December 5, 2020 at 11:55

Western Province, Egypt

In the early spring, my mother and father drove a bus to pick up vegetables in Xinjiang with the uncles of the same village, and the four of us brothers and sisters were left at home again, of course, the responsibility of worrying about the life of our three brothers naturally fell on my sister, who was in the fourth grade at that time, because there were only preschool and first grade in the village, and those above the first grade had to go to the next village three kilometers away, so my sister would not be late for school, and she would get up and go to school every day before dawn. The eldest brother is in the first grade and goes to school in the village, so he doesn't need to get up so early. But on this day, the eldest brother's laziness was committed, and he still didn't listen to his sister's instructions before leaving to go to school on time, and he was not allowed to be late, but chose to skip class and continue to sleep beautifully.

The early winter of the hometown seems a little shriveled and desolate, the small village located in the mountain nest is in the eyes at a glance, there is no trace of vitality, the sun lazily climbed up from the horizon, quietly tiptoe up and look over the hill to look at this small village, as if looking at the child in the cradle, full of infinite comfort. "dai~oh yes~mai~" Suddenly the eldest brother was woken up by the sound of driving sheep, got up and picked up the cuffs of the line jacket with his thumb, wiped the fog on the glass, and looked out the window with his hands on the glass, "The fourth and the fourth are going to go, the third master is driving the sheep to the back mountain, get up and chase the third master", the eldest brother grabbed my head with his hand while looking at the sheep outside the window and shook my head and shouted at me. I was deliberately lazy and deliberately dragged my eldest brother to chase after the third master, but when I thought that I had reached a deal with my eldest brother last night to borrow a satchel, I had no choice but to get up. Speaking of the eldest brother's satchel, it is a satchel that his mother sewed for him with some old clothes to go to school and endorse the satchel, the eldest brother's class is the only one he has, made of different strips of cloth that are cut into triangles, although it can not get rid of the old clothes at a glance, but for the eldest brother it is his treasure. Although his mother sewed the satchel for him to use for him to endorse when he went to school, the eldest brother never seemed to carry it to school, but every time he wandered relatives or went to the city, the satchel would be something he must not leave behind.

Of course, it's not just the eldest brother who likes the shoulder bag, I and the second brother and my sister and the eldest brother's classmates and so on are not envious of the eldest brother has a shoulder bag of his own, compared with the eldest brother's shoulder bag, the big brother's handbag is a little incomparable, so this is why the eldest brother can lie on the kang head and direct me to herd the sheep, so that I am willing to get up early in the morning, it turns out that the eldest brother planned not to go to school the night before, but if he doesn't go to school, he has to go to herd sheep, My sister said that I and the second brother are still young, don't worry that we will follow the third master to the back mountain to herd sheep, if she and the eldest brother do not go to school, then she and the eldest brother must follow the third master to herd the sheep, if they go to school, then there is no way, only me and the second brother can go with the third master, so the eldest brother thought of a perfect way, he called me aside and said: "I don't go to school on a cloudy day, but I have a lot of homework on a cloudy day, you rush to herd sheep on a cloudy day, brother lend you the shoulder bag to carry the sheep on a cloudy day, do you see if you can do it?" "When I heard that my eldest brother was going to lend me my satchel, I thought of how beautiful it would be to carry my satchel on a cloudy day to show off to others, so that others would cast envious eyes on me, so I agreed to my eldest brother without any hesitation.

I got up and jumped off the kang and went out of the door, and then the eldest brother also got up and went out of the door, I picked up a stick and walked straight to the sheepfold, the sheepfold at home is made of wooden sticks one by one spliced together, at the junction with four thick wooden sticks spliced a "mouth" word as the frame of the sheepfold door, and then tied a small wooden stick on the mouth word to make the door of the sheepfold, when opening only need to untie the rope tied to the door and the connection, and then lift it up, pull the door back and open. The eldest brother went to the house next to him and took out his satchel, and then took the satchel and walked back to the room where we were sleeping, and after a while he came out again and walked straight to me who was in the sheepfold and was ready to go out to drive the sheep. When he got there, he pulled the door of the sheepfold open, and said, "Now go out, and I'll show you." I think the sheep are too regular, they were kicked out of the circle by themselves, and they walked to the path leading to the back mountain next to us, and then stood and looked back at me, mai~mai~ and shouted, one after another, as if urging me that they were hungry and told me to hurry up. When I came out of the sheepfold, my eldest brother put the satchel around my neck and asked me, "Don't give it to me, get dirty, you know?" I filled you with a bottle of water and a potato that my sister burned yesterday and blackened it yesterday, and ate it secretly when you went to the mountain, don't take it out, the third master is very sharp (very cunning), if he finds out, he will trick you into eating it all, and then you will have nothing to eat, follow the third master closely, and pay attention to the hollow under your feet from time to time. Hurry up, go quickly, otherwise you won't be able to catch up with the third master."

