The sun slowly rose, and the air in the field became hotter. The big white horse ran a long way in one go, and when it was a little tired, it slowed down. From time to time, it shook its head and lowered its head and snorted vigorously, meaning to remind its owner that it was too thirsty to stand it. Seeing that it was so stubborn, Sun Guodong raised his whip and whipped it vigorously in the air, and a terrible scream rippled in front of him, and then quickly swirled around in the open field.

When the big white horse heard the sound, he knew that his master was angry, so he deliberately rang the bell under his neck, and on this inaccessible ancient road, it quickly quickened the steps of the soles of its feet. A puff of dust flew by, and under the neck of the big white horse, a bell rang.

After traveling more than twenty miles, the carriage stopped by a small clear river. After the bumps along the way, the big white horse's body was stained with sweat, Sun Guodong got out of the car, drove the big white horse to the river, and found a clean water's edge. When the big white horse saw the cool river water, Ash screamed a few times, then lowered his head and drank unceremoniously.

Sun Guodong held the reins in his hand, stared, stood by the river and watched the big white horse drink water, but did not speak. The green gauze tents on both sides of the river, swaying in the wind, make the sound of brushing, like a group of people laughing wildly, and also like a group of children frolicking by the river.

The secluded river flows quietly, and the river surface is covered with round lotus leaves, and all kinds of flowers bloom on the lotus leaves, including lotus flowers, chicken head rice flowers, and water chestnut flowers, which are crowded all over the river surface one by one, like sisters connected by blood. A few obese frogs, squatting on the lotus leaves with puffed out their eyes and unscrupulously noisy towards the shore, schools of fish and shrimp leisurely scurrying among the aquatic plants, some small and delicate duckweed, with a slight water pattern, swaying left and right, they put the gentle reflection, reflected on the river, roaming a beautiful fairy tale with the blue sky and white clouds. Everything here is imprinted with unforgettable footprints, Sun Xiaohong is very familiar with it, she watched silently, and she was also intoxicated.

The banks of the creek are covered with dense reeds and cattails. In autumn, these reeds and cattails grow tall and vigorous, and some ham-like things grow from the cattail bushes, which stand in rows in the water, exuding a faint smell of grass, and people are amazed that the magic of nature is so magical.

Sun Xiaohong jumped down from the carriage and squatted by the river, she was teasing the water with her hands while looking at the quiet river. Under her eyes, those green lotus leaves, one after another, were spread down in circles in front of her eyes, like many boats drifting with the current, towards the endless sky, slowly floating, and floating in her boundless thoughts.

It was a nameless river, and the water flowed in a hurry, not so deep, but not up to the waist of a grown man. It walked leisurely through the grass, and no one knew where it came from or where it was going. All year round, it just flows tirelessly, it is like a silver flying dragon, accompanied by the flowers and trees on both banks, hiding its thin body in the riverbed, counting its own happiness for many years, quietly flowing into the distance. In its veins, there are traces of time, gifts, and incomplete memories.

Xiaohong was tired of squatting, stood up, she looked at the sky with her eyes, and the clouds in the sky dispersed, revealing a clear blue and transparent sky, like a deep sea, but also like a poet's feelings, fresh and vast. The golden sun shone on the river, driving away the wet mist and enveloping the sky and the earth in a clear summer air.

When she was very young, her mother took her here to dig willow sprouts and small roots along the riverside. In a mother's world, it's always busy. She is like a tireless machine, running on her own without being pushed, not even refueled. On her head, under the pressure of life, as soon as she opens her eyes every day, she is faced with endless busyness. It seems that in her hands, there is farm work that can not be done in a lifetime, and hard work and strength that can not be shaken off in a lifetime.

Mom is different from the average housewife, she is a mother, but she has been doing what dad is supposed to do. There are not so many complicated things in her mind, and she does not have too many extravagant expectations in the face of life. As long as the family is full of old snacks and warmly dressed, standing in front of others, and not being told as a joke, you can be content. Her hands, in particular, can never stop, she soaks in the fields every day, even when there is no farm work in the field, she never allows herself to be idle.

After the crops are sealed, many people lie at home and sleep lazily, or gather together to talk about idle pieces. Mom is different, she will wear a water fork, push a wooden cart, take Xiaohong sisters and brothers, and come to the river to fish for water chestnuts and chicken head rice.

In July and August, when the autumn water was cold, my mother went down to the river, dripping with cold and biting water, using a sickle and a mess to cut the chicken's head rice in the deep river water. She soaked in the river all day, cutting the ball-sized chicken head rice from the river and throwing it one by one on the lawn on the bank to dry.

The mouths of these chickens are open, like cracked pomegranate fruits, which are very beautiful. But it was covered with sharp thorns, and Xiaohong could only look at it, not touch it with her hands. Every time I went to the river to cut the chicken head rice, my mother repeatedly told me that the thorns of the chicken head rice were poisonous, and after being stabbed by it, it would be infected with germs, and it would not get better for a while.

When I go home in the evening, the water on the chicken head rice is also dried, and then loaded on the board car, dragged home by my mother, collected in a pile, and soaked together, and after its skin is rotten, it will reveal the seeds the size of lotus seeds, and then take the local products to buy some to sell, and it will definitely be sold at a good price. This kind of work, other people's mothers will definitely not do it, they will only enjoy it, while their own mothers can enjoy it.

