Lesson 12 * Steps/Li Senxiang

Lesson 12 * Steps/Li Senxiang

My father always felt that our house had low steps.

The steps of our house have three steps, paved with three bluestone slabs. The slabs were carried down the mountain by my father many years ago, and each piece weighed about 300 pounds. The stonemason smiled and put his father on his shoulder, saying that he could carry it home in one breath and did not accept stone money. As a result, my father carried it three times at once, and I didn't feel that it took too much effort. It's just that the many mountain roads that come and go have worn out his pair of hemp straw shoes, and his father feels too pity.

The slate was laid on the doorstep without a stonemason's glossy finish. Over the years, the wind and rain have been blowing, and people have stepped on oxen, and finally they are smoother, but they can't grind the small hollows that are the size of coins. When water accumulates on the steps, there are many small highlights when you look out of the hall. If the sky is clear, the wind blows through the hall, the bluestone slab dries faster than the mud, and my father sweeps it with a bamboo wire broom, the stone slab is green and secluded, spacious and cool, so that no one can not sit and lie down.

My mother sat on the threshold to work, and I was placed on a bluestone slab. My mother said that I was so well-behaved, and I knew to lie down when I sat down, scratched the bluestone slab with my fingers, and made a fine rustling sound, and I laughed stupidly. I was bleeding a large string of saliva and opened my mouth to gnaw on the bluestone slab, and I ended up nibbling on a mouthful of mud. Older, I like to stand on that bluestone threshold and jump up the steps. First jump a step of steps, jump, jump, jump! Later, I jumped the second step, jumping, jumping! Later, I jumped three steps and jumped! I also felt that it was not interesting to jump from top to bottom, so I turned my head and jumped from bottom to top, popping, popping, popping! Later, jump two levels, snap, snap! Later, jump three levels, snap! I wanted to jump to the threshold in one step, but fell a lot. My father patted me on the back of the head and said, this will be a pain!

My father was tall, and he felt comfortable sitting on the steps. The father sat his butt on the highest level, and rested his two feet on the lowest level. His footboard was wide and cracked with many dry ditches embedded with sand and dirt. His father's feet were not clean, so he usually went to the tairi to wash and dragged a pair of wet straw shoes back. It was probably the New Year that my father washed his feet at home once. That day, my mother was so happy that she personally brought him a large basin of water. The basin was steaming, and my father sat on the steps and washed it patiently. Because there was a lot of sand, my father asked for a board brush and a brush. Later, my father's feet were finally washed, and finally the true color of the feet was washed, but they were also yellow, the color of earth. I poured water for him, and what I poured out was a basin of mud with a layer of sand on the bottom of the wooden basin. My father said that after washing his feet once, he felt that his feet were fluttering lightly, and stepping on the hardest bluestone slab was like stepping on cotton.

Low steps in our house!

My father seemed to sigh to me, as if he was talking to himself. He didn't know how many times he had said this.

In our hometown, there are always steps at the doorstep, different in height and low, from two or three to more than a dozen levels. The hometown has a low terrain and a higher roof foundation, which is not easy to enter the water. In addition, it is said that the higher the steps, the higher the status of the owner of the house. Neighbors often jokingly call it together: Your house has high steps! The implication is that your family has status.

My father was honest and honest, and he was tired all his life, no one said that he had status, and my father never felt that he had status. But he waited day and night, ready to build a new house with high steps.

The father's preparation was very long. He picks up a brick from the ground today, another tile tomorrow, and a corner ticket into a black crockpot. Although these are trivial, he does it seriously.

So, he farmed for seven months a year, went to the mountains to cut firewood for four months, collected pebbles on the Daxi Beach for half of the month, and spent the remaining half of the month for the New Year and weaving straw shoes.

On a hot day, my father came back with a load of grain, and his body was sweating, so he didn't care to take a hand, so he sat down on the steps at the door. He began to "sharpen the knife". "Sharpening the knife" is passing the smoke pain. The smoke is full, the "knife" is fast, and the work is done.

A peach tree is planted next to the steps, which shades the steps with greenery. Sitting in the green shade, my father could see the high steps of other people's houses, where several willow trees were planted, and the willow branches were always shaking around, but they could not shake my father's attentive gaze. At this time, patches of dry smoke drifted over his father's head.

Father sharpened the "knife". When the soot was removed, he rattled the copper lamp of the bonggun against the bluestone slab and hurried down to the field.

In winter, the late rice was harvested, the spring flowers were planted, and my father wore straw shoes to the mountains to cut firewood. He chopped firewood to burn for his family, and sold it for money, one yuan per burden. My father cut one and a half burdens a day and got one dollar and five corners. At that time I did not know how far the mountain was, except that my father set out when the chickens cried three times, returned at dusk near the door, leaned the wood against the root of the wall, sat tiredly on the steps, took off the straw shoes that had worn their bottoms, and put them by the door wall. One winter, the broken straw shoes were piled up more than the steps.

This is how my father prepared for most of his life. The crockpot of the corner ticket was full several times, and the pebbles in the clearing in front of the door were piled up as high as a hill. He finally felt that he could build a house, so he chose a day to break ground.

In those days of building a house, my father was excited. During the day, he accompanied the craftsmen he had brought in, and at night he carried bricks, carried mud, and planned materials alone until midnight. After three or four hours of sleep, he got up again to arrange for the next day. I was afraid that my father would one day collapse. However, my father's energy was very high, and he always had a smile on his face, walking from one end to the other in the house, passing a cigarette to this and a cup of tea to that. Finally, the last tiles of the roof were covered.

