckets beside the counter. When I was a child, I drank well water, and every household had a pressure well (Figure 11). The pressure well needs to draw water first, put half a scoop of water into it, and then press the lever quickly, and the water will be drawn up slowly. Usually, we take one bucket to the kitchen and pour it into the water tank for storage until the water tank is full, and then fill the two buckets. Later, tap water was connected to the village, and when the tap was twisted, water came out, which was much more convenient. But in winter, we have to wrap the part of tap water that leaks outside with thick layers of clothes, otherwise the water inside will freeze.

There are some farm tools behind the door in the northeast corner of the kitchen. Next to the farm tools, there is a stout big noodle jar. Usually, half a jar of white flour and half a bag of corn flour in a noodle bag are placed in the noodle jar, and then a rolling pin and a ladle made of half a gourd are placed to scoop the noodles. There is a rolling table between the vat and the table. Mother usually conjures steamed bread, steamed buns and strips of noodles, wide or thin or long or short.

And the area near the south wall and the stove is full of corn stalks, wheat straws, corncobs, cobs, dried twigs and other fuels used for fire. If you pile up high, you will have a full sense of security.

The light bulbs in the kitchen are usually smoked to half black, giving off a faint yellow light, and the wires hanging from the light bulbs are covered with black flocs. The kitchen window is even older, and it can't be closed with half-open all the year round. The bolt is hung on it for decoration, and the green screen window has become black. Every summer, the kitchen is always full of flies, and the walls are full of black spots.

The chimney is at the back of the kitchen. When you play with your friends, whenever you see smoke curling from the chimney, you know it's time to go home for dinner.

Looking back now, the kitchen is really dirty and messy, but when I was a child, the kitchen was a place where I could conjure up delicious food, a place where my parents lit a fire and cooked happily, and a place where there was still calm fireworks no matter how the seasons changed. In fact, my mother said that when I was a child, my family was very poor, even so poor that I couldn't eat a bite of oil for a month. But now, the days are getting better day by day. My sister and I have been working outside for many years, and my parents have retired upstairs to support the elderly. The fireworks in my hometown have moved upstairs, but the time for our reunion is getting less and less.

when it comes to our yard, a hundred flowers are blooming.

The yard is paved with bricks to make a winding detour about two meters wide from the main hall to the gate, and the two sides of the road are brick-made "garden fences" as high as the calf. The starting point of the "fence" on the west side is the outer corner of the kitchen, and the end point is the western wall of the yard near the gate, forming an arc. The "fence" on the east side is more complicated, from the outer wall of the hall, through the "water pressure well" to the outer edge of the "pigsty".

There were no pigs in the pigsty, so my father filled it up and dug a cellar to put those flowers and plants that were not frost-resistant in the winter.