Chapter 3 third chapter

After cutting off the last handful of wheat in the field of Ganliang, Zhao Peng started to load the cart, picked up a heavy bundle of wheat from the ground, put it on the trolley, picked up another bundle of wheat, and loaded it upside down into the cart superior.The wheat stalks are light and the ears of wheat are heavy, so they must be loaded upside down to keep the weight on both sides of the small cart basically balanced. He has pulled this kind of cart in the past, and he will never forget the basic labor skills. Shuqin is picking up the lost ears of wheat in the stubble field where the wheat has been harvested.She bent down frequently, picked up ears of wheat from the stubble, twisted them into a handful, and stuffed them into the cart.By the time he filled the cart, she had already picked up the fringe.The stubble field, as far as it looks now, has been harvested cleanly.

"God, there is no road, how can I get down?" There is a steep slope between this dry beam and the path below. The slope looks 70 degrees, but there is no path. Fortunately, there is no wheat planted on the slope, and it is a blank field overgrown with weeds. It's hard. "These cadres! Don't care about anything." Shuqin also stood on the edge of the ridge, inspecting the path to Xialiang, and complained, "Before harvesting wheat in previous years, we first built a temporary path to the head of the field so that we could pull carts. This year the land Once the household is settled, the cadres don’t care about anything, they don’t work hard, and they only care about getting subsidies!”

She told him that after the land was settled, the cadres of the brigade would be subsidized with 1.20 cents a day, 36 yuan a month, no matter how much it was. The cadres in the village no longer record work points because of the implementation of the responsibility system, and changed to a fixed salary system.Whether the money is for nothing, he has no intention of thinking about such a thing, anyway, he is no longer a member of the commune, and has little to do with him. The important thing is how to pull the cart of wheat to the path down the slope. road.He said to Shuqin: "The only way is to pull down from this slope."

"There is no way, can you pull it down?" she asked. "Yes. I have pulled carts on slopes before." He believed in the cart pulling skills he had practiced on the slopes in his hometown when he was young. "Don't worry, I'm originally from the mountains!" There was an unreliable light in her eyes, and he didn't care, this was the only way.He hung the cart around his neck and straightened up. The two outriggers of the small cart were lifted up. It was so heavy!Pulling from the wheat field to the edge, the hard stubble that was crushed made a crackling sound.He gripped the handlebar tightly with both hands, trying to twist the car tightly and keep his balance.When he took one step towards the slope from the ridge, and before he stepped on the slope below the second step, the small cart tipped outward.He tried to twist it with both hands, but he didn't. The force of the small cart with the weight falling down the slope seemed like a cliff collapsed. The strength of the two arms was powerless and irreversible.He fell on the slope, and the cart had already rolled down the slope.

He got up and found the glasses a few steps away, but fortunately they were not broken. After Shuqin screamed, she jumped down from the ridge and saw that he was cleaning the glasses. She breathed a sigh of relief, and the nervous expression on her face suddenly disappeared. subsided. "Okay!" Zhao Peng smiled at Shuqin, "Now, I won't have to pull, the car will go down automatically! If I had known this, I should have pushed the car down, so that I wouldn't turn over..." "It's wrong to eat dog days!" Shuqin scolded the village officials again. He walked down the slope, and the sheaves had been turned into long and short ones.The two lifted the cart up, tied the wheat sheaves again, and he hung the cowhide cart around his neck again.

To pull a cart downhill, you don’t need any strength in your arms at all, but put all your strength on your legs to support the single wheel that automatically slides down; lean your body back and use your back to resist the wheat sheaves; level the handlebars with both hands, Not daring to tilt, he moved down step by step along the path by the ditch. "You pull from the back." He told Shuqin, "The front is going down a steep slope." Shuqin nodded, grabbed the rope on the front of the car with her hand, and pulled it back. It was actually a man-made trap. This steep slope leads directly into the ditch, the road is less than two feet wide, and there are scattered stones the size of abacus beads. If one step is not safe, it will fall to the bottom of the ditch. If the car overturns here, it will not be like the slope just now. It was so easy to get on the overturned car, and the ditch was more than twenty feet deep. Even if he didn't fall to his death, he would have to break an arm or a leg. Looking at the bottom of the ditch, he couldn't help feeling tense. He avoided his eyes and didn't dare to look into the ditch. up.

The hard and wide cowhide stumbles pressed against the back of his neck, like an iron hoop, preventing his neck from turning freely.The entire weight of the sheaf of wheat was on his back, forcing him to slide irresistibly.Sweat dripped from his face, eroding his eyes, hot and itchy, but he couldn't spare his hands to wipe the sweat and rub his eyes.Only now did he feel that his legs were too lacking in strength, his thighs were trembling, his calves were sore and painful, and he could not gather the strength to support the heavy load.His footsteps were unsteady, this foot was not yet firm, and the other foot was already overwhelmed. He lifted it up, stepped on a stone in a panic, and the wheel slipped under his feet. He raised his left shoulder with all his strength. , the car dumped towards the side of the hillside, leaning sideways on the cliff, but did not fall into the deep ditch on the left.

"Be careful—" Shuqin's voice was trembling with fright. "Well, we're almost at the bottom of the ditch!" he comforted her. He just leaned against the car leaning on the cliff, and wiped the sweat from his face with the lower skirt of his shirt. The small and thin handkerchief in his trouser pocket was not very useful for wiping sweat, it seemed very natural. He lifted up his skirt and wiped it on his cheeks.He learned to wipe sweat with his father since he was a child. Later, when he went to school, especially after college, he had a small handkerchief folded squarely in his trouser pocket. Khan, then I am not very embarrassed.Now, he is lifting up the front of his clothes. Although he has not used this movement of wiping sweat for more than 20 years, he is no stranger to it. It seems that this is the most convenient way to wipe sweat.