Then we started building the steps.

That morning my father got up before dawn, and I listened to my father's footsteps very softly into the courtyard. When I got up, my father was already stepping on the yellow mud at the door of the new house. Yellow mud is used to make seams, this sticky yellow mud mixed with some lime water soy milk water, the masonry iron mouse can not drill. It was already late autumn, the dew was heavy, the fog was also very large, and my father was floating in the fog. There was a drizzle on my father's hair, and each fine hair struggled to pick up one or even several small droplets, falling with the rhythm of my father's yellow mud. When it was broken, it rolled onto its forehead, and after a while, it was covered with dew the size of a soybean.

By the time the plasterer and two helpers arrived, my father had already stepped on a full pile of yellow mud. The yellow mud was mixed with lime and soy milk, and the color was like cornmeal, red and white, with a few blisters on it, illuminated by the morning sun, bright and dazzlingly red.

My father took out four large firecrackers from the old house, but he didn't dare to release them and asked me to come. I set fire a little, exhaled, and the firecracker jumped into the air, paused and fell, and at the moment it was about to hit the ground, it snapped - and the red paper stick was blown to pieces. Many paper tubes fell on the father's head and shoulders, and the father's hands seemed to have nowhere to be placed, and they were not copied or attached to the crotch. He seemed to feel that many eyes were looking at him, so he tried his best to raise his chest higher, but helplessly, his back was hunched, and his chest could not stand high. Therefore, the father should be happy, but he showed some embarrassed smiles.

Somehow, I also found out in this happy moment that my father was old. Unfortunately, my father didn't really feel that he was old, and he still went with us to pry the three bluestone slabs at the door of the old house, and my father argued with the plasterer about how much the stone slab was. The plasterer said it was about three hundred and fifty pounds, and my father said less than three hundred catties. I saw with my own eyes my father's waist flash as he lifted the bluestone slab with his hand. I wouldn't let him carry it, and he insisted on it. When he lifted it, one of his hands pressed to his waist.

Three bluestone slabs were built as the cornerstones of the new steps. My father once touched the small hollow of one of the pieces and said in amazement, I can't think of it so deep, no wonder my bongs have used three old ones.

The new steps were built, nine steps, exactly twice as high as the old ones. The new steps are very stylish, all plastered with cement, and the masons are also very careful, and the noodles are very polished. The father was required to water it once a day. The next day, my father pressed the steps with his hand and said that it was hard. A few days later, he knocked it again with a thin wooden stick, and he was honest. After a few days, he walked up the steps and stepped on his big foot board in every part, saying that it was completely frozen.

So, our family moved into a new house. So my father and we went in and out of the new steps. The day I moved into my new house, I really wanted to jump up the stairs and up again. However, my father told me that the masons had not yet been imprisoned, so be careful. Actually, I don't want to jump either. I'm already an adult.

But my father himself could not stay up, and sat on the steps that day smoking. He sits at the highest level. He smoked a barrel, raised his bong, knocked soot on the steps, knocked it, felt that there was something wrong with his hand, and suddenly froze. He suddenly realized that the steps were made of cement, and they did not go without knocking. So, he held back.

Just then, someone walked by the door, and when he saw his father, he greeted him and said, Have you eaten lunch? My father replied that he hadn't eaten it. In fact, he had eaten, and his father somehow answered wrong. The second time he sat on the steps again, he was one step lower than the last time, and he always felt a little uncomfortable sitting too high to greet people. However, he was still uncomfortable one level lower, so he moved down one level at a time, moved to the lowest level, and he felt that it was too low, so he simply sat on the threshold. But the threshold is the mother's place. There is such a custom in the countryside that the couple never sit on a bench under the public.

One day, my father came back with a load of water, and he easily stepped up the three steps, and when he reached the fourth step, his feet were raised very high, as if he was crossing a threshold, and when he stepped down, he seemed to be struck by something, and he paused before lifting his hind foot. The very old Maozhubian was shaken, so he "rattled" and screamed, and his father's body shook, and some water splashed on the steps. I hurriedly went to grab my father's burden, but he very rudely pushed me away: I don't want you to make fun, I can't even pick a load of water - move! I had to let go and watch my father carry water into the kitchen. There was another heavy cry from the kitchen, and my mother and I were startled, but we all tried our best to remain calm. When my father came out of the kitchen, his bronzed face resembled a bluestone slab. His father said that his waist flashed and asked his mother to treat him. The mother knew how to work earth, set a fire with a needle, pierced nine holes in the part where the father flashed, each hole pierced bright red blood, and then took out the bamboo tube that scooped rice, lit a fire in the tube, and snapped on the nine blood holes. The next morning, my mother pulled out the bamboo tube, and a large pool of black blood flowed from my father's waist.

After that, I didn't dare to let my father carry water. I carried the water by me. My father was idle and had nothing to do, and he felt very irritable. He used to be able to sit on the bluestone steps for hours, but since that flash, he seems to have lost this interest, is reluctant to talk to others, and rarely steps out of our house. I go out once in a while, and when I come back, I look like I have lost something.

I accompanied my father to rest on the threshold for a while, his very stubborn head buried in his knees for a long time without moving, his extremely short hair, like the stubble of a freshly harvested crop, uneven, gray and lifeless.

After a long time, my father seemed to ask himself and me: What happened to this man?

What's wrong, father is old.