Butter pancake

Xiao Sheng followed his father to the mouth.

Xiao Sheng turned seven and turned eight. He has been following his grandmother all these years. His father's job has always been fluid. Some time to repair the reservoir, some time to refine steel. He's been moving his mother around. Grandma alone in the hometown, said it was very quiet. When he was three years old, he was sent back home. In his hometown, he ate a lot of radish cabbage, millet flour cake, corn flour cake, grow tall.

Grandma doesn't care much about him. Grandma is busy. She was always finding bits and pieces of material to put on his coat, jacket, trousers, cotton-padded jacket, and trousers. His clothes were one after another, one green, one blue. It's pretty clean. Grandma also made shoes for him. Itself GeBei, cut appearance, foundation, attach themselves. Grandma always said, "You have teeth in your feet and a mouth?" 'Your feet are made of iron! And then I cooked for him. Millet flour cake, corn flour cake, radish cabbage - scrambled eggs, boil small fish. He played outside all day. When Grandma had finished cooking, she shouted at the door, "Sheng 'er! Come back for dinner!!"

Later, a canteen was set up. Grandma handed in two POTS at home and came back from the canteen to eat. That's not bad! White steamed bread, big pancake, marinated shrimp sauce fried tofu, stuffy eggplant, pork head! The master of the dining-room, dressed in white clothes and a white hat, was swinging about in the white heat of the steamer, banging on the edge of the pot with his shovel, and Shouting. People are getting fat, pigs are getting fat. That's not bad!

Then it didn't work. Or rice flour cake, corn flour cake.

Later millet flour cake in the bran, corn flour cake in the corn kernel ground out of the ballast, pull the voice. People are thin, pigs are thin. It used to take a lot to get rid of a pig. This year, he grabbed the hind leg of the pig. It's a big krona, and when you squeeze it, it collapses. The adulterated cake was not delicious, but Xiao Sheng still ate it well. He is hungry.

Grandma didn't eat well. He fetched his meal from the canteen, broke off half a cake and chewed it for a long time. The rest went to Xiao Sheng.

Grandma was not in good health before. She has an asthma problem. It happens every winter. The day is fine, the night is hard. Xiao Sheng lay on the pit, listening to his grandmother gasping for breath. I woke up and listened to her drink. Grandma has been drinking all night, he thought. But grandma still drink up, drink and give him to the canteen to play breakfast, play mixed false millet cake, corn cake.

Dad came back to visit Grandma last winter. Every year he comes back, it's winter. Dad brought home half a sack of potatoes, a mushroom, and two bottles of butter. Papa said he shared the potatoes; He picked the mushrooms and hung them by himself; Butter was obtained through the back door. Dad said, butter is milk refining, very "nutrition", called grandma wipe cake to eat. Grandma borrowed the pot to steam the potatoes, boiled them, put them in the stove and baked them for Xiao Sheng to eat. The mushrooms were spiced in the Spring Festival. Butter, grandma asked Dad to take back: "You eat. Such a valuable thing!" Dad must leave it for Grandma. Grandma left the butter, but never ate it. Grandma put two bottles of butter on the recliner and wiped them with a rag every now and then. What is butter? Made from milk? Through the glass, you can see its color is light yellow. Last year, the third family gave birth to the fourth, he saw the third his mother to the fourth with pine-flower powder prickly heat. Butter is the color of pine pollen. It's oily. It looks good. "It's edible," said Grandma. Xiao Sheng didn't want to eat it. He hasn't eaten, he's not greedy.

Grandma's health is getting worse and worse. She used to fetch cookies from the canteen and walk home in one go. I can't now. I'll have to take a break when I get to the Crooked willow tree. Grandma caught up with the age of grandpa, grandma said: "I'm afraid it is too winter, too spring ah." Xiao Sheng knows this is not a nice thing to say. This is an insult to cattle. "Ah! Look at you! We can live through winter but not spring!" Sure enough, spring is hard. Old men and women in the village were dying one after another. There is a wood production cooperative in the town. The furniture and the plough and harrow repair have been stopped, but coffins have been made instead. Fresh graves and white flags have been added outside the village. Grandma's not working. She's swollen all over. With a finger press, the eldest a pit, not up for a long time. She asked someone to write for her son.

Dad came back, Grandma had swallowed.

Dad begged the wood industry to change the lounge cabinet into a coffin in Grandma's house and buried grandma. In the evening, I sat on my grandmother's kang and wept all night.

Xiao Sheng experienced what death was for the first time in his life. He knew that "dead" meant "not." He doesn't have a grandmother. He lay down on a pillow, which smelled of Grandma's hair. He cried.

Grandma made him two pairs of shoes. If you can do it, say, "Try it!" '--' Wait a minute! Squeaky, he ran away. Xiao Sheng woke up and tried on both pairs of shoes in his bare feet. One pair fits perfectly, and one pair is bigger. His bare feet touched the lining cloth and, sensing the bottom line, he called out "Grandma!" He cried again.

