Chapter 10 (six)

This time Zhongshu went to Lantian, Yuanyuan was not in a daze.Although the two of them played together every night during the vacation, "cat and mouse jumping together", Yuanyuan seemed to have forgotten the father who was fading away and disappearing on the ferry.Although Zhongshu missed his daughter along the way, it seems that her daughter still doesn't know how to miss her. She can already climb the stairs to the fourth floor by herself.The third aunt on the fourth floor is very close to us, and we often go upstairs to visit her.My cousin's daughter goes to study on the fourth floor every day.She is two years older than Yuanyuan, and she reads two volumes of "Literacy by Reading Pictures".There is a small table and two small chairs in the third aunt's room.Two children sit opposite each other at the table, one reading and the other listening.The staircase was wide and flat.Yuanyuan went upstairs to the third aunt's house to listen to her little cousin's reading, and went downstairs to be with her grandfather.

I saw that Yuanyuan was so envious of "Learning by Picture", so I bought two copies for her.That day when I came home before dinner, my eldest sister, third sister and two younger sisters were all laughing and told me, "Come and watch Yuanyuantou study".They read to Yuanyuan the new book I bought for Yuanyuan.Yuanyuan immediately turned the book upside down and read from beginning to end, every word was correct.At first they thought Yuanyuan had heard it by heart.Later, the eldest sister suddenly understood that Yuanyuan sat in front of her little cousin and listened every day, and she recognized all the reversed characters.Yuanyuan was two and a half years old at that time.My father does not approve of children who are too young to learn to read. She reads upside-down characters, and she will gradually forget them.But the elder sister thought it should be corrected, so she specially bought a box of Chinese characters to teach her.

My elder sister is the most strict, forbidding to praise the child in front of the child.But she taught Yuanyuan herself, so she forgot her precepts.She told me to "come and see Yuanyuantou Literacy".She embedded four square characters on a piece of copper and called out, "Yuanyuantou, let's learn how to read."Yuanyuan was able to walk quite freely, and a small person walked underground, making the room seem very large.Her walking posture is very similar to Zhong Shu.She walked over to listen to the auntie's teaching, and then walked away without repeating the reading.The eldest sister completely forgot her precepts, and said to me: "She knew it just by looking at it, and she didn't need to review it, she remembered it all."

My second sister is four years younger than my eldest sister. My mother taught my eldest sister Chinese characters, and my second sister sat in her mother's arms. She knew all the characters my eldest sister knew.Dad was working out of town, and when he got home and found out, he was anxious to blame his mother for messing around and teaching the child to be stupid.Mom said that she didn't teach her, she knew it by herself.Dad watched Yuanyuan learn to read, and thought he remembered his most precious second sister.Dad said to me: "There is a 'photographic memory'."

After the Anti-Japanese War ended, my family hired a little aunt named Aju.Her mother also worked as a servant in Shanghai. Because she changed her address, she wrote a postcard to tell her daughter.My name is Aju. Don't lose the postcard. If you lose it, you won't be able to find your mother.Aju hid the postcard under her pillow, but it was lost.She was so anxious that she wanted to cry, and I helped her recall where the postcards were hidden.Yuanyuan said quietly beside her: "I seem to have seen it before, let me think about it." We waited for her to tell where the postcard was, but she recited a place name—it was quite long, what road and what intersection, Dexin Li No. 8.I am waiting to believe it or not.I just listened to it and sent the letter according to this address.Yuanyuan remembers every word well.She was over eight years old at the time.My dad is dead, but I remember his words: "There is a photographic memory."

So my father loves the round head very much.None of us sisters and brothers slept in the same bed as Dad.Dad's bed used to be very big.During the escape to Shanghai, Dad's bed was only slightly wider than the small bed.During the afternoon nap, Yuanyuan and grandpa slept on the same bed.Dad cherishes a small ear pillow wrapped in Taiwanese mats.It was made by my mother for my father. There is a hole in the middle for the ears.Dad put the baby pillow on Yuanyuan's feet to sleep on. My family has a copy of "Nursery Rhyme Grand View", bound together in four volumes (the third aunt gave me and my younger brother and sister each a volume).Somehow this book made its way to Shanghai, probably brought by the third sister to teach her daughter.At that time, the book belonged to the little sister Abi.

