Chapter 3 vegetable garden

Yujia Vegetable Garden grows cabbage, because the seeds are special, and any local vegetable growers don't have that kind of big cabbage.The reason for this can be understood from the surname. The surname Yu was originally a bannerman, and the vegetables were brought from Beijing that year.Beijing cabbage has always been famous. Before the Revolution of 1911, the candidate for the city was Mr. Yu, a single name, when he came to this small town, he brought his family and cabbage seeds with him.Roughly at that time, it was only grown for self-eating.Unexpectedly, after the death of the grandfather, the revolutionary army overthrew the Qing clan soon, and the Qing clan lost its power in the country for a while, and suddenly fell into decline.There are wandering banner people everywhere, poor and desperate, unable to make a living, but Yu's family accidentally got cabbage to save the whole family from disaster.Yu's family lived by selling vegetables, and since then Yu's vegetable garden has become a well-known place in the county.

The owner, Mrs. Yu, is fifty years old. She should be a beauty when she was young, so when she is old, she can still imagine a thing or two from her remaining charm.This wife has a son who is a good boy with a fair face and a tall body. He is twenty-one years old. He has studied at home, knows how to read, and has a bit of aristocratic demeanor.Although the new local gentry class looked down on the banner people because of their behavior in the past, and now they are the sons of vegetable sellers, they seldom interact with the young master of the family.But the son of this family is always different from the usual vegetable vendor's son.

Although not close to people in the local area, they are still quite respected. After the development of the Yujia Vegetable Garden, the mother and child's hands were no longer useful, so another person was hired.The owner planned to order the long-term workers to dig cellars in the garden every autumn, and put all the cabbages into the cellars after snow came in winter.Since then, people in the city have Chinese cabbage to eat all the year round.In the 20-acre vegetable garden, besides cabbage, many other vegetables are planted. The owner who is good at management enables the people of this city to get extremely fresh vegetables at any time of the year, especially several rare vegetables.Therefore, the amount of income is not small, and in the past ten years, it has gradually become a well-off family.

It seems that because of the difference in race, the mother and son of the Yu family who seldom interact with others, from the perspective of others, except that they know that the family is rich in selling vegetables, the rest are all at a loss. In the evening of summer, this well-educated and self-reliant middle-aged woman with a forest demeanor, wearing an old-fashioned white linen dress and holding a cattail fan, stood unpretentiously by the stream outside the vegetable garden to enjoy the cool air.Standing beside him was a young man in white silk shorts.The two often remained silent for a long time without speaking, listening to the drawn-out sound of the evening cicada flying away on the willow, or listening to the sound of the stream.The stream turns east around the vegetable garden, the water is clear to the bottom, and there are often small shrimps and fishes, the fish are so small that they are useless except for watching.At that time, the fish are generally resting.

When the wind blows, the evening wind is mixed with the fragrance of frangipani orchid and jasmine.There used to be a lot of flowers and trees in the vegetable garden, sweeping the temples in the breeze, and counting the first stars in the sky where the willow branches are empty. As a mother, I think of the poems of the ancients, but I can’t think of anyone who wrote down the description that the evening sky is like a sunset. I always felt that someone had written such a good poem that fit the situation, so I asked the son with a smile if he could come up with two good poems in such a situation.

"This scene is the same from ancient to modern times. If you get a clear understanding of it, a kind of enlightenment, you should write a few good poems." "It seems that the ancients said this, but I can't remember this person." "I think so too. It's Xie Lingyun and Wang Wei. I can't remember. I'm really old." "Mom, try to compose one of the seven unique poems, me and you." "Think about it, then." The mother really thought about it and groaned for a long time, as if there were no words to explain the current state.On the one hand, the words have been unfamiliar for a long time, and on the other hand, the situation is compatible. The so-called transcendence of words, just like Buddhism, can only be imprinted in the heart and cannot be conveyed in words, so I laughed.She said: "This is not good, how can I write poetry?"

After a while, ask again: "Shaochen, what about you?" The man smiled and said that this weather is a pity to even talk about it, and writing poetry is tantamount to ruining the beautiful scenery.The mother smiled when she heard this, and after crossing the bridge, her shadow disappeared behind the bamboo forest surrounded by white walls. However, in such cool weather, it is not uncommon for the mother and son to go to the vegetable garden to watch the workers build the melon shelves, supervise the scooping of water, and talk about the market prices of autumn vegetable seeds and radishes.Sometimes they went to the garden to see the vegetable seedlings, and dug mud and watered them by themselves.Everything is not pretentious, compared to the poet Dou Fang who sits under the melon shed for an hour and writes five-character and eight-rhyme Tianjiale, and occasionally praises the single-plank bridge as soon as he leaves the city.

