To Live by Yu Hua Read Free Book Online Page B

give me five
mu
of good, fertile land. All by myself, I planted that five
mu
of land, though I almost died of exhaustion in the process. Never before had I done farmwork, so I learned from watching the other farmers. There’s no need to mention how slow I was. As long as it was still light outside, I was out in the field. And even when it got dark, if there was moonlight I’d still be out there working. The crops have to be planted at the proper time. If you miss the right time to sow the seeds, then you will miss the entire season. When that happens, not only will you be unable to raise a family, but even paying back Long Er’s rent grain would have been an impossibility. As the saying goes, “Slow birds need an early start.” Well, I was the slow bird who never finished.
    My mother really loved me, so she would work with me in the fields. But she was getting old, and her feet made work difficult. Once she bent over it would take her a long time to stand up again. When she would sit down in the field, I’d say to her, “Mom, hurry up and get back inside.”
    But Mom would shake her head and say, “Four hands are better than two.”
    “If you get sick, then I’ll have to take care of you. And then there won’t be any hands!” I retorted.
    Hearing this, she slowly walked back to the ridge between the fields to sit with Fengxia. Every day, Fengxia would sit on the ridge and
keep me company. She would pick a whole bunch of flowers and put them in a pile next to her legs. As she picked each one she would ask what
kind of flower it was. How was I supposed to know what kinds of flowers they were? I would say, “Go ask Grandma.”
    My mom, sitting on the ridge, would often call out to me when she saw me working with the hoe, “Careful not to cut your foot!”
    When I used the sickle she would be even more worried. She would constantly repeat, “Fugui, don’t cut your hand!”
    Even with my mom on one side reminding me, it wasn’t much use. There was too much to do, so I had to work fast. As soon as I would pick up the pace I would inevitably slice my foot or cut my hand, and as soon as my hand or foot would start to bleed, my mother would become frantic. On her twisted little feet, she’d run over and press a clump of mud on the wound to stop the bleeding. And then she would scold me for not being more careful. Once her mouth got going, it went on forever. But I couldn’t talk back or she’d start to cry.
    My mom would often say the mud of the earth is the best thing for people’s health. Not only could it grow crops, but it could cure diseases, too. In all the years since then, whenever I’ve injured myself, I’ve always pressed a clump of wet mud against the wound. My mom was right: you shouldn’t scoff at those clumps of mud, as they’re a cure for all
kinds of sicknesses.
    When you’re working to the point of exhaustion every day, you don’t have time to worry about other things. After renting the land from Long Er, I would fall into a deep sleep each night the moment my head hit the pillow. There was no way I had time to think about anything else. Looking back now, those days were both difficult and exhausting, but my heart was at peace. I thought that the Xu family was once again like a little chicken. If I
kept working as I had, within a few years that chicken would become a goose. And one day the Xu family would once again be rich.
    I stopped wearing silk clothes after losing the house to Long Er. I wore an outfit my mother had made for me from coarse cloth. When I first began to wear those clothes they felt really uncomfortable, especially the way they rubbed against my skin, but as time went by they became more comfortable. One day Wang Xi died. Wang Xi had been one of our tenants. He was two years older than I was, and before he died he told his son to give me his old silk shirt. He never forgot that I used to be the young master. He wanted me to have the wonderful feeling of wearing silk