We, it seems, often come back from school with our mother and have dinner at grandpa's house before we go home.
Grandpa's fire pit is covered with bacon and fish. Grandpa's cooking is hot and delicious.
Grandpa has five daughters and three sons. On holidays or during winter and summer vacations, there are many children and grandchildren, and they are full of enthusiasm.
When I was a child, I respected and feared my grandfather.
He is not a kind old man. He never smiled in his memory. The best color is peace.
When I'm not paying attention, it will pinch my nose and hurt me, but it "Cleisthenes" imitates Niu Jiao. He is teasing me and treating me like a calf, but he doesn't know how unhappy I am, because it hurts me.
Sometimes he suddenly asks me if I want to eat dates. Although it is obvious that the season for eating dates has passed, I think he may have hidden the impossible dates in some way. Grandpa is a very capable eater. He often keeps many dried bayberries and raisins. On any day of the year, his food will appear in a way that surprises us. In that era of material shortage, in the countryside where many people quickly filled their stomachs, grandpa was our omnipotent god of food.
So, I nod greedily every time, and then my head will be severely hit by my grandfather's five-claw hand.
The local accent of "claw" is jujube.
I think how stubborn I was at that time, with zero IQ and being cheated many times, and it was the same thing.
My paws are always confused. Apart from a little pain, I feel resentful and angry at being cheated.
But grandpa certainly didn't know that he teased his grandson in the way of his elders, but his grandson was not happy about it.
On summer nights, grandpa's yard is full of bamboo beds and recliners. Cousin, a group of us had a good time in the moonlight. Finally, we waited for that person, hunched over, holding a pipe with a cigarette, faded all fatigue, cleared our throat, and began to tell us stories about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, A Dream of Red Mansions and Water Margin. We have been expressing our love and appreciation for the beautiful Chang 'e. Once, I touched the moon with my fingers and said that I would weave a rattan ladder and climb to the moon. Grandpa was shocked. Grandpa said pointing at the moon was disrespectful to the moon. When I sleep at night, Mother Moon will cut off my ears. Everyone echoed. My cousin gloated at my ear and laughed.
I curled up on the bamboo bed, the cool Xia Feng hugged me, and the gentle moonlight covered me, but I couldn't say a word anymore.
It's late at night, only four or five years old. I went back to my room and slept so meekly with everyone.
But God knows how I spent that night,
I trembled with fear and tried to cover my ears. I want to cry, but I dare not. Tears wetted my pillow and stayed up until dawn. I found that my covered ear was still there. It turned out that it was not cut by Mother Moon. I still have ears!
It's just the pain last night and the joy this morning. No one told me when I was a child.
Childhood is always so sensitive to pain and so accustomed to love.
Because my father seldom goes home, after he goes home, the workers in this country just take the three of us to play without working hard. Therefore, I will often inadvertently find a man working hard in the garden behind the house, with a thin body and black clothes hidden in a lush green wedding, only showing a corner. I watched it again and again in doubt, but slowly, I became familiar with it. That man is my grandfather. I don't know why, I never ran to call him, and he didn't call me. Although I am very young, I know he is growing vegetables for my family.
He came quietly and went quietly. When I grow up, I will tell my mother about it. I just lamented his good ideas, but I was never moved. Until now, I am in my forties, and I am still moved by memories.
Grandpa is highly respected among his neighbors. He is a barefoot doctor. He often takes a medicine box with a small red cross on his back to see a doctor. His attic is full of roots, grass and vines. In addition to dressing the wound with herbs, he also cut the pustule with a bright knife. He gives people injections and medicines, and acupuncture various acupoints. If I am sallow and emaciated for a while, my mother will take me to my grandfather and say that I have indigestion. Then my mother picked me up, and my grandfather grabbed my hand and stuck a needle in the middle of my ten fingers. It was very painful, and it pricked out transparent effusion beads, sometimes.
Adults say it's good to give children an injection every year, but I'm really scared. It was not until I grew up to study in the county seat that the family privilege of acupuncture was taken away for free.
Grandpa's family often has patients. They are famous for coming from afar. There is a director in the city whose leg was broken in a car accident and can't be cured in the county hospital. He also went to his grandfather to be treated with herbs and returned with satisfaction.
One winter day, my grandfather was reading by a fire pit full of bacon. The roasted fat spilled oil on the red charcoal fire, causing bursts of smoke, but it still didn't disturb my grandfather's concentration on reading. My sister sneaked around behind my grandfather, and suddenly she shouted, Grandpa, your book fell down!
My sister revealed this amazing secret, but my father-in-law didn't know a word!
