Chapter 10 8. The happiest days are in the countryside

A person's childhood is best spent in the countryside.All life, including plants, animals, and humans, ultimately comes from the land, is born in the land, and returns to the land in the end.God said to Adam: "You were made of dust, and to dust you will return." In the countryside, the life that just came from the land can still be close to the land and draw nourishment from the land.Childhood is a time when life flourishes, and the country provides it with an environment full of life that equally flourishes.The life of a rural child is not alone. He has many companions. He has silent conversations with trees, grass, hares, domestic animals, and insects. He instinctively feels that he belongs to the life community of nature.In contrast, the life of a child in the city is very lonely, far away from the land and the rich life on the land, and with

The life community of nature is disconnected.In a certain sense, urban children have no childhood. I am deeply ashamed as I now recount the trifles of my childhood.In fact, I was exposing myself to the poverty and wretchedness of my childhood.Fortunately, some of my grandparents lived in the country at that time, and my parents often took me to play, so that my childhood was not completely isolated from the country.Although the countryside is only a suburb of Shanghai, the few days I live there each year are enough to make me the happiest day of the year. It was a village called Zhoushenxiang, not far from Xujiahui. With the rapid expansion of the city, it no longer exists.At that time, my grandmother, grandmother and an aunt lived there, and their homes were very close to each other. You could walk from one house to another by walking along the same small river in a few minutes.

When children go to the countryside, what they pay attention to is often not the crops and scenery, but all kinds of small creatures that adults don't pay attention to.There are tadpoles in the puddles in spring. I catch some every year and keep them in a bottle. Watching them swim lively and wagging their slender tails, the joy in my heart will overflow.The fields in summer are dominated by insects.It must have been when I was very young, maybe I hadn’t gone to school yet, but once in the countryside, my sister told me mysteriously that there were “grasshoppers” in the fields.She was actually talking about grasshoppers, but because of inaccurate pronunciation, she said "get grasshoppers".Curiously, I went to the field with her and carefully caught them together. That was the first time I saw grasshoppers.I prefer to catch a beetle called a gold bug.In mid-summer, when you push aside the leaves of corn, you will find them huddled together, nibbling on the newly formed ears of corn.The gold bug has a golden hard shell, the size of a broad bean. It is tied with a thin thread and suspended in the air. It spreads its thin wings and flies up, making a nice buzzing sound.Because it loves to eat watermelon rind, it can be raised for several days if caught.When I was a little older, I liked to catch crickets.They often hide under the rotten grass, jump around after opening, disappear in the blink of an eye, and are not easy to catch.It is best to act at night, and the light of a flashlight can calm them down.Catch them and stuff them into homemade small paper tubes, and then choose the sturdy ones to keep them in small bamboo tubes or earthen pots, and play cricket fights with other children.

In my eyes, everything in the countryside is different from that in the city, and everything is novel.What I drink is well water. If the well water is cloudy in rainy days, put a piece of alum in the bucket and it will magically become clear.The wet river is full of small holes, from which crabs emerge and walk leisurely on the bank.The sound of cicadas in the woods and the sound of frogs by the pond.In those ponds, my mother said that there were drowning ghosts in them, who would drag the children into them and drown them, which made me feel both frightened and mysterious.There are also small fire lights flying in the grass at night. It is hard to tell whether it is a firefly or a ghost fire, which also casts a mysterious atmosphere on the countryside.

Summer is the best season to go to the countryside, not only the trees are lush, but also can be a real treat.The so-called feast is actually three things every year: dew millet, corn and pumpkin.Lu millet looks like sorghum stalks, much thinner than sugar cane, and tastes like sugar cane.Fresh corn is of course tender and delicious.Sitting outside the house, chewing and gnawing, the smell of pumpkin wafts from the house.The pumpkins are steamed on the stove. Only a little water is put in the big iron pot, and the pumpkins are stuck to the wall of the pot. In fact, they are steamed and roasted. The flesh of the pumpkin is steamed red and bright, and the skin of the melon is browned and crispy. .After the early adopters, as usual, some of these three things should be brought back to the city, so as to extend the taste of the countryside for several days.Back then, commerce was underdeveloped, and these things could not be bought in the city.

Every time we go to the countryside, we mostly live in my grandmother's house.Of course, because grandma loves us very much.However, I don't like my grandfather, and I'm even afraid of him.In my memory, he was always sitting at a mahogany table, coughing and spitting, and writing with a brush.Seeing us, he ignored him, just raised his eyes from behind his presbyopic glasses, and stared at us sternly.When I was about seven or eight years old, one night, when our family was already asleep, my third uncle came to my house suddenly to report the news of my grandfather's death, and hurried to the countryside after speaking.The next day, my mother just took me to the countryside, which was the first time in my life to attend a funeral.As soon as I entered the village, my mother always said the same sentence to everyone: "Daddy is dead, what should I do?" After hearing that, I thought there might be a way to bring grandpa back to life, otherwise why did she keep asking like this.Grandma cried when she saw us, which made me realize that there was nothing I could do, Grandpa was doomed.The house was in a hurry, and there were many people who came to help.There were food and wine on the dinner table. I touched the bench beside the table, and was immediately reprimanded, saying that I was not allowed to touch it.Feeling bored, I walked into the back room alone, where the light was very dark, and a person was lying on a bed, with mosquito coils burning next to it.I wanted to take a closer look, but I didn't dare. I went out to find my mother and asked her who it was. She said it was my grandfather, which shocked me.Grandma sighed over and over again, saying that it was blocked by a mouthful of phlegm, otherwise she would not die.At night, my mother and I slept on another bed in the back room, and my grandmother slept on the bed where the corpse was kept during the day.The nuns performed prayers in the outhouse, and the sound of chanting scriptures and wooden fish rang all night.These voices frightened me more than dead people. I stayed up all night, curled up beside my mother, trembling.

After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved to the city to live with my third uncle, so we seldom went to the countryside.Sometimes, my father took us to see my grandmother.Living with my grandmother is also my great-grandmother. The old lady lived to be ninety years old. In the last year, she suffered a mental disorder and could not recognize all her relatives.When I was in high school, my grandmother died, and I didn't go to the country again.