I was "dog plowing" and working as a governess all day long.When I have free time before going to bed, I teach Yuanyuan to sing nursery rhymes with my elder sister and younger sister.Yuanyuan can carry a lot.I made her point to the back of the book so that she would not miss a word.The characters on the book are quite large, and the round little fingers are pointing each character, which fits just right.Unexpectedly, she recognized a lot of characters from this. The eldest sister taught Yuanyuan how to read and was obedient to her.Yuanyuan didn't read one pack and then read another pack, she asked to open one pack after another, and she picked out the characters she knew.She has already reversed the reversed words.The words she knows are often beyond the expectations of her eldest sister.Once she picked out the word "Gu" and took "Grand Views of Nursery Rhymes" and found "Sister-in-law Come out and take a look", she nodded and said, "That's the word "Gu". She flipped through the book very quickly, using two Picking up the pages with two fingers, he turned the pages of the book in the same way as Zhong Shu.When did she learn it?Zhongshu didn't have time to read books during his vacation in Laidefang, and he had no books to read, so he had to read a dictionary.Yuanyuan's flip book looks like her father, which surprised me and found it very interesting.

The Qian family lived in a house along the street on Lafayette Road, and there was a large area of ​​similar buildings at the back, and the residents entered and exited through the alley.My eldest sister has a good friend who rents at No. 5 in the alley, and the landlord is her cousin, the rich man who inherited a thousand acres of fertile land from my father's lawsuit.She occasionally comes to see my eldest sister. During the summer vacation in 1940, on a Sunday afternoon, my third sister was with my father.Dad and my sisters were all talking in our bedroom.Suddenly a strange guest came.She is dressed just like Miss Bao in the movie.She is taller than Miss Bao in the TV series. She wears a bra on her upper body, a small transparent honey yellow lace vest, a pair of tight-fitting briefs, and underneath are two strong, fat, long white legs. She wears white sandals, showing her full body He has bright red toenails, the same color as the lipstick on his mouth, and holds a large straw hat with a wide brim in his hand.She is the rich man.

Seeing such a strange appearance, my father suppressed a smile, and with a tigerish face, he immediately withdrew to his room.Abi couldn't help laughing, and followed his father.I accompanied my elder sister and third sister to make tea and entertain guests.I was sitting on the other side of the table, and the guest was sitting opposite me, and Yuanyuan was playing by the side.Yuanyuan was very interested in this guest, she moved her small stool, put it in front of the guest seat, sat on the small stool, faced the guest, and looked up at the guest carefully.This made my third sister couldn't help laughing, stood up unceremoniously and fled to my father's room.I had no choice but to pretend nothing had happened, went to hold Yuanyuan in my arms, sat back where I was, and entertained guests with my elder sister.

The guests left, and our sisters washed the lipstick marks on the teacups together, and poured out the cigarette butts with a ring of lipstick marks on the saucer (the maid is off on Sunday).We said "Dad is so rude".I also blame Third Sister for being impatient.But we all had a good laugh because we had never seen such a dress up before.My family loves to laugh.We called that strange guest "Jing Chi Ren Ren" (in Wuxi dialect, referring to a naked person). Not long after, I took Yuanyuan to Lafayette Road to "be a daughter-in-law"—that is, to bring some things to honor my mother-in-law, to visit her and talk to my sister-in-law and sister-in-law.The Qian family was talking about the neighborhood scandal that was raging at that time: "Last night, the husband of the young lady on the 5th was caught in the rape, and a pair was caught, and they were all taken away." I know who the young lady on the 5th is.I just listened and didn't say anything.My mother-in-law holds her baby grandson.He was the "little emperor" of the Qian family at that time, and he was very troublesome.Ah Yuan was one year older than him, and sat obediently on my lap without saying a word.I sat for a while, said goodbye and came back to Defang.

