In the 1960s, southwest Hebei was not only the greenest place in the Taihang Mountains, but also the cradle and paradise for mountain children.
Living in the folds of the mountains, natural and man-made disasters are unpredictable and come one after another. However, the great famine, great floods and great earthquakes that have not happened in a century have not been able to stop the birth rate from the historical peak. Seven or eight children, five Families of six bald boys abound.
Having more children makes it easier to feed them. Children with clay eggs are like raising sheep to grow garlic. You can make money without dying. In every family, the eldest child takes care of the second child, and the second child takes care of the third child. Adding a pair of chopsticks can raise the children. It's so big that a crop of seedlings sprout up in just a few years.
It was the fate of that generation of mountain children to fall in love with adults. When I was pregnant with the second child, the eldest child's milk was weaned. During the meal, my mother picked up a piece of noodles from the bowl, put it in her mouth and chewed it. After feeding it to her mouth, everything was fine. For a long while, he used a long iron spoon to poke it into the stove full of firewood, fried an egg, chewed it into pieces and fed it to his mouth for a few mouthfuls, which was considered a snack. "On my first birthday and a half, I know how to eat while cooking." After the third child was born, the eldest child had to carry, hold and look after the second child. When the children in the mountains are not squeamish and the family does not have enough to eat, the wild vegetables, wild fruits, and plant roots in the wilderness, and the sweet potatoes, peanuts, and corn stalks in the fields are all fruits and vegetables in season, as long as you can afford to raise pigs. , no one will starve to death.
Children in the mountains have understood the climate and astronomical phenomena since they were young: "Tribulus in poor years, mugwort in rich years, and too many sapodilla trees to use guns and knives." "Persimmons in flood years, dates in drought years, and jujubes in good years Eat as much melons and fruits as you can. "The east rainbow brings thunder, the west rainbow brings rain, the south rainbow brings floods, and the north rainbow sells its children." These farmers' proverbs are familiar to everyone, and they are often used in their mouths. Zhao Kuangyin's theory is popular in the local area and has formed a custom: "Grow melons, pears and dates to make me full. If you don't let me eat, I will chop down the tree for you." Therefore, when children eat secretly, no one usually blames them. Otherwise you will be scolded. Complaining politely: "The child is ignorant, don't be like him." He scolded rudely: "The child eats shit, do you eat it too?"
Clothing depends entirely on mother's hands, spinning in winter and weaving in summer, using old coarse cloth. A shrewd mother sews her child's dowry neatly, in spring, summer, autumn and winter, with yarn and single cotton, in keeping with the seasons. Clumsy women often make their children naked, shabby and unruly. The eldest brother wears the second child's clothes, and the second child wears the third child's clothes. This has become a kind of inheritance. Even so, children with bare feet and exposed buttocks are often seen on the street. Some bald boys, seven or eight years old and still not ashamed, carried lanterns and paraded around the streets. People make fun of children for being stupid, but they are actually making fun of adults for being stupid. When children see the wind, their clothes shrink quickly. Children wearing cropped trousers and short-sleeved clothes are like a sight, often running around in the street playing and playing. Not to mention children, there are also many adults who have been called "Three Guadas" and "Four Old Films" for the rest of their lives because they can't put on their shoes.
Children in the mountains have a low life and are not particular about names. As long as they are common objects, they can be used as names. Some names are given casually, some are named randomly when going out, and some are simply code names or nicknames. In order to make a living, some people call them dog sheng, donkey colt, dirty little ones, and some people call them iron eggs, steel hammers, and stones; for the sake of convenience, most people call them boss, second child, and third child according to the ranking, and they call them three Taoer, There are also four mao'er, five apricot, six pear, seven walnut, and eight persimmon. As for famous names, some are quaint and some are sophisticated, but most of them are named after going to school or after working hours, and the mark of the times is obvious.
Mountain children are all born from the ground, tough and down-to-earth. On weekdays, adults are busy and have no time to take care of them. However, since they were young, they have been crawling around the world. It is common for them to eat dirt and play with urine and mud. The adults went to the fields to farm, and put their children in the shade of the trees at the edge of the field. Their hands and feet were busy, and they looked back from time to time. The field is long and takes a long time, and soon the children on the field may be forgotten. When turning around, the sun moves to the west and the shade shifts away. The child is exhausted from the sun and is as soft as mud. The adults put the child on the grinder and put it outside the shed. Without noticing, the child crawled back to the grinding path. When the neighbors saw it, they laughed and called the child "grinding path" and "grinding path". At that time, it was not surprising that almost everyone had an offensive nickname or a joke story. Tianhe north and south, sleeping in the summer room, the extremely sleepy mother took out a bottle of milk and stuffed it into the child and fell asleep.
This kind of wasp lives underground more than one meter deep. The large nest has more than ten floors and can be accessed through a tunnel facing the sky. Frequent fire attacks and boiling water attacks didn't work at all. Countless attackers and the dogs that followed were stung, and they couldn't attack for a long time. Mountain children are very stubborn and go to Nangou to dig out honeycombs every noon. Many people are stung every day. If you can't change the day to night, you will still get stung by the moon. It wasn't until after more than half a month of hard work that I dug a large pit more than one meter deep that I saw the true face of the hive. The bee pupae exposed were white and fat, and the crickets, pupae, and pupae had eaten a group of chickens and fed a whole chicken. pig.
The four wasps are famous for fighting honeycombs. They are bold and have many tricks. Nine times out of ten, they will be stung every time. Unfortunately, Wasp Si'er was born with a lack of immunity. His head was often swollen like a gourd, his eyes were so narrow that he couldn't see the road and couldn't go to school. His mother scolded him and refused to let him stir up a hornet's nest again. But he couldn't resist the teasing of his companions. After a few days, he went to fight a hornet's nest again, and naturally, he was stung again. The teacher asked him to write a review, but he complained that Wasp was being unreasonable. The teacher angrily ignored him. This made him happy. When he left school, he learned the tune of popular opera and sang loudly and loudly: "Da da, 唻廻... I beat a hornet's nest, and the wasp stung me. I told the teacher that the teacher didn't care about me."
Children in the mountains are like weeds, blending in with nature and keeping company with the mountains and fields. They are not afraid of wind and frost and grow with the wind. Within a few years, the east end, west end, front street, and back street of the village were all covered with half-sized boys and plump girls. The little boy has a sand pot lid on his head and a small ninety-nine on the back of his head. There are often children shouting and singing in the street: "Little Monk Dan, with braids and a tile on his head, with braids and shaved off."
Nizi in the Mountains They are often called girl movies, but most of them are beautiful, smart, pure and natural. Local folk songs have been sung since ancient times: "There are some good girls in a village in the mountain village. I want to marry one, but I am afraid of famine." It is exactly the same as the "Book of Songs" lamented that "there are wandering girls in the Han Dynasty, and you can't ask for help." Because wandering girls are fairies and mountain folk. Nisheng is also a fairyland.
Mountain children cannot decide where they are born, but most of them come out of the mountains sooner or later. When they grow up, there is no shortage of talented people. Some go to the mountains and countryside, some catch up with the college entrance examination, some join the army, some become bosses, and some go abroad or work in politics. They live in all directions, no matter what they do, Full of tenacity and optimism, he has become the backbone of reform and opening up and the development of the times.