I admire the logic of my eldest brother, as a first-grade elementary school student, he thinks everything too thoughtfully. I hugged the satchel around my neck and turned around and walked towards the sheep, and replied to my eldest brother without turning my head: "Don't worry, it's not the first time I've gone to herd sheep." After I came out of the path next to my house, I walked to the main road leading to the back mountain and saw my cousin not far away driving the sheep in front, and not far in front of him was the third master, there was no doubt that he was also chasing the third master, just like that, I was chasing my cousin, and my cousin was chasing the third master. The small mountain village is located on the Loess Plateau, drought and little rain for a long time, there is no trace of grass and vegetation at a glance around the village, only there will be grass in the surrounding mountains, because there is no one living in the mountains, the grass that grows year after year dries out and spreads on the dry loess, they will accumulate more and more in the case of no human habitation and destruction, so whenever there is no grass enough to feed the cattle and sheep around the village in winter and spring, people will try to get the grass in the surrounding mountains for the cattle and sheep to eat. But generally walk in the mountains if there is no big road, so donkey carts and frame carts can not get in at all, the only way for people to transport the grass out is to rely on people's backs, generally a back and forth about three or four hours, but the problem is that the grass that is carried back and forth is not enough for a group of sheep to stuff the teeth, and then a back up and down a lot of mountain roads, and when they get home, they are already tired enough, and they can carry it at most twice a day, and there is no efficiency. Therefore, for the sake of convenience, people simply carry dry food early in the morning to drive the sheep into the mountain, until it is almost dark and then come back, of course, there are some wild people (people who work hard) will choose to take enough dry food to live in the back mountain to herd sheep, and then go home after the sheep eat it for a few days, so there are many caves dug artificially in the back mountains of the small village.

I heard the old people in the village say that the deep mountains around the village used to be the first to live, and then they were often harassed by bandits, and people couldn't stand it and resisted the bandits, but in the end it seemed to be killed by the bandits, and then the Ningxia earthquake, the rolling mountains pressed the bandits into the loess, and then later, I heard that there were a lot of Mongolians and soldiers buried in the depths of the mountains, as for why I can't remember, maybe the old people in the village can't remember it clearly. I remember someone accidentally pried down a cliff while grazing sheep in the mountains, and found a human skull rolling off in the collapsed place, and this kind of thing often happens in small mountain villages, so people say that there are unclean things in the mountains, so for my cousin and me, we will definitely be afraid to drive a flock of sheep to the mountains alone. There are many holes in the mountain that have been washed down by the rain before, and a little carelessness may fall, if a person falls down, it is impossible to be found, let alone rescued, this kind of thing often happened in the village before, either fell and broke his legs and arms or fell down, no one found that he couldn't get up and was frozen to death in it, so we followed the third master for safety reasons, of course, there is an important reason that each connected mountain in the deep mountain seems to be copied and looks very similar, For children, there is no place to find a place to mark the road with a bare piece, so my cousin and I will not get lost with the third master.

