The whole way home was dirt roads, not to mention cement roads, not even a section of asphalt road. The road was uneven, there was a lot of sand, stones and cow dung, and with his son on the back seat, Wang Xiangyu did not ride fast. When the road was flat and downhill, the bicycle carried the father and son forward, and when they reached the uphill slope, Wang Xiangyu pushed the car, and Wang He followed behind with a net bag.

On the way home, Wang He's heart rippled like a spring breeze on the water. This road used to be walked for several years when I was in elementary school, and then after the family moved to the county seat, I walked less, and only when I went back to my hometown to see my grandparents and came to the town to buy some things.

After riding several bridges, crossing many slopes, the provincial road has become a village road, the road surface has become narrower, the rice fields on both sides have gradually increased, some have just planted seedlings, and some paddy field farmers are still driving the big buffalo to plow, and the last preparation before transplanting rice is carried out.

This work is very interesting in the eyes of children, people stand on a wooden tool that is a bit like the word "say", except for the middle of the horizontal is a propeller-shaped can be rolled, the other horizontal and vertical is flat, through the pull of the ox, under the weight of the person's weight, let the propeller roll up in the paddy field, the field has been ploughed over the blister and rake the soil and then broken, after the process is completed, the back and forth to let the ox drag a more than one meter long horizontal log, back and forth in the field after pressing several times, and then you can plant seedlings.

Because my father works in the town, he is basically not at home during the busy farming time, and most of the farm work at home can be done by his mother, but he can't do it like driving a big buffalo to plow the field.

Ploughing and raking the field will not make children envious, but when "stepping on the roller shaft," almost every rural child once hoped that it was himself who stood on the word tool behind the buttocks of the ox! While raising the whip of the ox and shouting, he listened to the sound of "da-da" when the pillar under his feet pressed against the water, just like a general charging on the battlefield, what a majestic thing!

However, adults don't think so, and my mother often teaches Wang He that if you don't study hard, when you grow up, you will plow the field and make the plough and rake the shaft!

Wang He sat on the back seat of his bicycle and re-entered the countryside in his memory.

When I was about to reach the village, gray-white smoke had risen from the chimneys of many houses on both sides of the road, and it was time to start boiling water for cooking. Parents work the farm, and the children at home must calculate the time to boil water and cook, so that the parents can have hot water to bathe as soon as they get home, and after bathing, the dishes are ready, just enough to eat a steaming meal.

When Wang He is at home, he is usually responsible for lighting the fire, and his sister is responsible for cooking. Children in this year are not little princesses or little princes, whether they are middle school students or elementary school students, as long as they are at home, whether they are cooking on the fire, herding cattle, or mowing grass, it is basically your life.

Wang Xiangyu greeted people he knew all the way, and finally rode into the hydropower station and put his bicycle into the power station.

As soon as he entered the village and turned a corner, Wang He saw the familiar big iron pipe, which was inserted into the power station from the top of the hill behind the power station, with a total length of more than 200 meters and a diameter of more than 50 centimeters wide. The outside of the big iron pipe is pale yellow, I don't know whether it is painted paint or rust, after receiving the water of the canal at the top of the mountain, after a drop of more than 200 meters, the kinetic energy generated by rushing down drives the generator set to rotate to generate electricity.

In recent years, in addition to flashlights, most of the villagers' household appliances have been added with tape recorders, electric fans, televisions, etc., and there are rice mills for electricity in the village, and there is an oil mill, and the power supply is a little unable to keep up, especially in the rainy season, and there will be power outages from time to time.

Wang He watched cartoons with his cousin in his last life, and often saw that the power ran out in the middle of it, especially when watching "Cat and Mouse" at six o'clock in the evening on weekends, the power outages were even more frequent.

There was a vacant lot in front of the station, next to farmland, and a fish pond with a small store next to it, which had been bulldozed and filled in twenty years later, and buildings and a small square had been built. Except for the village committee, the building is a house for the villagers to live in. The small square is for the villagers to use for leisure and fitness, and on weekdays, there are basically elderly people over 60 years old, with left-behind children from one or two years old to ten years old playing, and the children's parents, older brothers and sisters, basically go out to work.

After more than ten or twenty years, the houses are getting better and better, the higher and higher the living standards of the people, the time for the family to live together is getting less and less, and the older people are more and more nostalgic for the days when they were young, while the young people yearn for the life of the big city. This kind of change of the times has not yet appeared on a large scale, and it may have a precursor in the developed coastal areas.

Wang Xiangyu locked the bicycle, handed a cigarette to the staff on duty at the power station, said hello, and saw his son stunned there, and couldn't help but say:

"What are you looking at? I'll carry my pocket. ”

Wang He, who was out of his mind, came back to his senses and hurriedly said:

"No, no, I can move it. ”

Wang Xiangyu saw that his son was avoiding things behind him, so he stopped insisting and walked forward, with Wang He following behind.

When passing in front of the commissary, Wang Xiangyu greeted the villagers who were resting under the trees in front of the door. The father and son walked to the side of the fish pond, the left is the farmland that has been planted with seedlings, the right is a small stream, go more than 100 meters and turn left into it, the left is a fish pond, on the right side of a family at the foot of the mountain in front, is a sheep intestine mountain road that winds upward, along this path to go up a few kilometers, according to the foot strength of adults, about an hour to walk to Wang He's house.

In later generations, the path has been widened several times, first you can ride a motorcycle, and in 2016 or so, it has been put on a cement pavement, and you can get home in just a few minutes by driving from the edge of the small square, but at that time the whole family has been away from home for many years, and the parents will occasionally come back a year, and Wang He has rarely returned.

Wang He looked at Wang Xiangyu walking in front of him, and thought to himself that Abba would not believe that in twenty years, he would drive back to his hometown in a small car, right?

Listening to the birdsong and the sound of running water all the way, and looking at the grass and trees on both sides of the road, Wang He integrated into his memory and arrived home unconsciously.

Wang He's home is halfway up a hill on the right side of the mountain road. When there were still thirty or forty meters away from home, a black earth dog rushed out, and after a quick circle around Wang Xiangyu, he ran to Wang He's side, drilled around him, and shook his tail with excitement.

In the countryside, almost every household will raise a dog, not those who are precious in later generations, all kinds of pet dogs, now people have no spare money at home, will not have the leisure to raise pets, almost all of them are native dogs, the scientific name is Chinese pastoral dog. The dog can take care of the home, occasionally hunt, and the puppy can be sold for money.

When Wang He used to go to school in the village primary school, the black dog would follow him to school, and on the day Wang He transferred to the town to go to school, he chased Wang Xiangyu's bicycle for a long time, no matter how Wang He scolded him, he refused to go back, and finally when he passed through a village, he was surrounded by five or six dogs in the village, and he fled in the wilderness.

When Wang He was in his second year of junior high school, the black dog disappeared one day, some people speculated that it was stolen by dog thieves, and some people speculated that it was poisoned to death after eating rat poisoned rats, Wang He was very sad to hear it.

Many years later, when my mother and daughter-in-law talked about rural life, my mother said that the dog and Wang He were the best, because they were brought from someone else's house the year after Wang He was born, and the little Wang He still slept in the same bed with the puppy.

In the teasing of his wife, Wang He remembered the speculation of the year, and said that he might have died of rat poison, but his mother had a new idea, she speculated that the black dog should have reached the age and died of natural causes.

Wang He always hoped that what his mother said was the real cause of the black dog's death.

Now seeing the healthy and lively black dog again, Wang He was very happy, and excitedly stretched out his hand to stroke it, and the dog turned his head and stretched out his tongue to lick and lick Wang He's hand!