Dad paid a visit to the elders in the village, packed up the family's things, and put all the useful POTS and pans in a big net basket. He put the two pairs of shoes that his grandmother had made for Xiao Sheng in the basket. Put the two untouched bottles of butter in the basket. After locking the door, he took Xiao Sheng on his way.

Xiao Sheng doesn't know his father well. He's used to it with grandma. He did not speak at first. He misses home, think of grandma, think of the crooked neck willow tree, think of a pair of small three big white geese, think of dragonfly, think of grasshopper, want to hang big flat flying ring, showing the green hard wings low peach wing film... Then I got to know my father. He's a father! They went by car, by train, and then by car. Dad is fine. Dad was always talking to him, telling him things that weren't in his mouth. He was talking more and more, asking questions. He developed a keen interest in "outside the mouth".

He asked Dad what "out of mouth" meant. Dad said "outside the mouth" is Zhangjiakou, also called "Bashang". "Why is it called Bashang?" He thought "dam" was a dam. We'll know when Dad says it.

Dare "dam" is a mountain. The top of the mountain is even, like a dam. But it's so big! The car kept climbing. The car was tired and seemed to be out of breath and humming. Up the mountain, hey, a big flat! How flat it is! It's flat and big. It looks like it's rolled out. How can it be so flat! As soon as the car hit the dam, it went wild. It stopped humming and went "brush -" straight ahead. Once on the dam, the weather suddenly changed. Under the dam is summer, once up the dam like autumn. Suddenly, it was cold. Dam on the dam, the knife cut the same. How flat! There are several hills far away, round. Not a tree. There are many trees in his hometown. Elm, willow, locust. What a place! Not a tree grows! It's a big flat place, green and covered with grass. There is land. The land is really big. It stretched from one hill to the other. How big is the plot? His father told him: There was a farmer took a cow to plow the field. After a trip to plow, the cow came back with a new calf, which was already three years old.

The bus arrived at Guyuan County, their last stop. An ox-cart came to meet them. This car looks really funny, the wheels are two wood cake, not quite round, rolling, rolling forward. He was lying on his back in the bullock cart over a large blue sky. The ox cart was so slow, not as fast as he went. Sometimes he would come down and pick a couple of wild flowers, walk a bit, and climb into the car again.

The crops in this place are different from those in the mouth. No sorghum, no old corn, naked oats, flax. Naked oats are clean. Looks like they've been washed and combed. Flax holding a small blue umbrella, Xiu xiu gas, not like crops, but like a kind of flowers to see.

Drink, this mass of malan! They have them back home in Maran, but not as big as here. Lord Changqi's waist was so high, and there were palm-sized blue butterfly flowers. As far as the eye can see. This big maran! He'll never forget it. He was in a dream.

The ox-cart walked along. Dad said: Here! He sat up and saw a large number of potatoes, all in bloom, pink, light purple blue, white, as far as the eye could see, like a heavy snow. The snow was swaying in the wind, and he felt faint. Not far away was a row of houses with earthen walls and glass Windows. This was the Potato Research station where Dad worked. Potatoes -- yam eggs -- potatoes. Potato is a scientific name, Dad said.

A man ran out of the house. "Mother!!" He knew it at once! His mother ran up and picked him up.

Xiao Sheng is going to live here, with his father and mother.

If only Grandma could join us.

Xiao Sheng's father majored in agriculture and has been doing other things in recent years. Grandma asked him, "Why are you always transferred around?" Dad said, "I'm easy to bully." The potato research station is too far away for others to come. Dad is willing. Mother is learning to draw, a few years ago, drawing two dolls can not move the big radish, above a sail can be used as a boat pod. She would also like to come with her father and draw the "potato map".

Mother brought them food. Real corn flour cake, two big bowls of porridge. Mother said the porridge was made of grass seed. Kind of like millet, smaller than millet. It's green, it's thick, it's fragrant. And a big plate of crucian carp. Dad said that there were few crucian carp in other places that had more than one jin. Here there were crucian carp in "mire" of one jin or two. Crucian carp eat grass seeds and grow fat. When the grass seeds are ripe, the wind blows them into the mire and the fish eat them. Xiao Sheng ate his fill.

Dad said there were three reasons for bringing in Xiao Sheng. One is grandma died, there is no one in the hometown. Second, Xiao Sheng should go to school. After the summer vacation, he will go to a primary school not far away to sign up. Third, the food is better here. It is always easier to do something when the land is wide and few people live there. There's five acres of private land here for one person! Just dig up any piece of land and you can grow something. Mom and Dad opened a field right next to the "research station" and planted yams and pumpkins. The yams blossomed and the pumpkins grew bones. It won't be long before you're ready to eat.

The potato research station was quiet, with few people altogether. Just my father, my mother, and a few workers. Workers have homes. In the station is Xiao Sheng's family. This place, it's so quiet. All day long can not hear the sound, in addition to the wind naked oats, rustling like a light rain; Sometimes little swallows chirp.

