Father’s Town
Written by Wei Changying
In recent years, a "return to my parents' home" activity has emerged in our place. The old and young girl in our village is not willing to fall behind. After a month of organization, she "returned to her parents' home".
I love my parents, that unforgettable love. Of course, I also have a deep love for my parents’ home.
My mother's home is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and there is a river flowing in the river. These mountains, rivers, even trees and flowers are often the scene in my dreams. As soon as I mentioned it, my heart tides fluctuate and I couldn't calm down for a long time.
When I was a child, that is, in the early 1950s. My mother's home is still a small village. There are only more than a dozen families. Some live in stone kilns, and some live in earth kilns with only a small square window. Due to the erosion of wind and rain, the kiln faces are ditched and crossed, like scars on human faces. The primary school I went to was just a three-hole earthen kiln. One hole is the teacher’s office, and the two holes are our classroom. The classroom walls are covered with mud. There is a large earthen kang in each kiln. The desk I brought from my home was placed on the kang, which was about one meter long and eighty centimeters wide. We just sat cross-legged at the desk to study. The blackboard is a large stone slab painted with bituminous coal , standing on the wall on one side of the kang. The tool we learn to write is a earth plate, which is a small square wooden plate that puts some ground loess in it, and writes on the soil with a firewood stick. After writing, push and pull the earth plate, and the words written are gone, and then write another one. Dozens of our babies went to this primary school. At the beginning, we learned "sheep, big sheep, small sheep, small sheep, little goat jumped high", and then gradually learned a lot of words, learned to solve four application questions, and could sing "Spanning the Yalu River with great confidence..."
We went to school and went home every day along the village trails. Once, I remember that the ears of sorghum were already slightly red at that time. After school in the afternoon, I followed a few babies back. As soon as I walked out of the sorghum field in the river, a big bad wolf ran towards me with a pig baby in his mouth. The timid cried and I suddenly felt sweaty. Thanks to a young man who roared a few times, the wolf threw the pig and ran away.
10 years old, I left the village and went to study in a town thirty miles away.
Every time I go home, I see changes in the village. For example, a new primary school has been built, some people have built new stone kilns, dry river land has turned into water land, and a wide road has been built in the river... But no matter how change, the word "village" is left.
early eighties. One autumn, I went back to see my parents. After getting off at the parking point not far from the village, I was stunned. A street appeared in front of me! On both sides of the street are neat and new-style stone kilns. Some are restaurants, some are clothing stores, and some are bicycle repair shops. The signs are very conspicuous.
I watched in surprise and slowly stepped onto the street. In the place where the bricks were laid on the back street, I saw my father bent down and putting them on the ground, which was very difficult. I called intimately, Dad——! My dad was focusing on laying bricks, but he didn't hear me calling him. I ran over and stood beside him and shouted loudly. He was shocked. He stopped the work in his hand, looked up at me with surprise, and asked, "I'm back?" Then, I asked with a proud tone, do you think this street is beautiful? It's not worse than the streets of your county town, right? With the approval of our superiors, our village was changed to a town and a gathering was established. I looked at the town like the newly unearthed seedlings, and then looked at my father carefully. I saw that his hair had turned a lot white, wrinkles had increased on his forehead, and his face became thinner and his face turned into a long horse's face. I feel distressed. My father, who is over 60 years old, has been the village committee director for two years. He told him not to be the village official, and he always smiled without saying anything. Now, the village has changed. But he became much haggard.
Mom is making my favorite potatoes and rub . While mom was cooking, dad still talked about the village becoming a town. He smiled and said that the village became a town and the market was established again. From then on, we could take the food, vegetables and fruits we planted, and we could sell them at the market if we couldn't finish it. There are also those you want to buy in the market. Villagers can open stores and set up stalls, making money much easier than before.
After listening to my father's words, my mother started nagging.