But the third master was not willing to take us at all, saying that we were too young to walk, and we needed him to take care of us, which was a burden to him. So every time the third master drives the sheep from home, he will quietly go, but his sheep are not as stingy as the third master, every time he passes by the path between our family and my cousin's house, he will run around or mai~mai~ bark, as if shouting to my family and my uncle's sheep: "Brothers, get up quickly, go into the mountains to find food", plus we will deliberately pay attention to the third master's sheep when the morning is about to dawn, so as long as the third master drives the sheep past, he will inevitably not be able to escape and take us to the mountains together. Sometimes the third master sees that we are chasing him, and will deliberately slow down the pace to prevent us from catching up with him, but the more difficult thing is that he has forty or fifty sheep, and it is not easy to hurry, and he will run away after chasing this end, and he will run away after chasing that head, so no matter how much the third master thinks about hurrying up, as long as the sheep do not cooperate with him, then he is wild, and my cousin and I have seven or eight sheep each, as long as the stick is lifted and waved, the sheep are definitely like running fast like chicken blood, and chasing the third master's sheep is also a matter of minutes. We often run in the mountains to chase sheep have long been exercised, so I have always felt that the third master said that we can't walk is to underestimate us, in order to let him take us to herd sheep willingly every time, after catching up with him, I will quickly drive the sheep with my cousin to the third master's flock, once the sheep are mixed together, it is difficult to separate them, of course, with the third master's eyesight, he is also stupid and impossible to distinguish, the final result is that I can only compromise and bring me and my cousin.

But in fact, I think the third master is sometimes happy to take me and my cousin, and sometimes he deliberately dislikes us and drags our feet, the reason is nothing more than to let me and my cousin deliberately please him and show him, after the sheep arrive in the mountains, he can find a horn to lie down and rest, let me and my cousin run over willingly, run over to him, and stop the sheep from running around. Our family initially only had three sheep, which was distributed free of charge by the national poverty alleviation policy, and slowly there were seven or eight cubs, although it was a bit hard to run in the mountains with the third master, but I was actually relatively happy, and the happiness of running with the sheep in the mountains was the most enjoyable for me. In addition to the fun of running with the sheep on the mountain, the third master will also shout that my cousin and I will drive the rams in their respective families together, and then watch them hit each other's heads, that is, the two rams look at each other from a distance, and then a lunge runs towards each other, when they are about to hit each other, they kick their hind legs, their heads are lowered, and the two front legs are up and down, and after jumping, the horns of the sheep hit the horns together, after the collision, if the winner has not been distinguished, take a few steps back, and then sprint again and hit together, Until one of the sheep was knocked into and began to run away, the third master is a master of sheep raising, his sheep body is fat and strong, so my cousin's sheep and I have never won against him.

At noon, I quietly sat down with my satchel on my back under the pretext of going to, and sat down in a place where the third master and my cousin couldn't see, opened the satchel and took out the charred and scorched potatoes that my sister burned for me. The artichoke was not cooked in the middle, it was a little hard, I was reluctant to throw it away, and I was hungry again, and I couldn't eat enough to eat the cooked ones around me, and if I didn't eat them, I didn't even have the strength to go home in the afternoon, so in the end I simply ate it. After eating the artichoke, under the command of the third master, we drove the sheep to a hill with more grass, and then the third master found a small nest on the top of the mountain and lay down and took out the dry food he carried, and my cousin and I were looking for dry snail shells on the mountain, used to resist and play, to see whose snail shell was harder and more powerful, after playing for a while, I felt that the raw artichoke I ate began to be digested in the stomach, and slowly the stomach was a little distended, and I wanted to discharge some odor gas, but it may not be enough to store it, so it has not been discharged smoothly. After a long while, a dumb fart of "poof~" came out of my back with warmth, and this dumb fart was swept by the breeze, and my cousin and I were not influenced by it, nor were we affected by it and interrupted our game against the snail shell. "Why does this wind stink?" The voice of the third master who was lying in the nest eating came over, and the cousin looked up at the third master and replied: "Where is the smelly wind, you see you talking nonsense." I stared at my cousin, smashed my cousin with my elbow, and quietly told him that I had a fart, and my cousin covered his mouth and laughed non-stop, I was afraid that his laughter would be heard by the third master and finally knew that I had farted, so I forcibly pulled my cousin to the top of the mountain and the side where the third master was fart. In this way, as long as I feel that I am about to fart, I will call my cousin to deliberately run to the wind-blown side in front of the third master, pretend that my brother and cousin are kicking and playing, and then slowly slip away after quietly farting.

