Mother Chen, like a general returning after a victory, returned to the room refreshed and high-spirited, and rushed to make a schoolbag for Zhu Ping'an. When she entered the room, she deliberately said something to her eldest aunt and fourth aunt. After Zhu Pingan tied the old scalper in the cowshed, he quickly followed Mr. Chen into the room.
Outside the east wing, the fourth aunt and the eldest aunt made some sarcastic remarks in disbelief. There is no one who doesn't submit to study and practice. It must be the pig who wants to learn from it, and there is also something like whether the master is teasing the pig. Obviously, they all say sour grapes if they can't eat them. If they can't get it, they hope that others won't get it either, so that they can have a psychological balance.
After Mrs. Chen returned to her room, she felt a little worried. She couldn't make a schoolbag by herself. In this era, the schoolbags of scholars were all portable small boxes made of wood or bamboo. The styles were basically the same. What distinguished the grades were the materials used and the workmanship. Making schoolbags is all carpentry work, and I don't know how to do it. After Chen returned to the house to calm down, she felt that she was overwhelmed with joy when she agreed in the yard.
"Well, Xie'er, your father will make your schoolbag for you when he comes. Your father does a good job in carpentry." Chen said sarcastically.
Zhu Ping'an rolled his eyes when he heard this. He has been carrying schoolbags for more than ten years in modern times and has long been accustomed to using cloth bags. Who would use wooden ones, which are so heavy.
So, Zhu Pingan stretched out his hand to make gestures, and said in his mouth, "The wooden one is too heavy, I want to make it out of cloth, any kind of cloth will do. Just use a piece of cloth as flat as a piece of cloth, sew it up, and it can hold things." That’s it, sew straps on both sides so I can hang it around my neck.”
Mrs. Chen is also a person who is accustomed to needlework, so she understood it after Zhu Pingan's gesture.
"You brat like you know how to boss me around." Mrs. Chen cursed, but with a smile on her face, she took out a piece of linen from the cabinet, moved the scissors around, and used the needle to thread.
Soon, a schoolbag took shape in Chen's hands. The shape of this schoolbag is almost the same as the modern schoolbag of the 1960s, but there are some differences. There are no unnecessary patterns, and the style is more concise and elegant. The schoolbag is not big, so Zhu Pingan tried to hang it diagonally on his shoulders just right. The length and width of the schoolbag are just right, so it doesn't look too big, but the space is just right, enough for Zhu Pingan to put books, pens, ink, paper and inkstones in it later.
"Thank you, mother." Zhu Ping'an said with emotion while carrying his schoolbag and looking at the thumb that Chen accidentally pricked just now while rushing to work.
Mrs. Chen said angrily, "Don't be angry. I'll do that."
After a while, the Zhu family members came back one after another. First, my grandfather entered the door with his hands behind his back, still holding his tobacco stick in his hand. When his grandmother told him that Zhu Ping'an was chosen by his master to study for free, his grandfather seemed to be drunk and excited. The old man's face turned red, and he said three good words, "good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good."
Followed closely was the fourth uncle, who staggered over smelling of alcohol. The first thing he said after entering the door was, I was drinking with friends outside, so you don’t need to call me for dinner. After that, the fourth uncle said: He staggered into the room and bumped into the door. You can tell at a glance that he drank too much. He was messing around outside again. Although the fourth aunt was angry, she hurriedly followed and supported her. She took the opportunity to pinch the fourth uncle hard several times to vent her anger.
Seeing this, my grandfather was so angry that he wanted to go up and kick him, and cursed, "This is a good-for-nothing."
The grandmother refused, and dragged the grandfather to prevent him from kicking the youngest, and spoke for the fourth uncle, "Men, who doesn't go out to socialize? This also shows that we, the fourth, have many good friends."
"It doesn't matter if you have so many friends, they are just a bunch of bad friends, so you just know how to spoil them!" The grandfather was so angry that he scolded my grandmother.
Father Zhu Shouyi and eldest brother Zhu Pingchuan were the last to arrive, both carrying backpacks. They went into the mountains again today.
"Yeah, the second brother has come into the mountains."
The fourth aunt who was supposed to be waiting for the fourth uncle in the house rushed out with a howl like a wolf after smelling blood. This made Mrs. Chen's face darken as she just stepped out of the east wing.
There were quite a lot of things in Father Zhu's basket on his back, including two live rabbits, a pheasant, and a lot of bamboo shoots and mountain mushrooms. There were a lot of them, and the little fourth aunt was beaming because she could see the smell of meat again. There were also many things in Zhu Pingchuan's basket, but they were all wild flowers. This made the fourth aunt a little unhappy. Why was Dachuan also infected by pigs? Why did he pick so many wild flowers?
"I want it." Zhu Ping'an came out with short legs and cleared up the fourth aunt's doubts.
Grandma and the fourth aunt were not interested in wild flowers. They put all the other things away like last time and threw the basket of wild flowers to Zhu Pingan aside.
Zhu Ping'an surrounded the basket full of wild flowers, smiling like a fool.
The eldest aunt was complaining on the side, a few wild flowers can be so stupid, what level is it? She is just ignorant, how can she compare with our handsome children.
When Zhu's father and eldest brother heard that Zhu Pingan had been chosen by Sun Lao Xiucai to study for free, they were overjoyed. Zhu's father was even more happy to grab Zhu Pingan and fly it in the air several times, almost vomiting Zhu Pingan.
"Mom, Master said it's free, but we can't just go like this. I think, why don't I give this pheasant and some mushrooms and wild game picked from the mountains to my old scholar Sun to try out tomorrow?" Zhu Shouyi put it down. After Zhu was safe, he discussed it with his grandmother.
Grandma looked unwilling. Before she could say her refusal, Grandpa spoke.
"That's right. The second brother is right. These wild mushrooms and wild game are worth a few bucks, so bring them with you." Grandfather nodded repeatedly.
"Why use so much?" Grandma was not happy.
"What do you know about a woman!" Grandfather interrupted with a dark face, "Listen to me, bring them all with you when you go tomorrow."
Dinner in the evening was naturally harmonious. For the first time, my grandfather drank two more drinks and felt a little drunk.
"It would be great if this cloth could be used to make new clothes for Shi'er. It's all your fault that you spend so much money that you can't spend enough."
After dinner, in the east wing room, Mrs. Chen looked at the pink cotton with white background on the bedside and began to complain about Father Zhu.
Father Zhu naturally said yes repeatedly, with a dark face full of smiles.
Outside the window, big brother Dachuan was helping Zhu Pingan get water to take a bath. He was going to study as a teacher tomorrow, so he had to take a good wash. In ancient times, it was a big deal to become a disciple. Before doing this, you had to take a shower, change new clothes, eat vegetarian food, etc. to show respect. This is also called fasting. Although apprenticeship in rural areas is not so particular, bathing and bathing cannot be omitted. Dressing up neatly should at least show respect for the master.
"Oh, by the way, I also brought a blue cotton bed sheet with me as a dowry. Please dig it out for me quickly and I'll get some new clothes for She'er." Mrs. Chen, who was complaining about Zhu's father, suddenly thought of it and immediately urged her with a bright smile. Father Zhu went through the box to find the bed sheet.
"That's your dowry..." Father Zhu said obediently.
"What do you know? I'm happy to do it." Mrs. Chen kicked Father Zhu hard and urged Father Zhu to get the sheets, "Zhu Shouyi, hurry up.";
