Quick Wear: Men Farming and Women Weaving

After everyone has left, I close the door and go back to the living room to put all the food together, waiting to be cleaned up.

I packed my things slowly and went to the second room to take a look. I recalled the memories of when Erniu was a child living with his grandparents. I knew that they were not very good to Erniu. They just let him have food and didn't care about him. Grandparents' attitude towards their parents was not good either, and they had a bad relationship. I don't know why grandparents lived here and didn't live with old man He.

The two elders had a very scary expression when they were dying. They looked at Erniu with complicated expressions, which frightened Erniu so much that he shrank back. He was only five years old at that time and didn't understand anything. He only remembered that the grandparents who looked scary that day died after saying only one sentence. He couldn't remember what they said either. It was not until he hadn't seen them go out for three days that Old Man He, who felt something was wrong, broke into the door and found that the two elders were dead. Erniu hadn't eaten for three days and was lying sick in bed. Since he was taken home, Old Man He was a little angry with him.

As I recall, what my grandparents said to him was that they gave him something that was buried under the head of the bed in the master bedroom.

He went into the bedroom, moved the bed away, and started digging with a shovel. It wasn't buried deep, so he dug it up after a few shovels. Inside was a small box filled with the savings accumulated by the two old people over the years. There were more than ten taels of silver and three strings of copper coins, each with 100 copper coins strung together by a red rope. There were also some patched clothes in the box, which were folded and carefully put away. I guessed that there was a story between my father and my grandparents.

Fill the hole with soil from the yard and compact the ground. Put the money in the space and pack the clothes in the original box. Burn them for grandparents at the cemetery when you have time.

300 kilograms of coarse grains were moved to the kitchen, a bag of grain was poured into the grain jar, and the rest was placed in the corner. The place was small and there was no cellar to store things.

The things I had were all tattered, so I threw all the unwanted things into the stove and burned them. The old quilt was in a mess, so I threw it directly into the stove and burned it as firewood. I made a pot of porridge and drank it, and my stomach felt much better. The cold and fever that I had been suffering from for two days just got better. I took some western medicine again, and it worked so well that I almost didn’t have a fever on the third day.

I went to the bedroom to pack some luggage and took out two sets of old quilts and sheets that I had put in my space. I cut some rough cloth according to the clothing styles here and sewed them with a sewing machine. I made a few sets of clothes to change into, and the underwear to wear inside was made of cotton cloth. All the clothes and quilts were placed in the closet.

I went to the yard to clean up my things and put all the old things in the corner of the yard. I would use them as firewood someday. It was getting late and I had been busy all afternoon, so I just ate something, cleaned up, took a shower, went back to the bedroom, made the bed and went to sleep.

The next day, the weather was relatively clear. Erniu had his face painted pale. He slowly went to the barefoot doctor. He took some Chinese herbal medicine, which was specially used to treat fever and cold. He told the doctor to give him the money in a few days. Doctor Shen had just settled here for a few years, and he also knew what had happened in the past two days, so he should be tolerant for a few days.

The people in the village saw him going to Doctor Shen to get medicine and were full of sympathy for him. The people from the He family, seeing that he could go to buy medicine by himself, let him go. But they had no energy to care about him, because He Daniu was determined to marry He Hua from the next village, and the gift was three taels of silver. They kept making a fuss at home to urge the engagement.

The old man and his wife were working on the ridge of the field with sad faces, while He Daniu ran to the next village to look for lotus flowers. The two sons were plowing the fields on the other side. However, they were slow and full of resentment towards their eldest brother.

Their family didn't have much money these years, and they had to pay a lot of money for various taxes when there were natural disasters and man-made disasters, so they could save even less. Three taels of silver could marry two or three wives, but the other party turned against them and refused to recognize them. It was originally two taels of silver, but now it has become three taels.

In the evening, everyone returned home and did not leave after dinner, and Daniu did not say a word.

"Daniu, I have no objection to who you want to marry, but my family really can't afford the three taels of silver for a bride price." Old Man He told He Daniu his request with a bitter face.

"You know what our family has been like these years. We are already lucky to have enough food and clothing. Sometimes there is drought and the harvest is gone, so we have to pay taxes."

"We only have two taels of silver in our family. It's really unheard of in the village to pay three taels of silver to marry a wife. Everyone only needs to pay half a tael of silver, or even just one tael of silver to marry a wife."

He Pozi begged He Daniu not to be stubborn and to change his wife if possible, because the bride price was too high and the family could not afford it. He had two younger brothers and two younger sisters.

He Daniu lowered his head and looked at the ground in silence.

"Lotus and I have already had physical contact"

Everyone looked at He Daniu in shock. They didn't expect that the two of them would do such a shameless thing.

The old man and his wife were even more afraid that they would have a child. If the news got out, it would bring shame to the whole family and affect the marriage of young people. The people in the village would definitely not let them go.

He told He Daniu directly that he only had two taels of silver and the rest was gone.

The next day, He Daniu ran to the next village to find He Hua after dawn and told her his parents that they should get married as soon as possible.

"It's all your fault." He Hua pointed at He Daniu and accused him in a willful manner.

"Two taels of silver is two taels of silver as a betrothal gift." She thought that after all, she was no longer a virgin, and it would not be easy to find such a stupid man again. After all, if she concealed the truth, she was afraid that the child in her belly would be lost. She was afraid that it would be discovered that it was not He Daniu's child. The only way was to get married as soon as possible and settle down.

Hearing that Lotus agreed, he happily hugged her and spun around.

When Old Man He and his wife heard that the other party agreed, they found a matchmaker and chose the nearest date to go to He Hua's house in the next village to propose marriage.

He Erniu didn't know that he was going to get married with Daniu. He slowly boiled medicine at home during this period, so that the neighbors and villagers around him got used to his health. He went hunting in the distant mountains whenever he had time, and used the prey to pay for the medical expenses. He ate all the excess. He was too weak and too thin. He didn't have any nutrition for many years, and his height was not as high as that of a normal person. He could only make up for it slowly with food.

The potatoes grown on the two mu of land that his family had allocated to him were already ripe, but they had already been dug up by his family. All the potatoes inside had been picked up. He Erniu didn't care about this, after all, he didn't rely on this little food to survive. He thought that since the space could keep food fresh, he could put more food in it.

The soil quality of the two acres of land is not good, and I plan to start growing some short-season vegetables during this period, such as Chinese cabbage, green vegetables, onions, garlic, etc.