In winter, Yujia cabbage is on the market, and the whole city eats Yujia cabbage.During the season of eating cabbage, some people thought of the family situation of this vegetable seller, and praised the president of cabbage, and at the same time praised the mother and son of this family.All people know limitedly, but a little bit of knowledge seems to make people extremely enamored.This city is like other cities, there are more than ten times more stupid people than smart people living in the city, so there is that kind of people who say very simple words, saying that every cabbage plant is touched by the owner's hand, That's why it can be so fat and strong. The reason is rooted and rooted.From such dull words, it can still be seen how the city people are shining with a kind of envy for the beautiful life of this family.

Mothers are also good at making various dried vegetables from cabbage. The roots, leaves, and hearts are made into various flavors by different methods.Young people are far less knowledgeable about this type of knowledge than they are about notebook novels.But for what he does in a day, he spends more time managing the vegetable garden than reading and writing.A young man, with a heart as white as a dove's feather, needs work and play, and the vegetable garden is no place to tire him.He can't settle accounts with others, but this shortcoming alone makes this person a more lovable person.

He does not stop working just because he knows how to read, nor does he become more proud just because he has money.He can treat all the locals who have served them as equals, no matter if they are hawkers. He should belong to the intellectual class, but he doesn't think that in the sense of being a human being, he has the need to respect scholars.He himself is honest with others, and what he requires of others is also honesty.He regards honesty as a virtue in life, but this character and taste are all cultivated by his mother. The time came when the young man should be betrothed, but the man had no wife.The fashion in this city is that most men and women can only get married when they love each other, but there are still many old matchmakers who come to the Yujia Vegetable Garden.These matchmakers walk around all day because of a kind of professional kindness, and they only want things to be successful, and they will get a little money from it to thank them.Because he wants to help others too much, lying naturally becomes a kind of talent.Seeing that all kinds of lies were in vain, these matchmakers gave up and stopped going to the Yujia Vegetable Garden.