Dad wore a straw hat and went to work with the workers every day, hoeing yams. Sometimes look up information, read books. Mom got up early in the morning to pick a bunch of yam flowers, a bunch of leaves, back in the bottle, intently looking at it, stroke by stroke. The flowers are just like the real ones! Xiao Sheng went to the fields with his mother every day and came back with dew on his shoes and trousers. Two pairs of new shoes had not yet been put on, and Mother had locked them in the cupboard with two bottles of butter.

During the day, when there was nothing to do, he would play and run about. The place was so large that there was no way to cover it. You could turn around and see the row of houses at the research station. You couldn't get lost. He went into the meadow to look at the cows and the horses and the sheep.

He sometimes goes to dill his pumpkin and yam fields. Take a hoe and pour half a bucket of water from the engine well. It's not for fun. Xiao Sheng is waiting to eat them. Their home does not catch fire, in the brigade canteen to eat, the food in the canteen is getting worse and worse. There is no grass seed porridge, and there is no corn cake. Now eat red sorghum cake and drink soup made from beet leaves. It might get worse down there. Xiao Sheng is afraid of hunger.

He learned to pick mushrooms. At first his mother took him to collect twice, and then he could do it himself. The rain, the sun, the air damp, stuffy, mushrooms came out. Mushrooms are weird. They grow in "mushroom rings". You lower your head, side eyes a look, on the grass far a circle of grass, the color is particularly dark, black green black green, vaguely see a few white spots, that is the mushroom circle. Round and smooth. Mushrooms grow in this circle of dark grass. Not inside the circle, not outside the circle. The mushroom ring is fixed. Grow this year, grow next year. Where there is a mushroom circle, the villagers know.

One of the mushroom rings went crazy. It kept growing mushrooms, long, three days and three nights a long, as if there is a ghost, looking at people are afraid. Seven or eight houses from the neighborhood gathered them, strung them with thread, and hung them under the eaves. Every family hung three or four strings, pretty long three or four strings. The villagers said that there would be no more mushrooms in the circle next year. It was dead. Xiao Sheng also picked better. His heart was beating with excitement. "Good fellow! Boy! So much! So much!" He has made a fortune.

Why is he so excited? Mushrooms are edible!

Tears flowed as he threaded the mushroom. He thought of his grandmother, to whom he would send two bunches of mushrooms. He now knew that Grandma had starved to death. People don't starve to death at once, they starve to death slowly.

The red sorghum cake in the canteen became less and less delicious because it was mixed with bran. The beet leaf soup was getting worse and worse because there was no oil left. He hated the red sorghum cake mixed with bran, the beet-leaf soup without oil!

He still plays and runs around.

There was a sudden bustle outside the brigade canteen. At first it was a cart of sheep bricks. He asked Dad what it was, and Dad said, "Sheep brick." '--' What are sheep bricks? '--' The dung is pressed down and cut into pieces. ' '--' For what? ' -- "Burn." '--' Will it burn? ' '--' It burns! The fire is burning." Then we had a big kitchen. Then he killed about a dozen sheep. Xiao Sheng stood by watching the killing of the sheep. He had never seen a sheep killed. Hey, there's not a lick of blood out there, and you've just peeled off a sheep's skin!

What is this supposed to do?

Dad said there would be a three-level executive meeting.

"What is the third level meeting of cadres?"

"You'll know when you're older!"

The third level cadres meeting is the third level cadres dinner.

The brigade originally has two canteens, south canteens, north canteens, between a yard, the yard also built a shed, rainy days can also be two canteens back and forth string. It turned out that the "communes" ate in two canteens. Three level staff meetings, they're all packed into the north cafeteria. The south canteen was cleared for the meeting of cadres.

The three-level meeting of executives lasted three days and dined for three days. At noon on the first day, mutton with mushroom saozi dipped in oat noodles. Stew meat and rice the next day. On day three, butter pancakes. Dinner was so-so.

"Members" and "cadres" eat at the same time. The members are in the north canteen and the cadres are in the south canteen. The north canteen is still red sorghum cake, beet leaf soup. The people in the North restaurant smell the fragrance floating from the south canteen, and they say: "Mutton mushroom saozi dipping oat noodles, good fragrance!" "Braised meat and rice, delicious delicious!" "Butter pancakes, sweet, sweet!"

Xiao Sheng went to fetch rice every day, but also smelled the fragrance of the south canteen. Mutton, rice, he did not want: he had seen it, he had eaten it. He had never even smelled a butter pancake. It's sweet. The smell of it makes me want a bite.

Back home, eating red sorghum cake, he asked his father, "Why do they eat butter pancakes?"

"They have meetings."

"Why butter pancakes in meetings?"

"They are cadres."

Why do cadres eat butter pancakes?

"Alas! You ask too many questions! Eat your red sorghum cake!"

Xiao Sheng's mother, who was swallowing red cake, suddenly stood up and poured a little white flour out of the jar. She also took out a bottle of Grandma's untouched butter from the cabinet and opened the lid.