A century of poverty

Chapter 45 Missed

Aunt Fan Guiyan married Uncle Fan, and in 68 they had their fourth daughter, named Daihao. They had four daughters in ten years.

She has a cheerful personality and loves to talk and sing. After getting married, she became a housewife due to being tied up with housework and lost the opportunity to participate in cultural and artistic activities.

Once, my third sister came to her house to make shoe insoles with a sewing machine. She warmly welcomed her, set up the machine, installed the belt, and enthusiastically taught my third sister how to put her feet on it. She squatted down, held my third sister's feet and pulled hard, saying as she worked, "Push hard like this, with your toes and heels all the way down, so the machine wheel won't turn backward, get stuck, or break the needle." She taught my third sister how to use the machine.

Seeing that her third sister's feet were well-stitched and the insoles were evenly wound, she was delighted and her spirits lifted. "Third niece, listen to your aunt sing you a song: The commune is a big garden, and the members are all sunflowers... Melons are connected to vines, oh vines are connected to melons..."

At this moment, Daihao woke up from her nap on the kang (a heated brick bed), scrambled up, and crawled to the edge of the kang. Her aunt stepped forward and hugged her youngest daughter.

My aunt had given birth to four daughters in a row and longed for a son. One day, my second brother was playing in front of her house in Xihutong when she waved to him, calling out, "Double flight—, second nephew!" Hearing his aunt calling him, he asked, "What is it, Auntie?"

"Go up to the roof, take that carrying pole, the one with the basket on top containing a few sweet potatoes, tie it down together, and let your aunt catch them on the ground, okay?"

"Yes!" the second brother agreed, and followed his aunt into the yard. They climbed the ladder to the roof, picked up the carrying pole, hooked it onto the beam, and tied it down to the eaves. His aunt, holding the child in one arm and catching the pole with the other, leaned against the front door. Watching the second brother climb down the ladder again, she said, "Come up to the house with your aunt." Saying this, she took a piece of steamed bun from the cupboard and handed it to him: "Here, have this."

Second brother: "No, my mom doesn't allow me to take things from other people." He then turned his face away.

"Your aunt is no stranger. Now that you've helped her with her work, this is a reward for you."

The second brother took it and held it in his hand.

The old woman continued, "Would you like to be my son?"

Second brother: "I won't do it!"

Aunt: "I'll find you a wife when you grow up."

Second brother: "My grandma said that if I dig a big basket of vegetables for the pigs every day, someone will give me a wife when I grow up."

"Hahaha!" The aunt laughed heartily, "My second nephew is so successful, your aunt won't let you be her son anymore."

Although it was said in jest, the uncle and aunt were indeed anxious to have a son.

At this time, the aunt's family also had two sons. Why didn't she want her own nephew, who lived in the same courtyard, to be her son? In fact, the two families were only on the surface but not on the inside. The two families shared the same gate, which led to the uncle's courtyard outside.

This is why his sister-in-law is annoyed with him: she closes the gate early in the morning, making it inconvenient for people to come and go, as if the gate belongs to "his family" and she keeps it tightly guarded, regardless of whether it is inconvenient for others.

You close it, I'll open it anyway.

During the autumn harvest, Mom stir-fried a bowl of salted beans to eat with rice. My fourth sister liked it and ate the salted beans one bite after another. My eldest brother told her, "Eat less, it's too salty for you."

Fourth Sister ignored him, thinking, "The more you tell me not to eat, the more I'll eat," and took a few more bites. Eldest Brother, angry at her disobedience, raised his chopsticks and struck her on the head: "You don't know what's good for you!"

The mother blocked the older brother, saying, "Why are you hitting her?"

Fourth Sister put down her chopsticks in grievance, cried for a while, and then fell asleep on the warm kang (heated brick bed). The next morning, her mother knew that her throat was hoarse from the sawing sound of her throat.

Mother instructed her third sister, "Xia Lian, go find Zhang Qingzhen and give Lao Si and Shuang Fei some injections."

"Okay!" Third Sister replied and went to find the village's barefoot doctor.

My younger brother was born with twins, and since we didn't have enough breast milk, he's been thin and weak, with a clumsy head, and he's always sick in the spring and autumn. My fourth sister also suffers from swollen necks or cheeks during these two seasons, always needing injections to get better, and now she's also got tracheitis.