However, due to the instigation of the matchmaker and another cause, there are many women in this city who have known young people from the Yu family and are willing to be daughters-in-law of the Yu family. On his twenty-second birthday, the mother prepared a special banquet for her son, and in the evening the two sat opposite each other to drink.Outside the window is the vegetable garden, it is December, just after the heavy snow, the garden is completely white.The cabbage that has been picked and has not yet fallen into the cellar is piled up in the garden, covered with snow, just like big tombs.There are also dishes that have not been collected, such as little snowmen, standing in rows in the snow.The mother and son drank some wine, talked about the heavy snow this year and the same vegetables, and the radish and cabbage needed heavy snow to intensify their taste, so they pushed the window open. After the window is opened, everything in the garden can be seen. It was getting dusk, and the garden was quiet.The snow has stopped falling, and there is no wind.The old black raven, who had been foraging for food in the vegetable patch for the first half of the day, went somewhere.Mother said: "This year the snow is really good!" "It's just the beginning of December this year. I don't know how many times the snow will fall." "It's a strange thing to come here without being cold when the snow falls like this. A little snow like this in Beijing is quite common." "I heard that Beijing is completely different." "This place has become very powerful in the past ten years!" The mother who spoke like this recalled the personnel changes in the place where she had lived in for twenty years, so she took a sip of wine. "You are twenty-two years old today. It's been eighteen years since Grandfather passed away. Anyway, fifteen years have passed since the Republic of China. Not only has the world changed, but our family has also become terrible. I'm fifty years old, and I'm getting old. If you educate and grow up, the Yu family will not be extinct. If your father is still alive, it will be great." In his son's impression, he only remembers his father as a character holding a "Jing Bacun".At that time, smoking paper cigarettes was really fashionable. Now, even workers buy Meili brand, and there is no need for a scythe and a tobacco rod.During this long period of time, the hard work of the mother can be seen from everything in the family.Now my son has grown up, and at the age of twenty-two, I am lucky to have a grandson.Shaochen who heard the words "mother is old too", for some reason, suddenly thought of something on his mind.The meaning he had stored for a long time only had the chance to say it today.He said he thought about Beijing. In Beijing, he has an uncle. Before Xuantong left the palace, he was still a small steward in the palace. Now it is said that he opened a shop in Qizhang Hutong, selling ice and western snacks, and the business is not bad. The mother seemed slightly taken aback when she heard that her son was going to Beijing.The surprise was expected by the son, and because he didn't want to surprise his mother, he didn't say it until recently.But she also missed her brother. "Are you going to see your third uncle, or do something else?" "I want to read something." "What kind of books do we people read? The world changes every day, and I'm really afraid." "Then let's go!" "Can I put it here?" "I went there for three months and came back, maybe." "I want to go, I will go in three or five years. I won't hinder you. You can walk around as much as you want. It's just a book. It doesn't matter if you don't read it. You don't need a lot of book knowledge to be a person. People like us, knowledge Too much is also a disaster!" After the woman spoke so eloquently, she asked her son to have a drink, and asked him if he planned to go again or go to Beijing for the new year. The son said that it would be better to take the exam years ago, and it is extremely rare to take advantage of the quietness of the road. Although my mother agreed to travel far, she thought it was not necessary to be so busy, so she still decided to leave her side after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.Having said that, it was snowing today, and my mother remembered something she had forgotten. She asked him to send a jar of wine to the worker, because today is not an ordinary day. New Year's Eve soon. After the new year, soon it will be the day when Shaochen leaves.The letter had already been written to my uncle in Beijing, so I took a sedan chair in the provincial river, took a car to Changsha, transferred to Wuhan, and then changed to a train to Beijing. Three years have passed. During these three years, Yujia Vegetable Garden remained Yujia Vegetable Garden.But gradually, the city knew that the young master of the Yu family was studying at Peking University and was extremely famous.The process of which is naturally difficult to describe, too trivial to describe.However, in this city, Yujia cabbage is still very good.What is slightly different at home is that the son often sends back newspapers and new books, while the mother still manages the vegetable garden and feeds a flock of white hens.When I have nothing to do every day, I grab corn to feed the chickens, play with the chicks, and read books, newspapers and magazines sent from Beijing.Although my mother is in her fifties, all the books and newspapers fanned all kinds of 20-year-old students, and sometimes my mother could not help but have some illusions. There are many new changes in the local area, with the revolution, the Northern Expedition... so many young and middle-aged people died in the wild.In this process, some heroes and heroes have grown up, and a group of new and old officials have also emerged...So the local party unions were established...So the young people were killed in the "Ma Ri Incident", the trade unions were disbanded, and the party headquarters was changed. People... so Beijing was changed to Peiping. The place has been changed to Beiping, and the north has been pacified, as if the real man was born, and the world will soon be at peace.My son in Peiping still receives letters frequently, but sends books and newspapers a little less. My mother in this city sent sixty yuan a month, and at the same time wrote letters, besides telling her to take care of her health, and asking if there was any suitable woman who could be engaged to.As my mother got older, she naturally cared more about these things.The mother of the past three years still has the same demeanor under the forest.Because of my son, I know a lot about current affairs, but none of the appearances and virtues are lost.And because of a convenience, with the help of the master, the two workers got married.When the mother told the son about such things, the son wrote to say that it was right to do so. The son also sent a letter, saying that the mother might as well visit Peiping and hand over the vegetable garden to the workers.Although the matter of the vegetable garden may not be something to let go of, but for some reason, this old man has never considered the matter of traveling north. When the mother received a letter from her son saying that at the end of