When I went out with Yuanyuan in my arms, she asked me to leave.I put her down on the ground, and she said to me: "Mother, the young mistress in No. 5 is 'Jing Chi Ren Ren Ren'." I know this.But how would Yuanyuan know?I asked her how she knew.She is still young, only three years old, she can't explain, she just nodded vigorously and said: "Yes. Yes." Decades later, I brought up the old story again and asked her how she knew that the young mistress in No. ".She said: "I saw her walking with a daughter at the entrance of the alley." Yuanyuan's observations are subtle, and her conclusions are often unexpectedly correct. "Everyone" does have a daughter, but I've never seen her with a daughter.Zhongshu likes to "observe things to gain knowledge".When we were "exploring" together in the past, he often made discoveries by using his ability of "investigating things to know".Yuanyuan took a small stool and sat in front of the strange guest and looked carefully, probably also "investigating things to know", and recognized that this woman was the one who had brought a daughter at the entrance of the alley.My father often said that with a round head and a pair of eyes, you can see everything.But she was at Qian's house, obediently sitting on my lap, not saying a word, as if she didn't understand anything. At the end of the autumn of 1940, my younger brother returned home after finishing his studies at the Vienna Medical University, and Yuanyuan had another uncle who doted on her.My younger brother lives in my father's house. Zhongshu wrote a letter before the summer vacation saying that he would return to Shanghai during the summer vacation.My father-in-law originally said that he would return to Shanghai with Zhong Shu in one year, but he did not want to return to Shanghai in one year.Zhongshu and Mr. Xu Yanmou traveled together, but the road was impassable, and they turned back to Lantian halfway. I knew my younger brother was going home soon, and Zhongshu could no longer spend his vacation in Laidefang, so I rented a room in the alley on Lafayette Road.Yuanyuan will move out of her grandfather's house with her mother.Grandpa said to Yuanyuan who was next to her, "Move out, so grandpa won't hurt anymore." Yuanyuan burst into tears.She stood beside her grandfather's seat and shed big drops of hot tears, soaking the knees of her grandfather's linen trousers in hot tears.I wasn't there at the time, and according to my elder sister, my father, who doesn't cry easily, cried so much for Yuan Yuantou.Zhongshu failed to return home, so we moved out for a month, then we quit the house and returned to Laidefang.Our mother and daughter lived another year with my dad.I can't remember whether "Jing Chi Ren Ren" came to Defang before we moved out or after we moved back.Probably after moving back. Yuanyuan knows a lot of characters, and I often buy children's books with illustrations for her.She reads very quickly, and I don't read small books very often. I choose long stories especially for her.Once I bought a set of three volumes of "The Wandering Child".Yuanyuan just read the beginning, and cried bitterly.I said this is a story, and at the end Ku'er will stop wandering.It doesn't matter what I say.She cried at the sight of the three books, and a hot tear the size of a nickel fell on the stool. She hoped that her mother would play with her at night, and when she saw that I had to correct a large stack of class papers (because I was also an English teacher in the third year of high school), she held out a small tear, stretched out a tender fist, and pretended to type the class papers.That's enough to bother me. "The Wandering Child" made her cry so sadly that I felt like I was abusing her.I had to hide the book and buy a new one for her. When I usually read a book, I don't laugh when I see the ridiculous parts, and I don't cry when I see the sad parts.When Zhongshu saw the funny parts in the book, he couldn't stop laughing, but I didn't see him cry while reading the book.Yuanyuan cried bitterly while reading a book, she should be like her father, but she is still a soft-hearted child.Many years later, she was already a university professor, but she came to tell me who the original author of this story was, who was the translator, how the wandering of the bitter boy ended, and so on. She probably cared about the bitter boy all the time.