Qinwa was at her uncle's house, and her uncle gave him to the old gentleman in the village school. The old gentleman slapped the board, and he flew away all the words that were so easy to recognize. He didn't go to school, his uncle and aunt coaxed him, he couldn't, he dragged him, he went and ran away, and even though he had to use ropes to tie him up, he ran away when he was empty.

"Crops are born!" After listening to his cousin's narration, Kang Tiansheng sighed, "It's really hard for you." ”

Qinwa began to do crop work with her father. Two or three acres of thin sandy land was not enough for his father to do, and he was idle when he was busy with farming. He studied carpentry and couldn't remember the size of the beams and roof trusses. It seems that it was not he who chose his profession, but his profession that chose him, and he learned to beat adobe, but it was a matter of convenience.

Among the seventy-two craftsmen in the villages, the work of the most clumsy people was the work of the most clumsy people, although it cannot be said that they did not have any skills, but mainly relied on hard work. Qinwa used her father's smooth persimmon wood mold to beat a stack (500) of adobe, built thatched houses and pigsties, and made several stacks in succession, knocking down the walls of her house that had been eroded and broken by wind and rain. In this way, Qinwa made adobe and became a teacher.

When there was a lot of work, the father and son each had a stone rammer and a wooden model, and went out to do work. When there was little way to live, Qinwa let her father stay in the house to rest and go alone.

His adobe is well beaten. Within a radius of ten miles, as soon as they heard that he was the son of an old adobe guest, they led him into the trench with complete trust.

On this day, Qinwa finished beating a stack of adobe for Wu Sanjia in Wuzhuang, and the sun in the fourth lunar month had just set the original slope. He ate dinner half a day later, took the string of hemp money handed to him by Wu San, put it in his waist, carried the stone rammer and wooden mold, and said goodbye. As soon as she walked out of the door, Wu San's woman walked up to her with a black face: "The adobe stack is upside down!"

"Huh?" Wu San suddenly widened his eyes and grabbed his rammer, "I spent the money in vain, and the food was eaten for nothing?"

"Admit yourself to be unlucky!" Qinwa shook off Wu San's tugging hand and said. According to the unwritten but customary rule in the countryside, when a stack of adobe is made, as long as the person who beats the adobe comes out of the trench and the stack falls, the salary must be paid. When Qinwa hit this adobe for Wu Sanjia today, she found that the soil was too soft, and then she thought that the weather was hot in April and the adobe hardened quickly, so she didn't mind. When he first heard Mrs. Wu's report on this unfortunate thing, he smacked his lips and felt uncomfortable. But when he saw Wu San's face change and open his eyes and didn't recognize people, he also came hard: "Didn't the adobe fall on my wooden mold......"

Wu San scolded his mother-in-law. The men and women of Wuzhuang who were watching pushed him away. Scolding and scolding, the heart is not good, but the township rules and regulations cannot be violated. He went home.

"Dogs are unreasonable!" Qinwa sat on the wooden bench of the small mansion and recounted the events of the day to her father, who was sitting on the threshold, "If he talks to me well, let's give him another stack, and I don't want to be paid!

After listening to this, Kang Tiansheng didn't say a word, took the hemp money that his son handed over to him to Wu San to earn from adobe, held it in his hand, and after a while, he stood up and put it in the rectangular wooden box, which was the dressing box sent by his deceased wife's mother's family. He didn't speak, lay down and slept.

Qinwa also lay down and slept. Father seems to be such a person, no matter what you say, he doesn't say much. If you're happy, you laugh, and if you're angry, you cough. Today he neither smiled nor sighed, he was like that.

Qinwa heard her father's cry, opened her eyes, it was dark, and in the soybean oil light, her father had already carried the stone rammer to his shoulder. He hurriedly got up, put on his clothes, and went to get his own set of tools, which his father had probably taken over in some distant village.

"You've got the furniture. The father said, "Thou shalt tamp, and I will offer the earth." ”

After that, the father carried the stone ram out of the door, and Qinwa followed behind and locked the door. The village was silent, a crooked crescent moon suspended over the West Plains, and the sound of frogs on the river beach was loud.

"Dad, which village are you going to?"

"If you ask, come with me. ”

Qinwa stopped talking, Majia Village passed, Xibao, Zhujiazhai...... Tian Ma Ming, walked into Wuzhuang Village Lane. The father still did not stop, nor did he look back, turned from the big cross of Wuzhuang, and stood at the gate of Wu San. Qinwa was stunned for a moment, and was about to get angry with her father, when Wu San walked out of the door.

"Third child, are you still beating adobe in that trench?"

Wu San was stunned for a moment, and said angrily: "I'm still fighting?"

"Are you right, or is that trench not?"

"I've found another adobe maker. ”

Qinwa couldn't bear it anymore (so humble and lowly), he suddenly turned around and left. As soon as he walked a few steps, the clothes on his shoulders were grabbed by his father, who was hurrying forward. Without saying a word, the father and son came to the big trench where Qinwa had beaten the adobe yesterday.

"Lift the ram!" Kang Tiansheng ordered after filling the wooden mold with soil.

Qinwa sighed loudly, lifted the stone rammer, and jumped onto the bluestone platform that hit the adobe. In the rural fields, which had just woken up from the silence of the night, the rhythmic sound of bluestone ramming against adobe sounded.