Then how can he learn superb medical skills? He will also prescribe pills for everyone.
Mother said that when my father-in-law was cutting firewood on the mountain when he was young, he met a bandit and was injured and hid. Bring him something to eat every day to live. He taught him that herbs are pathological knowledge, and he was bold. The bandits also taught him to scrape bones and cure poison. His father-in-law explored many ways to treat diseases himself. After liberation, he worked intensively in the village, and he became a famous doctor in eight neighboring countries.
Grandpa also has an erhu hanging in the middle of the room. Erhu is spotless and shiny. Grandpa often sings along with the erhu when he is free. I don't know what he sings. I just think grandpa is a very tall man. In the countryside where I live, only he knows the melody. In those poor times, it was difficult to have enough to eat. Why did grandpa buy erhu? Who taught him? Nobody told me.
Everywhere I go, people will kindly say that I am the grandson of Dr. Shu.
Dr. Shu's grandchildren are male and female. I remember that under the leadership of my big cousin, a group of five or six people lined up to the clinic of the brigade to find my father-in-law. My father-in-law gave us money one by one, 50 cents for the big one and 30 cents for the small one. We didn't know the taste until we found my father-in-law. We bought food with money, and we were very proud and happy, but I was very small but ashamed. I went there twice and reported to my mother. It won't happen again.
Face is born. When I was a child, my face was thinner than others. The face is for people to see, but what if others can't see it?
Therefore, in the place and time when you think others can't see their faces, the thief's heart will protrude.
"What are you doing? Those things can't be eaten when they are cooked! " Grandpa shouted at the foot of the slope behind the house.
We stole green grapes on the slope behind grandpa's house. Peanuts, fruit trees, tall shrubs and weeds covered our short bodies. We moved quickly and were nowhere to be found, but how did my grandfather find us?
Those things are made for us to eat, but how much can we get? Why don't you start first and eat as much as you want now, even if it's not delicious.
Grandpa's grapes never wait until the harvest time, but he still grows grapes every year, sets up grape racks and fertilizes the green vineyards.
He never reported our crimes to his parents. We think it's because he is blind. We are so mobile that he can't see which one we are.
Later, my mother stopped being a private teacher, and my grandfather's house was near the railway station. Business-minded mother built a hut and opened a small shop 50 meters away from grandpa's house, so that she could make a living and enjoy the care of her family.
Later, my father was transferred from a small county to a county, and my mother followed me. I left my grandfather to study in the city. I seldom see him again, only occasionally come back with my parents to pay New Year greetings during the Spring Festival.
When he was about 70 years old, his grandfather treated a young man with a leg injury in a car accident in a foreign land. The young man was treated for more than a month, but he was a little lame. Grandpa declared that this was his last patient. He is old, his hands and feet are weak, and he wants to rest.
A month later, his granddaughter disappeared, and the whole family could not find any news anywhere. They also reported the case to the police, but there was no result.
A week later, someone came to the door with a letter, and his granddaughter eloped to the lame man's house at night. Grandpa said that he just didn't see a word from the cripple and her granddaughter, nor did he see a word from them. How could he kidnap her?
When my grandfather died, my granddaughter fell in love with a guy my grandfather had never seen before. At that time, I went to college far away, just clothes and anger. When all I saw was love and friendship, my grandfather saw my mother before he died and asked her, "Salt is my nickname". My mother replied, (I am the only one in our family studying in the distance, and grandpa is not at ease to go out).
A week after my grandfather died, my conscience found that my mother only told me the news when I called home. At that time, communication was underdeveloped, and parents had to call the school in an emergency. The teacher told me that students could only call the public phone booth.
Mother said that considering that I was in college and my studies were tense, I was not informed to go home to attend my grandfather's funeral.
I was very calm and told my boyfriend who was walking around my waist that my grandfather died. A week ago, my mother didn't want me to go back.
That night, I didn't dream about my father-in-law, and I didn't dream about it at night. Now I think, maybe I don't have him in my heart, and he has refused to dream. To this day, I am 44 years old and still refuse to come to see me.
Where is my grandfather buried? My mother said he was buried in the forest not far from home. I once dug out the eggs there, and I piteously let three hungry suckling birds go. There is also a vegetable field where my father-in-law or uncle often works. My grandfather waved a hoe to weed, and the hoe pecked pests in the soil like a woodpecker's beak.
Grandpa has never laughed, so far, I don't know what he will look like when he smiles.
My grandfather is Shu Yihe, a native of Mengsi Township, Xupu County, Hunan Province. Xupu is Qu Yuan's Xupu, and Meng Sisu is known as the "Small Guilin" in Hunan.