(44)

Most of the people who come to Wendouzhai to make a living by weaving and drying mats, playing cotton, and beating barrels are mostly people from Xiangxi. The people of Wendouzhai always used to call them "Hunan Yankees", also known as "Xiajiang Ke".

They go to the countryside to visit the villages, do hundreds of jobs, and eat hundreds of meals, all by virtue of a superb craft.

Wendou Village has fir wood, and it is oil fir wood. The branches of cedar are a good material for making washbasins, foot basins, and wooden barrels, and the objects made are beautiful and durable. The mat is mainly used to dry rice, which is necessary for every family, and if it is rotten, it must be made up in time. And the bamboo that weaves the mats is everywhere, as long as the craftsman is paid a little salary.

will know this set of crafts, and there is never a shortage of food in Wendou Village. Often, before the work of Zhang San's family is finished, Li Si's family will come to the door.

Therefore, they generally work in Wendouzhai for several months, or even half a year. After coming and going, I became familiar with the people in the village.

In contrast, playing cotton is dirty and tiring.

The sound of playing cotton is very good, and the rhythm is very strong, a bit like dance music. But when playing cotton, the room is full of dust, and the master must wear a mask. A bed of cotton pops down, and the master often becomes a white "snowman".

After a busy day, I don't finish until the evening. Wash your face and wipe the sweat off your body, the host has already prepared a meal and prepared a little wine. The night was too long, so they drank a bowl of wine, and after eating, they went to the village to find someone to play money, and always came back until midnight.

At dawn the next day, I got up early to work.

When I was a child, these masters all came to my house to work, and there was a master who was also surnamed Li, which was half of my uncle's family. So the wages were a little less, because they didn't want to go, and the mother later killed a chicken to entertain them. That night, they drank a little too much, and instead of going to the village to make money, they talked to their father and cousin.

It turned out that they were from Baoqing, Hunan. That place, not far from the "Hongjiang big place", is glorified by the ancestor "Baoqing's fist", but whenever you go out to eat handicraft meals, you have to practice a little martial arts. There was a young master who was drunk and spoke a little louder. My cousin is also a practitioner, and he is full of brute strength, and he can't listen to outsiders showing off when he is drunk, so he proposes to go to the open space outside to make a one-on-one comparison. But the old master reprimanded the young man he brought out for his irresponsible thoughts after drinking, saying that martial arts training was for self-defense, not for show, and said many good things to his cousin.

It is difficult for a strong dragon to suppress the head snake on the ground, and it is generally difficult to end up competing on the ground of others. The old master is an old man who has traveled from south to north, of course, he is white.

The old master said this, and the father also tried his best to make peace next to him, and the two sides no longer insisted, and everyone continued to drink.

That night, I heard the old master in his room reprimand the young apprentice with words, to the effect that if he disobeyed again, he would be sent back to his hometown. The young master was a little unconvinced, but he didn't refute it, and he went to whoever lay down. The next day, they were all right again.

Those craftsmen, who have been out for many years, work every day, while teasing and frolicking in words that only they can understand, and happily passing away each day. Every day when I come home from school, I like to watch them work, watching a branch, a log in their hands, quickly become a pile of loose components, and then assembled, sanded, colored, and become an object.

I could understand a little bit of what the master said, and he also told me about going down to the river and about some of the situations he had experienced. I also know that he followed his master out to learn art at the age of sixteen, and it was not until he was forty years old that he became a master and began to take apprentices. His family is not short of money, and he has built a small brick house, and his grandchildren are as old as me. But he still has to come out to take apprentices, not entirely for money, but mainly because this craft cannot be idle.

Craftsmen support their families, and when the year is approaching, they stop taking jobs. Pack up the tools, go down the mountain from Wendou Village, take a boat to Wangzhai, and then transfer home for the New Year.

Later, he never saw the old master surnamed Li come again, and an older master took his place. They all said that the master was too old to do it anymore.

Craftsmanship is passed down from generation to generation.