Chapter 346 How Can You Do a Child's Work?
Chapter 346 How Can You Do a Child's Work?
The storm lasted from early morning until late the next night before it abated.
Li Changle felt that the storm in the early morning of that day was like a rehearsal. After that storm, there would be a rest of two or three hours at most before another storm came.
Early in the morning of the third day, Li Changle got up and saw that the rain had stopped and the wind had died down a lot. He hurried to the beach to watch the tide. As soon as he walked out of the yard, he was stopped by his second brother Li, and the two brothers walked towards the beach together.
After returning from the maiden voyage, it had been six or seven days since they had gone out to sea, and the two brothers were a little anxious.
When we walked to the beach, we saw that the sea water had covered the big puddle and had risen to the level of the reef. The white waves were rolling and roaring against the reefs, making a thunderous roar.
"Brother, judging from the wind, the big ship should be able to go out tomorrow."
"Wait for Dad to come and see what the weather forecast says."
"Let's go back!" Li Changle turned around and walked back.
When the two brothers reached the intersection, they saw Father Li coming in a hurry. As soon as he saw them, he said, "The weather forecast says that we can go out to sea tomorrow.
After dinner we went to collect the fallen rice, otherwise it would sprout.”
There are four people in Li Changle's family, and they have only one acre of rice fields in total. The brothers and parents have only six or seven acres in total, and more than two acres of rice fields have collapsed. With so many people, they can finish harvesting the crops in less than a day.
When the three of them got home, Chen Yongwei also came and asked, "Brother, are you harvesting rice today?"
"Yes! We must first reclaim the two mu of fallen land, and you should also bring your belongings with you. Then we can also reclaim your two mu of land."
"Then I'll go back and prepare the baskets and everything." Chen Yongwei said and left in a hurry.
After the family had finished their meal, Zhou Ruonan took the children to school, Li's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law went out with sickles to harvest the rice, and Li Changle and his grandfather went to the old house to pack up the baskets and double rice threshers.
Pulling out a cart, Chen Yongwei also came out of the alley carrying a basket, and the group walked towards Changtang in a hurry.
Along the way, there were many villagers carrying and pulling farm tools for harvesting rice and walking towards the rice fields.
In the rice fields near the Li family's village, the fallen rice has been propped up and tied together with straw, and will be harvested in a week.
After leaving the village, I saw large areas of rice blown down by the wind and sticking to the ground, like a yellow-green carpet.
Everyone was harvesting while sighing, and some were talking loudly, saying that the yield had dropped so much this year, so shouldn't the public grain tax be reduced?
Some people also suggested that we should all ask Accountant Chen to go to the town to talk to the cadres about this matter.
Li Changle and his companions arrived at their own rice fields and saw that there was still a lot of water in the fields. When they stepped on them, the mud immediately covered their insteps.
Li's mother, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law stood in the rice field with their backs bent. Following the direction of the rice's fall, they grabbed the part above the rice roots with their left hands, and with their right hands holding the sickle, they pressed the blade against the rice roots and cut along the direction. A handful of rice fell into their hands.
The mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law picked up the cut rice stalks carefully and gently, fearing that if they used too much force, the few rice grains would fall off.
When Li Changle and his companions arrived, they first picked up the harvested rice and made room for a rice thresher.
This rice thresher is composed of a rectangular open wooden rice barrel, a frame, pedals, a threshing drum, a canopy, and a grain receiving bucket.
A two-person rice thresher is usually used by two people at the same time. If the strength of holding the rice stalks is not enough, both the person and the rice will be dragged into the high-speed rolling wheel circle, so the threshing work can only be done by adults.
Li Changle still remembers this rice thresher. It was bought by his family and Uncle Li's family together after the land was distributed to each household. It cost more than 300 yuan, and Li's mother talked about it for a long time.
After lifting the rice thresher from the cart and placing it in place, Father Li and eldest brother Li were busy harvesting the rice. Second brother Li and Chen Yongwei picked up a handful of rice stalks, spread them out and pressed them tightly with both hands, raised their feet to step on the pedals, put the rice stalks close to the drum, and stepped on the pedals hard.
The gear-equipped drum in the rice thresher spun rapidly, and plump rice grains fell off the rice stalks one by one. Two people used their hands alternately to put the rice stalks on the drum and turned them over and over to thresh them.
He would not put down the rice stalks he was holding until only a handful of straw was left, then he would pick up another handful of rice and continue threshing.
While several people were busy, Wang Laobian, with a piece of gauze on his head, came over from the saline-alkali land carrying a trap.
"Boss Ale, you are a strong laborer, why are you doing the work of a child?"
Li Changle glanced at the gauze on his head and said, "There are many laborers at home, so this seat is the only one left for me."
Wang Laobian looked at the people busy in the rice fields with envy, "Your family is still good. The brothers are all strong laborers. Whatever you do is easy and lively."
"Working requires more people to make it more lively!" Brother Li laughed, "Why did you bring the trap back? Hasn't the tide receded yet?"
Wang Laobian shook his head, "It's very early. It would be good if we can retreat in the afternoon."
The villagers in the rice field next door looked at his head and said, "Lao Bian, your head hasn't healed yet after being hit by a fish?"
"It's not healed yet!" Wang Laobian touched the gauze and smiled, "I'm lucky I wasn't hit by the stonefish."
"Lao Bian, don't be so anxious next time."