He picked up the load on the cart again and moved.The strength accumulated in his feet and calves dissipated the moment he picked up the car, and his calves trembled even more.He gritted his teeth and went down to the mouth of the ditch, which was flat ground. There was a stream of water flowing from the bottom of the ditch. In his memory, there seemed to be an earth bridge made of tree branches, but now it was gone, and he had to wade across the ditch.He greeted Shuqin: "When crossing the ditch, give it a hard push!" "Oh—" she replied behind the car. He stopped for a while, gathered his strength, then pulled the car, and stepped across the small ditch with one step. The car should have pulled through the small ditch that was one step wide with a strong force, but unfortunately, due to lack of strength, the car sank in the mud He lost his speed and did not roll up, but fell into the ditch. He was knocked down by the overturned handlebar and fell into the ditch.

Shuqin ran over and pulled him up, her face turned pale with fright. He touched the right side of his face; it hurt so much from being hit by the handlebars!The trousers were splashed with mud and water, and I was really in a state of embarrassment and despair.He didn't want to show a weeping face in front of Shuqin, and still laughed and said, "Haha, I'm really old! My legs and feet are not flexible! I turned somersaults..." He and Shuqin picked up the car and moved to the path at the bottom of the ditch. "Let me pull it!" Shuqin said, "Change it, you take a break."

"I'll pull!" He got angry.Yes, I will soon enter the village, let my wife pull a heavy cart, and a man's family follows behind, how ugly enough!He said, "I paid the tuition today, and I must take it back!" He picked up the car again, and from the bottom of the ditch to the front, it was a flat road. The load could not be lightened, but it would not fall over.Shuqin pushed hard at the back, while he pulled at the front, and entered the village entrance. "Cut?" asked the folks. "Cut." He replied with a smile. "Is it in good condition?" "still alright." "Pengwa! Didn't you see La Cheyou?" Someone joked with him. "Wow!" He also replied with a smile to himself. "Don't pull less! The road is bad, even if you pull one more time." Someone said sincerely. "Oh! Not tired..." He tried to pretend he wasn't tired. Pulling from the village alley, the villagers greeted him, and pulled to the big field in the north of the village. The first cart of Xinmai finally came to the field. The big field has a size of three to four mu. It is the field where the production team harvests and grinds wheat in summer and mills rice in autumn. Now it has been divided into strips and strands.Each family crushed their own piece of scene and evacuated it on the field with ashes.He and Shuqin unloaded the sheaves of wheat and planted them on the field allotted to them. After unloading, they sat on the cart and lit a cigarette, thinking that they had to climb up the dry beam to pull the sheaves. I felt a little timid in my heart. "Zhao Peng! You are going to do a good thing for our children." Sitting next to him, Shuqin said sincerely, as if she had received his kindness, and said in a tone of obvious gratitude, "Otherwise! Our children will have to pull carts in this mountain corner for the rest of their lives. Look at the crime... Okay! It's been a year of exhausting work, and our children don't have to climb hills to pull carts anymore. !" He glanced at her and said nothing.He and her son, as well as future grandsons and great-grandchildren, will no longer have to grope in this corner of the loess, and don't have to do somersaults with the sheaf of wheat!On such a barren hillside, the car road will not reach the ground in about ten years!Today's peasants and their sons who have not been admitted to school still have to continue to use this kind of small cart that may have been passed down from the Western Zhou Dynasty. His father has pulled a small cart on the slope of the loess plateau all his life, and it has now belonged to the loess. I went, but when I put it in the coffin, I couldn't straighten those two bowed legs.There is no way, nine out of ten men living in this village have become bow-legged.When they were young, they also had two straight legs. After decades of pulling heavy carts from the slope, their legs could not walk straight. Gradually, unconsciously, their long legs appeared. The legs were bent outward, out of shape, into bow-legs suitable for pulling heavy loads on hillsides! He and her children will put down this small cart once and for all. Starting from his generation, they will live a life in the city. They use their pockets to buy rice and noodles from the grain store, and they use net baskets to buy vegetables at the street corner. Going to the non-staple food store to buy vegetables, burning briquettes, and living in buildings, I no longer have to carry iron buckets to the bottom of the ditch to pick up the muddy spring water.This will be a permanent farewell, farewell to the trolley, and farewell to the loess plateau... In the big arena, several men and women were crushing on the surface of their own house. Xiaoluan made a creaking sound, rolling the ashes into a smooth surface, porcelain and smooth, ready to Welcome to the new wheat.They were talking leisurely, talking about the weather and the quality of wheat growing on the various roads up and down the Sichuan plateau. How hard it is to pull a cart on the slope, let alone how ugly my deformed bow legs are!Yes, the crops of the slopes, though far less abundant than those of the fertile rivers, still fascinated and fascinated them.For generations, grandchildren and grandchildren plowed the land during the dog days, sowed the seeds after autumn, and carried bamboo baskets full of dung on the back of oxen or gray donkeys uphill when it was freezing, just waiting for the harvest day in summer! Without speaking, he pushed up the empty cart and prepared to go to the dry beam. Shuqin came up to him and told him: "Don't decorate this time! You don't often pull a cart, and you can't compare to someone who pulls a cart all the year round..."