this semester, he could go home to live for a month, she was very happy.The letter was only in April, and since April, the mother has been preparing everything for her son at home.Everything the old man could think of to please his son was planned.As soon as July comes, I look forward to the return of the traveler all day long.They also sent people to the farther city of Changsha to pick him up, and spent a lot of money to buy some things for him, like welcoming a bride and looking forward to his son's return. The son came back as scheduled.What was even more surprising was that a new daughter-in-law came back at the same time.My mother didn't know about this until she entered the house, and while she was still making a small complaint in her heart, she let the "new guest" into her house. The mother seemed to be ten years younger. Seeing the son with a slightly haggard face, when she pointed out the new daughter-in-law to two worker couples and said, "This is our friend", the mother was so happy that she couldn't speak. The news of the son's return soon spread throughout the city, and soon everyone in the city knew about the beautiful daughter-in-law.Because the place is small, not many people came back from Beijing. Although the gentlemen still lacked acquaintances, there were gradually cases of the sons of the gentlemen coming to the Yujia vegetable garden.The local education bureau also invited the man and his wife who had returned from Peiping to a meeting during a meeting.There are also those young people who are interested in the future. They know the name of the son of the Yu family from other things. From the mother's point of view, the son's appearance is still completely the same as before he went out, and the son has gradually become a person who inserts his life into society.Many things seem innocent, all the benefits of the past are completely retained, and all the newly acquired knowledge has been integrated into life, and there is no so-called trace.The daughter-in-law has almost no flaws to be found except that she is too beautiful to be a daughter-in-law and is worrying. The time is still hot, standing by the stream outside the door, listening to the water and cicadas, or talking among the melon sheds and bean beds, watching the sunset in the sky, the life of mother and son five years ago now has one more person.This family still seems to be in a different world from the people of the same place, and they have a little relationship with the people of the same city in their lives, but it is only a little bit of envy for those who pay more attention to the situation of this family when they talk about it. Because the daughter-in-law loves chrysanthemums very much, she plans to see chrysanthemums when she comes home this year, so she will go to Peiping, so the mother specially asked the workers to set aside a piece of land to plant chrysanthemums, search for good seeds everywhere, and supervise the workers to arrange the chrysanthemum seedlings. hands on.One day in August, after dinner, the mother and son were looking at the chrysanthemum seedlings in the garden. The son wore a short jacket with his sleeves rolled up above the elbow, and shoveled with his hands, which were covered in mud. When my mother saw a pair of young people cooking chrysanthemums in the chrysanthemum garden, she had a kind of harmless and very reasonable grandmother's fantasy. While talking to his mother about the chrysanthemum planters in Peiping, how to use the dried artemisia he planted for grafting, and how it bloomed like a bucket, at the same time, he squatted in front of his beautiful lady who was so beautiful that she couldn't help but be surprised whenever she saw it, and made a speechless look with her eyes. caress.Suddenly someone from the county said that there was something wrong, and two young people were invited to discuss it.The visitor didn't even leave time for the host to wash his hands, so he "invited" the young couple away.Since then, I have never returned home. Even though the mother was a little surprised at the time, she still didn't think about what happened next. The next day, the mother fell ill in bed. It turned out that her son and daughter-in-law, along with three young people who had suffered the same disaster for other reasons, were buried in a corner of the teaching ground. On the third day, in order to carry the five corpses to the wasteland in the outskirts, some rough-handed men threw them into the big pit dug the day before and had accumulated mud and water due to the rain at night, and randomly added a little soil, without looking back. He carried the rope and went to the Yamen to receive the reward, and let it rot slowly. The mother fainted several times from this misfortune, but did not die.Even though her son died in this way, she still has a lot to do to deal with the aftermath, fines, and recognizance. Three days later, notices were posted on the street, which made her and everyone in the city know that her son was originally a Communist Party member.It seems to be lucky that the people in the yamen kept the old ones because they thought they wanted cabbage to eat, and they didn't confiscate all the vegetable garden property.The old man who looks at him like this and smiles wryly shouldn't just die, he has to manage the vegetable garden.So she still sold vegetables and survived. When autumn comes, chrysanthemums bloom all over the place. The master is speechless to the flowers and has nothing to describe. The Yujia Vegetable Garden may one day be changed into the Yujia Garden, because there are many and good chrysanthemums in the garden, and there are local gentlemen and upstarts borrowing it as a place for banquets. Suddenly haggard like a seventy-year-old hostess, sitting in the garden and feeding the chickens every day, thinking about some useless old things. From then on, the Yujia Vegetable Garden became the Yujia Garden.There is no civil war, and the world is peaceful. In autumn, powerful gentlemen from the local area entertain guests in the garden. They eat vegetables produced in the garden, drink good wine, and enjoy chrysanthemums together.Because of the appreciation of chrysanthemums, everyone must compose poems in the Xingtou. Some wish the master to contribute to the country and live a long life. Compared with the elegant and relevant poems of the ancients, it is good to write the master of the garden as a vegetable seller to lament the old things. Poetry, the local gentlemen have a habit of writing some poems, and they think they are good. They must write on the wall, or spend money to find a mason to engrave stones, and prepare to embed them in the wall as a memorial.Celebrities and great men gather together, and everyone breaks up happily, and goes back drunk.When everyone returns home, there must still be a chance to have the dream of guessing the cup with Mr. Wuliu. Yujia Vegetable Garden was renamed Yujia Garden, which was done three years after the owner's son died. This woman lived silently and lonelyly for three years. On the day of her son's birthday, it snowed heavily. She thought it was enough to live like this. Spring and autumn would never come again. A silk sash was put around the neck, and he was hanged to death. Summer 1929