Mom glanced at her father and said to me, your father, since she applied to transfer to a village to a town, her heart has been in the town. Last winter, I spent nine days running to the county to find the county magistrate. In the county town, I lived in a small shop and stood at the gate of the county government at dawn. I was so cold that my feet were numb and my hands were numb, so I had to run on the spot. People told him that the county magistrate went to the countryside and only came back after a while. The person who followed him was so cold that he couldn't hold on, so he waited. The guardian asked him to go back to the house to warm up, but he didn't. The person he followed asked him to go to the cafeteria for lunch, but he didn't go, and asked him to bring back two buns. His waiting moved the doorkeeper, and the doorkeeper reported it to the people in the office, and the people in the office were also a little moved and reported it to the county magistrate. When it was almost dark, the county magistrate's car stopped at the gate of the county government. The county magistrate got out of the car, held your dad's hand, and took him back to the office.
Your dad caught a cold and came back to sleep for 6 or 7 days.
Dad chuckled softly and said to mom, "What are you doing when you say this?" If the village candidates are selected as director, I have to do something!
Mom didn't listen to her father and continued to nag. In July this year, one night, in the middle of the night, it was raining. Your father opened his eyes and put on his clothes. He was about to go to the construction site where the drainage moat was not repaired. People in their sixties, what if they fail? I didn't let him go, he forced me to shake off my hand, put on a straw hat, took a shovel and left.
When I came back tomorrow, I was covered in mud, and my knees were bleeding.
Mom used a complaint and heartache tone
praise content, and after I talked for a while, I couldn't help crying.
A year later, two streets were built. Every market day, people who go to the market are crowded with people. Our village has become a true town.
At the meeting to celebrate the completion of the town, the father couldn't hold his mouth even when he smiled, like a child celebrating the New Year.
40 years have passed, and my father and mother have gone there. Since my parents were gone, I haven't returned to my parents' home for 6 years, but when I dreamed at midnight, I always saw my parents walking in their town. While walking, I smiled and said to me, "Our town is not worse than the small town you live in, right?"
The car galloped on the flat asphalt road, and the pastoral scenery outside the car window retreated one by one, making me intoxicated. Suddenly, my neighbor was sitting and shouting, "Look, the words "The countryside must be revitalized" horizontally in front of me are so powerful and powerful! I turned around and saw that the name of my parents' home, my father's town, was written under the big words.
I got off the car and looked at it again and again. Is this place in front of me my father’s town? The spacious street is hardened. There were agricultural tricycles or cars running by the streets with grain bags and green vegetables. There are buildings on both sides of the street, and the signs hanging on the facades are different in colors and sizes, and some are neon signs. What electrical appliances, car repairs, specialty stores, , Huawei mobile , computer sales, local specialties wholesale, everything is available. A propaganda poster for garbage sorting is erected next to the trash can on the street.
My eyes moved to the mountain behind the town. On the mountain, layers of terraced fields have been built and apple trees have been planted. On the top of the mountain, the familiar big toon tree is still there, and there is a network antenna in front of the tree. Looking closely, there was a figure standing on the white cloud next to the antenna, which looked very much like my father. My eyes heated up and I said in my heart, Dad, the town you have worked hard to build has become like this. Your spirit in heaven must be very happy, right?
As I thought about it, I burst into tears.
September 3, 2021
Teacher Wei Changying's novel collection "The Story of Mortals"
Poet Cao Guxi gave calligraphy works by Teacher Wei Changying
This article author Wei Changying
Wei Changying, female, from Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, is a educated youth returning home. He has worked as a teacher and administrative cadre, but he is now retired.He has edited more than 1.5 million words, including "Suide Literature and History", and published nearly 2 million words of novels, essays, and documentary literature. Among them are the novel "Deep in the Mountains", "The Story of Mortals", "The Song of the Undetermined River", "The Riverside Avenue", "The Stars", and "For Tomorrow", the prose "The River of Life" (written with Rentai) that is currently a member of the Shaanxi Writers Association .