"Next time. It's good enough to meet him once in a lifetime." Wang Laobian walked away with the trap in his hand, smiling.
Li Changle helped pass the rice bundles for a while, then said to Li Erge, "Brother, you bundle the rice straw and I'll thresh the rice."
Second brother Li looked back at him and said, "Can you do it?" "Brother, it's very rude to ask a man if he can do it, do you understand?" Li Changle said with a grin, holding a handful of straw.
Brother Li rolled his eyes at him and said, "You little brat, you're always so cunning!" Then he stepped aside holding the straw and said, "Come on!"
"Watch!" Li Changle nodded to Chen Yongwei. They both stepped on the pedal at the same time, put the handles of grain onto the drum and started threshing.
I was a little confused at first, but I got my feeling back after a few breaths.
Chen Yongwei looked at him strangely, "Brother, I think you are doing quite well! How did you hurt your finger when you were harvesting rice last year?"
Brother Li nodded at Li Changle, "This guy must have deliberately injured himself to be lazy!"
"After getting hurt last year, he still can't learn. Is he still the clever Li Laosan?" Li Changle smiled, put down the straw, picked up the handful of grain and started working.
At this time in his previous life, Li Changle was not good at farm work, but now he is an old man who has been doing farm work for more than 20 years. No matter whether it is work in the fields or on the boat, there is nothing he can't do.
Mother Li turned her head and gave Li Changle a sidelong look. "How dare you say that? I saw that you were just being lazy before, so you said you couldn't do it, but now you are doing it like a pro!"
"The main thing is that your son is smart and he will learn it after just one look."
"Shameless, luckily there's no one like you in the family!"
"It's good to have someone like me at home. If you were all silent like the eldest and second brothers, you would be so boring!"
"Hurry up and get to work!"
After several piles of rice were all threshed, several people dragged and pushed the thresher forward with one foot deep and one foot shallow, moving the thresher closer to the rice and continuing to thresh.
"Ale, hurry up, there are field crabs in the cracks of the rocks on the ridge!" Li's mother pointed at the ridge and shouted.
"Where? Where?"
Li Changle put down the straw and ran towards the ridge of the field. When he reached the place pointed by Li's mother, he got close to the crack in the ridge made of stones and saw a pair of big hairy turtles and a pair of small, bright eyes.
"Brother, there are more here!" Chen Yongwei also found a few over there.
Li Changle looked up and saw a cluster of bamboos above the vegetable field. He said to them, "You guys go ahead and do your work. I'll go cut some bamboo branches!"
Around the time when the late rice harvest begins, the crabs' legs are itchy and their mouths are greedy. Field crabs hide in caves and grass during the day and come out early in the morning and at night to steal food.
Everyone thought of a way to catch field crabs. They tied an earthworm to the top of a thin bamboo strip and put it into the hole to lure the field crabs. When the field crabs followed the bait out of the hole, they grabbed them.
Father Li waved at him, "Go! Go!" There were many people, so one more person wouldn't make a difference.
Li Changle took a sickle and cut two thin bamboo branches, dug some crickets in the vegetable field, picked a leaf to wrap them, and ran back to the rice field.
Tie the cricket to a thin bamboo branch and carefully reach into the hole to lure out the crab. The crab hiding in the hole will pounce on the food by waving its hairy claws...
When it followed the bait and ran out of the cave, Li Changle quickly held it down, turned it over and took a look at the crab navel. "Not bad, it's still a female crab."
After saying that, he used a rope made of several straws to tie it up tightly.
The way they distinguish male and female crabs is to look at the small cover on the crab's belly near the bottom. If it is pointed and narrow, it is a male crab, and if it is round and wide, it is a female crab.
Li Changle carried the field crab and walked to the next field crab cave. He used the same old trick. Another greedy field crab took the bait, and he did the same in the other field crab caves.
By searching a stone-paved ridge, I caught a long string of plump field crabs.
At this time, the rice bucket was also full of grains. Brother Li used a dustpan to scoop out the rice grains and poured them into sacks and baskets. He carried them one load at a time to the edge of the field and loaded them onto the cart.
Li Changle and Chen Yongwei pulled the rice and went home with Li's mother. Grandma Chen had already cleaned the yard. They took out the drying mats and spread them out, then poured out the rice and spread it out to dry.
It was past eight o'clock and the wind was still a little strong. As soon as the sun came out, it was wrapped back by large dark clouds. Only a faint sunlight shone through the clouds onto the ground.
Li Changle and Chen Yongwei collected the baskets and sacks and loaded them onto the cart. They said to Li's mother, who was raking the straw with a bamboo rake, "Mother, you stay home and dry the millet while we go harvest it."
"Okay!" Li's mother responded and continued to rake the rice. She had to rake out the straw wrapped in the rice and the rice stalks that fell into it so that the grains could be dried more easily.
With the help of seven or eight strong laborers, more than two acres of rice were harvested cleanly before noon, and the rice straw was also pulled back to Nanshanao and dried in the open space.
Li Changle and his companions were covered in mud from head to toe, looking like mud monkeys.
It wasn't raining, and the few of them were too lazy to boil water for a bath. They went back to the house, got a towel, went to the ditch to wash themselves clean, changed into clean clothes, and walked towards the beach.
The wind and waves at the seaside are still very strong and the tide has not receded at all. It looks like we can only wait until the afternoon to come and have a look.
(End of this chapter)