Soon it was three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the third master shouted that we were ready to go home, we had to catch more than six o'clock before dark out of the mountain, I think the more amazing point is that the sheep in the full after they just drive them to the mountain road home, and then the third master and the three of us walked in front, the sheep behind the swarming lined up along the way to follow us to go out, there is no need to run behind them to catch them or go to both sides to block them, maybe the sheep also know the truth that it is dark to go home. When I came down the hill to the path between my house and my cousin's house, the sheep seemed to recognize their own home, and my cousin's sheep walked to the left of the uncle's house, and the third master's sheep walked straight along the path to the direction of the third master's house below the village, and of course my sheep followed me to the right and walked home. When I was about to get home, I shouted loudly into the house: "Big brother and second brother, come out and block the sheep", the sheep are very conscious when they come home, but they are not conscious at all when they enter the circle, and I can't block them at all, so every time no matter who herds the sheep back, our brothers and sisters will definitely run out and go into the blockade together. But the sheep on this day is a little difficult to block, running indiscriminately, there are two sheep while we are not paying attention to run into the room, the board of the room put a lump of big brother and good noodles, the two sheep into the house went straight to the board, and with their mouths to gnaw the dough on the board, and then pulled the dough to the ground to eat. "Hag, two sheep have come in from your house" The cousin's daughter who came to our house through the wheat field pointed to the house and shouted, the eldest brother rushed into the house with a stick in his mouth, I don't know what to nag in his mouth, the sheep saw the eldest brother come in and was frightened and had nowhere to escape, the eldest brother entered the door and leaned against the wall sideways, the sheep ran out in front of him, and then the eldest brother also followed, and with the help of the cousin's daughter, we blocked the sheep into the pen.

After blocking the sheep, the eldest brother chattered that his sister was coming back from school and had to hurry up and cook, so he hurriedly ran into the room, and after arriving at the room, he looked for a lot of circle on the board and did not find the dough he had reconciled, and when the eldest brother was curious about where the dough went, the second brother pointed to the Yantai firewood pile and said, "Brother, here." The eldest brother picked up the dough covered with soil and said, "It's already so dirty, what should I do, it's all dirt, if my sister comes back, she will definitely clean us up if she knows that I haven't gone to herd sheep and haven't cooked", the eldest brother looked at the dough and became worried. At this time, the second brother next to him interjected again: "Big brother, put it in the basin and rub it to wash it for a ha, it should be clean, the tall frame on the clothes can be cleaned, and the soil on the surface can definitely be cleaned", the eldest brother looked up at the second brother, and felt that this was a good idea, so he went to find a big basin, poured a bucket of water, and then put the dough covered with soil into the basin and rubbed it up, but no matter how the eldest brother washed, he couldn't wash it, and the eldest brother wondered why the dough was getting smaller and smaller, and the yin and yin had already washed a basin of mushy water, Why can't it be washed, so the eldest brother pinched the dough and rubbed it over and over again, and finally there was a small handful of gluten that could not be washed off and a basin of flour and soil mixed with flour and soil, just when the three brothers didn't figure out why, the daughter of the cousin's family who was standing on the side said: "You are still amazing, I often see that my mother sells cold skin is made like this, that is, put the noodles in and wash them to make cold skin, you are making cold skin." The inexplicable eldest brother listened to what his cousin's daughter said, and he gave a perfect answer and explanation for his curiosity, so he raised his head and looked at us, deliberately pinched the remaining gluten in the basin with his hand and continued to wash it and said to us with a smile: "It turns out that this is Liangpi, I will also wash Liangpi hahaha", "Hahahahahaha" Several hairy children laughed around a basin of noodles.

The three brothers have only heard of cold skin when they are so old, but they have never seen what cold skin is like, and they have never heard of how to eat it, nor have they seen or tasted it, so when the daughter of the cousin's family said that this is to make cold skin, it was curious, and it was also greedy for fun to wash such a pot, and as for cooking for my sister, I have forgotten everything.

People always grow up inadvertently, I admire our brothers and sisters at a very young age has accepted what an adult should do, when I was a child, I was too brave to live, so now I am careful to do anything, even the most basic diligence when I was a child is now no longer found, for a moment I feel that adults may not live as well as a child.