As far back as I can remember, my parents have always been very harmonious.

When I was eight years old, I had to leave my hometown in the second semester of my fourth grade due to the limited teaching conditions in my village. That's why my brother and sister came home to help out with the family. My sister is still very young, not yet of school age. According to my father's personality, I thought that I would go home and do something for my parents like my older brothers and sisters. Even though I'm only eight years old, it's like this in the countryside, and people who don't go to school stay at home to help.

At that time, it was normal for people to drop out of school, and many children in the village had to leave the school and run to the busy land when they came to my point, leaving early and returning late forever. Of course, there are a few who can complete their studies safely, but there is no shortage of money at home. Those are the envy of most children.

My parents only have the impression that they work non-stop in the morning and return late, and I rarely see them except for eating and sleeping.

Mother always sighed and said: Even if it is so bitter, the house is still empty. My father, who didn't like to talk, took a sip of the bottle and then gently put it back.

No one in my family talked about my schooling, and I didn't dare to ask more, thinking to myself: the school is finally over.

I have fantasized more than once that the school there is very large, there are no crooked morning words on the desks, the classmates are very enthusiastic, the teachers will tell us stories very passionately, and we will play freely, laughing all day long.

The days passed, and the beginning of this year was a rainy season, and the smoke and rain were roaring in the air, the cool breeze was blowing, and the corn seedlings in the fields were flashing by the raindrops. My mother finally told my father about my schooling. I was nervous and looking forward to it. As a result, I didn't become one of the very few children, because I didn't have that extra money at home. From that moment on, I never had any miracles about going to school, just more crazy fantasies, day and night.

In the season of smoke and rain, my mother was wary that I couldn't bear it, so she didn't let me go to the field, only the eldest sister wore a coat twice her size and a hat bigger than her body, like a dummy used by farmers in the rice field to scare sparrows. But the elder brother was free, holding the bullwhip, and roaring so loudly that he was completely out of sight, and his shouting voice was clearly audible. The younger sister who stayed at home always played a different role as a doll, and she was talking to herself in a mulberry voice.

I didn't know how to spend this long rainy season, so I could only pick up a slingshot, bring a hat, and squat under the old trees in the courtyard to drive away the birds that were stealing the fruit.

There is a big old tree in my yard, and no one in the village can answer the name of the tree, and it is said that our ancestors had this tree when they lived here. Today, this old tree lifts some of its fruit during the rainy season every year, attracting a variety of birds from the surrounding area to feed. I heard my mother say that the village called the tree a buffalo tree because the cow ate the tree and the fruit was strong and solid. In the hot summer air, the fruit of this tree can also quench the thirst and escape the heat, so when the fruit is ripe, the people of the village come here to pick it.

From the outside, it is not difficult to see that the outer skin of the buffalo tree has slowly died, and some branches have not returned with the fallen leaves, and the outer skin of the main trunk has cracked, and the dead outer skin will be scattered on the ground with the smoke and wind. However, the tree is very large, about one meter in diameter, but not very high in height, about one meter seven places spread out four branches, the branches gently upward, and then give birth to a few branches with broken heads, some places have withered, after the rain erosion, some fungus will grow. My mother liked to pick the fungus and stew it with bacon.

The raindrops hit the branches and leaves, and the wind and rain with green smoke blew the branches and leaves to dance, but in this beautiful scene, I felt very sad, so I inexplicably remembered two sentences in my heart:

The spring back to the wood is withered, and the old tree buds are not so.

The lone eagle knows the warmth of spring, but it is unable to move.

Because in the texts at that time, as soon as spring comes, trees will sprout and bloom, for example, in an ancient poem, it is said: Wildfires are inexhaustible, and spring breezes blow and regenerate. However, the old trees in my yard, when spring comes, it is so difficult to sprout and bloom, and some withered branches are only lonely, without a trace of vitality.

However, the start of school came as scheduled.

I watched as some of the children in the village followed their fathers with bullwhips with school bags and umbrellas, and the corn seedlings in the fence swayed in the breeze, as if everything in the world was envious of their return. I'm longing,

It's also very extravagant, and I don't know if the school I yearn for will be as beautiful as Antun's fairy tale world. So, I was going to ask my mother.

I thought about my mother's disagreement and said to me with a smile, "School is not good, teachers will beat people." I also thought that my mother would scold loudly: "How can there be spare money for you to waste". But I didn't expect that my mother would be because of my direction

I fell out with my father. My father, who rarely spoke, scolded my mother like crazy, and what I heard from it was that everything was about money. My sister cried, I cried, and my mother took my sister and me to brave the darkness and walk on foot

I went to my grandmother's house. Only my sister and brother were still playing at home, and my father didn't say anything, but I felt helpless as a father.

About a week later, my father agreed that I should go to school.

I didn't know where my father got the money, and my mother didn't ask. Before leaving, my mother just said to me, "We don't need other families, you must study hard." Although it is just such a sentence to study hard, but to me, it is like

Carrying a thousand pounds of burden. Along the way, I didn't feel as relaxed and beautiful as I imagined, but felt that I was getting farther and farther away from home, farther and farther away from my parents, farther and farther away from my brothers and sisters, and then I was getting farther and farther away

Small, slowly, no one can see where I am.

The school was much better, and the teachers were very welcoming, but it didn't make me happy, because I saw my father's back turned and slowly disappeared into the country road. And my father just treated me when he went back

Say, "Don't fight with your classmates, listen to your teacher." After that, I smiled and chatted with the teacher who received me, and then left in a hurry. The hurried back, that is a father's duty, I have never been able to forget.

After my father left, I met my homeroom teacher. "You are He Changqing?" I nodded.

Then he said roughly, "Do you know you're a week late?" I nodded.

In the end, he said impatiently: "Follow me to get the textbook." "I followed her, and I saw that she had a big braid, and her waist was very strong, and she was dressed in a gray coarse cloth garment, and she took great steps." Remember to urge your parents to pay the tuition fees as soon as possible, anyway, sooner or later. She said to me. I didn't say anything, but I had mixed feelings. After receiving the book, I ran back to the dormitory in a frenzy, because I was afraid that she would say something to me again.

So that night in the dormitory, I didn't close my eyes all night.

Through the glass windows of the dormitory, you can clearly see the peach and plum trees outside the window. At this time, the peach and plum trees are full of fruits. "You're a backward kid." That's what my classmates say about me. Because I not only studied poorly, but my clothes and shoes were also very tattered, the teacher called me dirt buns, and my classmates laughed at me for duck eggs, because I couldn't answer every teacher's question.

I didn't understand the meaning of the words, but I sounded sarcastic, because every time they appeared, the next thing was laughter from my classmates.

I began to reflect, am I a good boy or not?

Maybe I'm different from my peers, I don't like lively occasions, and many times I will only hide quietly in the uninhabited fields to dare to do whatever I want, such as reading aloud and singing aloud. A casual word from someone else will make me reflect all day, maybe others are kind help, but I will feel that it is a kind of irony, so I am far away from my classmates, far away, and even farther away from my heart. So I was very much like my father, and I didn't like to talk.

It's all the work of the class teacher, and the whole school knows that I am a backward child. What's more, like my father, I was a little scoundrel, unable to pay the tuition, and my grades were lagging behind the class. I wanted to go home, but my father's busy back reminded me that I couldn't let him down, so I gritted my teeth. I only dare to raise my head in a corner where no one is around, perhaps because my self-esteem is too high to look at those ugly faces.