There were so many people in the house, but there was no noisy sound, everyone was silently doing their own thing, and even the conversation was whispering, for fear of disturbing the peace of the deceased.

After a while, the village chief came in a hurry, and he arranged for a few people to help build the funeral shed, and asked a few young men to come to the town to help buy vegetables.

Xiaowen's father saw him coming, invited him to the back room, and discussed with him about the old man's burial.

When the village chief heard that the old man wanted to be buried, he buried him in the courtyard of his home, thought about it for a while, and agreed to come down, "Okay." The old man is the patron saint of our village, if he is buried here, the people in the village will also be at ease, and the people in our village will be here to provide for him in the future. The village approved this matter, and the town also knows about the situation here, so I just need to report it. ”

Xiaowen's father hurriedly thanked him, "Village Chief, thank you for bothering you." ”

"It's the people of our village who should thank your father, if it weren't for him, how would we have this peaceful life? The old man is so old, and he is dying, which can be regarded as a happy funeral. And thou shalt mourn. The village chief said and sighed: "The old man is a good man, the people of our village are still discussing waiting for him to celebrate his eighty birthday when he is eighty, how can he think ......." Alas! ”

When Xiaowen's father heard this, his eyes turned red, and several juniors also bowed their heads and wiped their tears.

Gao Jin listened on the sidelines, thinking to himself how persuasive the village chief is? It's okay if he doesn't persuade him, this persuasion makes him cry a lot.

Xiaowen's brother and Fang Zheng drove to the town to buy funeral supplies and buy incense, candles, and paper money. Wreaths and paper figurines do not buy ready-made, only buy bamboo strips and colored paper, and then tie them by their own families.

The funeral tent was quickly erected. Gao Yuan calculated the time, placed the old man's body in the mourning shed, and lit an everlasting lamp on the top of the old man's head.

Xiaowen's brother put on filial piety clothes and took Haohao to guard the old man's spirit in the mourning shed, and when some came to worship, they kowtowed in the mourning shed.

Almost all the people in the village came, crying and shouting one by one. The older ones called Uncle Gao, and the younger ones called Grandpa Gao, and lined up to kowtow to the old man.

At noon. The mayor of the town also came, gave the old man a wreath, saluted in front of the old man's spirit, and turned his head to look at the teary-eyed villagers in the courtyard. Then he held Xiaowen's father's hand. Said kindly: "The village chief told me, your family's affairs are special, just bury him here according to the old man's wishes, the old man will save people for a lifetime, and it is reasonable for him to be buried in peace." ”

*

The women of the village gathered in the kitchen of the Gao family to help Xiaowen's mother prepare a lunch for the villagers at noon. This kind of meal for funerals is generally very plain, but you can't neglect the villagers who come to help, so it doesn't matter who is doing the funeral. Women from the same village would come over and help with the cooking.

It's just that there are too many people who come to Gao's house to help with the work, and the originally spacious kitchen is full of people. The cooks don't even have a place to turn around.

Aunt Meng saw that this was not good, everyone was crowded here, it was too chaotic. So he left a few young daughters-in-law who worked hard here to help, and let the others go home first.

"Shunzi daughter-in-law, third daughter-in-law, a few of you stay here to help, the others go home first, and then call you when you need to work." She chattered, "I know everyone wants to do their part, but it's not a bad day, and you will change shifts tomorrow." She said, and said to Xiaowen's mother: "Doctor Gao is kind to our whole village, over the years, adults and children have had a major illness or a small disaster, and they have not bothered him, and the medicine he collected on the mountain has cured many people." Now that it's coming, everyone doesn't do something for him, and they always feel that they owe him a favor. ”

With her tears, everyone was sad with her.

Xiaowen's mother knew their intentions, but she was not good at words, so she had to say: "Everyone is a fellow villager, and they should all be." ”

*

From morning to evening, the sun watched the people in the village come and go, the wreaths in the courtyard were piled up, and the men, women and children who came to mourn rarely bowed, and they all knelt in front of the spirit and kowtowed, and then delayed for a while, before turning back and leaving.

At night, the lights inside and outside the house were turned on, Haohao stayed in the mourning shed for a day, he was already very tired, Xiaowen asked his brother to take the child out to sleep first, and she went in to keep a wake for her grandfather.

After dinner, the crowd of the family still did not disperse, and the house could not sit down, so everyone brought stools and small horses from the house, and sat in the courtyard. So many people don't laugh and chatter, everyone is bowing their heads to do things, and they are all quiet when they don't do things; Hundreds of people have eaten two meals at noon and night, the house and yard are also clean, the kitchen is also helped to tidy up, and the dishes to be made tomorrow have been selected and neatly stacked on the stove.

She remembered that when Xu Juan's younger brother was at the funeral, he also had enthusiastic village neighbors to help, but it was inevitably messy.

Compared with the sad and solemn scene now, it is simply a world of difference.

"There were a lot of people here on this day, and it turned out that there were so many people in the village." She said to herself.

The second aunt who was sitting next to her heard her say this, and said softly: "It's not all people from our village who are here today, but all those who have received the favor of the high doctor from ten miles and eight towns are here." If you haven't received the letter, you can expect to arrive tomorrow. Doctor Gao's medical skills are high, his heart is kind, the medicine in his room has not been broken at any time, every year when the season comes, he will go to the mountains to collect medicine, a mountain is two or three months, the collected medicinal materials heard that the old is valuable, he does not sell at a high price, who has a difficult disease in the township, he is half bought and half sent, if there is money, there is no money. He is in his seventies, and he took Xiaowen and his father up the mountain last year, and when he went home from the mountain, he lost a lot of weight; We were all worried that his body would not be able to bear it, and persuaded him not to go up the mountain this year, and he also said that he would go into the mountain again before he was eighty years old. ”

Sunshine listened to her nagging words, and her heart was not so panicked: although the old man is gone, there are still people who think of him, and these neighbors he guards are people with conscience and gratitude, and he has not sacrificed in vain.

These people came to see him off with his kindness, which was naturally different from the mentality of Xu Juan's family who went to help out of pity and sympathy.

She looked at the big locust tree in the yard, it was clean, and there was not a single ghost. (To be continued.) )