The sun came out from the top of the East Plains, and Qinwa was thirsty. In the past, when the sun was red, the owner would bring tea and crispy and soft dough to the moat. What a thing you did today!

When the time for the villagers to have breakfast came, on the dirt road outside the moat, they walked past the farmers who had returned from labor on the original slopes and rivers, and entered the village of Wuzhuang, where the trees were thickly shady. The father and son stopped, and the father took out the dried bun he brought from his pocket and nibbled on it. Qinwa's throat and eyes were dry and astringent, looking at the black-faced steamed buns that had been dried, she didn't move, she twisted her head to the side, avoiding her father's eyes, he was afraid of seeing her father's pitiful eyes. For the first time, he strongly felt the humiliation and inferiority of the stupid man, and hated his father, who was willing to do lowly behavior.

The sun was quite hot in the fourth month of the lunar calendar, running from east to west along the flat top of the original wall, and next to the time of the top of the western slope, a stack of 500 adobes was neatly stacked next to the pile of remnants that had collapsed yesterday. Father and son gathered their tools and took off their clothes on the ground, and walked out of the trench.

"Tell the third child, put the adobe on the ground, and beware of the rain tonight. My father told an old man at the entrance of the village, "I see that it will rain tonight, you can see the cloud platform at the mouth of the West River......"

"Let's go, let's go!" Qinwa walked out of the distance and scolded her father rudely, "What are you doing with all that idleness?"

When Qinwa returned home, as soon as she entered the door, she took off the furniture, squatted under the stove, lit the wheat straw, choked on the wet wood, and the tears exchanged, and the bellows board crackled. He was hungry and thirsty, and he was burning in vain. The father didn't say anything, and silently moved his hands and noodles on the board. If his father spoke, he would be ready to make a noise! He couldn't stand such a nest of people.

"Brother Kang!"

With a call, a head poked into the door, Qinwa looked back, but it was Wu San, he turned his head, ignored it, and pulled the bellows as usual. My father stepped forward.

"Brother Kang......! Alas, it's really ......," Wu San sat down at the table with his father, "I wasn't here today, I went to a relative's house." When I came back, I heard that you had another stack of ......."

"Nothing...... Hey, hey, hey......" The father was obviously not moved by Wu Sanyi's expression, and responded lightly, "It's nothing." ”

"Your grandfather and son have been hungry for a day and thirsty for a day!" Wu San became more and more excited the more he said, "As soon as I told the baby and his mother, I hurried to see you." If I don't come, the people of Wuzhuang will scold me for not understanding human nature. ”

"Oooh...... Hehe......" Kang Tiansheng also seemed to be moved, "We croppers, it's not easy to hit a stack of adobe, and it costs money...... We have earned people's money, eaten people's cooked food, and beaten people with a bunch of rotten goods, and we are not at peace in our hearts!"

"Don't say it, don't say it. Wu San turned his face, "Brother Qinwa, you also have a grudge...... Brother, I lost my words for a while......"

It's weird, all the evil anger and resentment that have been gathered in her heart all day disappeared at once, Qinwa glanced at Wu San, who was smiling all over his face, and smiled embarrassedly, indicating that he was also at fault. He lowered his head to boil the pot, and it seemed that Wu San was an enthusiastic person and a good farmer! He called his father an elder brother and a brother to himself.

"These are two handfuls of noodles, and this is the salary. Wu San's voice.

"I can't help it!" the father hurriedly pressed Wu San's hand.

"You two haven't eaten or drunk for a day......"

"No, no, no......"

Qinwa couldn't be silent any longer, jumped up from the stove, and helped her father hold down Wu San's hand: "Third uncle......"

The next day, a rural woman in her fifties in Wuzhuang walked into the courtyard of Qinwa's house, with a mysterious and hidden joy on her face, and said to Kang Tiansheng that Wu San entrusted her to propose family affairs to Qinwa, and wanted to give their second girl to Qinwa. In order to confirm this, the rural woman especially emphasized the original words that Wu San said when she asked her to do things: "Wu San said, we don't want high-rise housing compounds, and we don't want cars, horses and fields, we want to get the Kang family'......s father and son to be real, and we won't treat our baby badly."

According to the ancient and serious way of engagement in the countryside, red tape such as changing posts and giving gifts, this family affair was finally successfully matched by the country woman. Kang Tiansheng tied up the pile of copper yuan and hemp money in the wooden box of his deceased wife with red paper and handed it to the matchmaker in her fifties.

The marriage was just decided, and the strong man was sent to the head of Qinwa.

"Run!" Kang Tiansheng said, "I have beaten adobe all my life, and I have given Lao Jiang a lifetime of strong money, and now it is your turn again!"

Qinwa wrinkled her eyebrows, uncomfortable and panicked: "I ran away, what should you do?"

"If you run, I'll run!" Kang Tiansheng said, "Where can't you get a mouthful of food?"

Qinwa fled. Half a year later, he came back and told the panicked farmers in the village that they had been liberated! In the past few days, he has heard the sound of artillery in the direction of Nanshan, which was fired by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which was chasing the Kuomintang troops. He confirmed to the people that the bag of foreign noodles he had brought back on his shoulders had been picked up in the willow forest by the river, and had been left behind when the Nationalist army had failed and fled in a hurry......