Every time my mother went to the river to cut chicken head rice, she would bring back a lot of strange water chestnuts. Xiaohong saw her mother fishing for water chestnuts in the river. She sat on the shore, kneaded some of the hemps into a ball, tied them with ropes, and threw them vigorously into the middle of the water chestnut seedlings, and then pulled them back, and the pointed water chestnuts would be pulled ashore along with the water chestnut seedlings, and the sisters and brothers immediately gathered around them, carefully plucked them one by one, and put them in a basket, which was counted as a small harvest.

When I go home at night, my grandmother puts these water chestnuts into a large pot and cooks them, takes them out, controls the moisture, cools them, and then slowly opens them with a small guillotine, revealing the snow-white kernels inside, and the children will be eager to stay in front of the grandmother, and eat one by one.

Eating water chestnut is Xiaohong's happiest thing, she sits on the bench and slowly picks it with a bamboo stick, that look, as if she is tasting the delicious food in the world, eating with full attention.

The past is like the wind, and it is unbearable to look back. Now that the days are good, there is no one to disturb the purity here. The river flows quietly, quietly, plainly, and undisturbed, showing the vicissitudes and desolation of nature.

The big white horse had drunk enough water from the river, and it looked up with pride. Sun Guodong drove it to the road, and after Xiaohong got into the car and sat down, the carriage walked forward quickly.

The carriage crossed the river and was not far from the outside of the dam. On the road from the river to the dam, there are a few willow trees growing here and there, and because no one is taking care of them, these willow trees have grown into deformed shapes, and the villagers are used to calling the fields here the big willow fields. The name of this land comes from a century-old willow in the middle of the ground. This willow tree was originally thick and strong, and more than a dozen people holding hands and hugging each other may not be able to surround it. Its huge canopy, like a big umbrella standing up to the sky, hangs high, like a giant that shakes the sky and the earth.

Now its body, burned by lightning and slashed several times, has been so bare that only some withered maids remain. Legend has it that this willow tree is hundreds of years old, and many ignorant people deliberately tie long red ropes on its branches in order to pray for its protection, offering fresh fruits, which is considered to be a godfather and godmother.

When the carriage passed by the big willow tree, Sun Xiaohong looked at the willow tree that was becoming crippled, and said to her father regretfully: "Dad, how old is this willow tree?" She thinks that the ancient tree is the same as people, day by day, it is full of the spirituality of heaven and earth, but it used to have so many companions, and now it is alone, and there is its own providence in the dark, and there are some indescribable confusions, which seem to have the same as her own experience, that is: "A life of empty life and a lifetime of sorrow, a thousand years can have a thousand years of life?" ”

"I don't know. According to your grandfather, this willow tree has gone through several dynasties, and it is estimated that it must be hundreds of years, right? It is estimated that few people know who planted it and when. Xiaohong, why did you suddenly remember to ask about this? Sun Guodong glanced at Sun Xiaohong puzzled, and continued to catch the car.

"It's just a tree, and it's so old and lonely, standing in a desert where no one has suffered, and it's been devastated and suffered, in fact, I think it's quite pitiful!" Sun Xiaohong began to be compassionate again.

"Yes, most of the people nowadays are unprofitable and insatiable. They only care about the present, they want to be quick for a while, they never think about the consequences when they talk and do things, who cares how sad a tree is! Sun Guodong said, flicking a long whip vigorously. Sun Xiaohong was silent, thinking of herself, she cast her blank gaze to the sky again.

The carriage soon reached the bottom of the dam. The big white horse climbed up the spiraling steep slope, then circled down again, and then stopped in a wooded area outside the dam. After Sun Guodong unloaded the big white horse from the cart, he drove it to a lush grass pond to graze leisurely. Turning around, he took out two sickles from the trunk, handed one to Xiaohong and said, "You watch the carriage here, I'll go to Jiangwan to take a look, the river hasn't risen in the past few days." After speaking, Sun Guodong turned around and left. He walked briskly through the woods, and soon disappeared into the grass of the river.

When Sun Xiaohong saw her father leaving, she pulled up her pants and sleeves and slowly cut the grass in the nearby grass pond. The barnyard grass after autumn is filled with slurry water, more than half a person high, cut down and held in the hands of the heavy, are all good forage, cattle and horses eat it, they will raise fat and strong. Sun Xiaohong cut slowly, she saw that there were almost forty or fifty bundles of cut, so she carefully beat the cut grass into bales, and then piled it in front of the carriage, and then waited for her father to come back while resting, and then loaded it onto the cart.

She had just sat down when a cool breeze blew, and she was cold. Looking up again, I saw a large black cloud pressed down low, and the rumbling thunder in the clouds was already approaching. She hurriedly stood up, her toes up, and looked in her father's direction. Fortunately, Sun Guodong walked back from Jiangwan with a mountain-like bale.

He came to the front of the carriage, put down the straw bales on his shoulders, hurriedly brought the big white horse, put it on the cart, and said anxiously: "There are still many straw bales over there in Jiangwan, you wait here, I will go over there to load the car, it will rain soon, so we two should hurry home!" After Sun Guodong quickly set up the car, he pulled the white horse and left. After he had loaded the cart over there, he came back and continued to load the cart with grass. When they loaded the bales into the truck, the rain began to pour down. For a time, between heaven and earth, there was a vast white expanse, making it difficult for people to move an inch.

After a terrifying lightning, there was a terrifying thunder, like a soul-inducing horn drum, which frightened Sun Xiaohong's face pale, her legs trembled, and she hurriedly took off her shirt and covered her head. Standing in this world where there was nowhere to hide, she almost collapsed to the ground.