Zhang Qingzhen—Zhang Xiaoyong's eldest daughter, nicknamed Chunzi, was about the same age as my eldest sister. She was among the first batch of barefoot doctors trained in New China. She had fair and delicate skin and inherited her mother's curly hair, which was braided into two plaits and draped over her shoulders. She carried a cross-shaped medicine box on her back, and was kind, steady, and always available when called upon.

Zhang Qingzhen arrived and first gave Fourth Sister an intramuscular injection. Fourth Sister grimaced but didn't cry. Next, she gave Shuanglai an injection. As she sucked the medicine from the bottle, it seemed like she was filled with pain. As soon as the needle went in, the thin little girl wailed loudly, her cries echoing throughout the room. She cried and called out, "Second Sister! Second Sister!" She emphasized the two words, full of pleading for help from her second sister.

During the Lunar New Year, my second sister took me to visit my eldest uncle, Zhang Jingtang. My elder brother, Zhang Chunyu, had brought back some cookies for the children during a visit home. The children had eaten them and left them on the kang (heated brick bed). The cookies were round and pretty, with embossed patterns, and they smelled delicious. I quickly moved away.

Because my mother often warned us that no matter whose house had delicious food or fun things, we should not touch them and should immediately stay away. We were not allowed to accept any delicious food offered by anyone.

In the west room, the old woman and the second sister were sitting on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) talking. The old woman said, "You're twenty now, aren't you?" The second sister replied, "Exactly twenty."

"I'll find you a husband, really." The old woman continued, "He's your older brother's comrade-in-arms, a platoon leader, a very good man. Your older brother came back this time specifically to mention this. Think about it. Your older brother will come to your house tomorrow, and maybe he'll talk about it."

Back home, my second sister told my mother about it while she was boiling water for her.

Mother: "Baoding is so far away, and you can't even write a letter. Do you dare to go? Look at your sister-in-law, she's literate, good at everything from embroidery to needlework, and yet she's suffering all sorts of mistreatment at her in-laws' house..."

Second Sister was at a loss. Yes! Often in the cold winter, early in the morning when she was just starting to cook, this sister-in-law would come crying to her with her child, saying, "Auntie! What am I going to do..." She would burst into tears and sob uncontrollably.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Zhang Chunyu's older brother came and brought up the matter, asking his second sister if she was willing. The second sister replied, "Thank you for your trouble, brother. It's a good idea, but I can't go. It's so far away, and I don't want to be too far from home."

A few days later, my late aunt's second daughter, my second cousin from Gaogezhuang, came to propose marriage. There was a young man from their village, a worker, with parents and an older brother. He was a young man with a spacious five-room house and a well-off family. They met and fell in love. After getting to know each other better, the man was very happy. However, when the topic of dowry came up, the man refused to pay. He said, "With such good conditions, it's not nice for my family to ask for two hundred yuan for her father. It would be fine if it were spent on our daughter."

Father insisted, so there was no room for discussion.

Seeing that her attempt to manage the situation was futile, the second cousin withdrew, saying, "You two can talk to each other yourselves. I won't pass on this message to you."

The second sister had no choice but to go to the man's house herself to explain the situation.

The young man escorted his second sister to the edge of the village. The second sister said, "You can go back now; I know the way."

The man said, "I knew you would leave. I don't have anything to do when I go back. You can talk to your dad again and tell him not to take you anymore. We've all asked around, and you're great in every way. My parents are just missing this one thing."

The second sister remained silent. She was always obedient; how could she dare object to her father's decisions? They left the village and reached the foot of the mountain. The second sister said, "Don't see me off any further, go back!"

Young man: "Okay, let's go."

Upon reaching the top of Yudie Mountain, the second sister stopped and said, "You can't go any further. If you go any further, I'll be closer to home than you." After saying that, she quickly walked down the mountain and along the path at the foot of the mountain for quite a distance.

Looking back, the man was still standing on the high place watching. Second Sister knew he was reluctant to give up "Huang," and she herself was satisfied with this family, but how could she go against Father's wishes?

Another matchmaker came along, saying this time it was someone from Liuzhuangtuo, surnamed Liu, with a father and grandmother but no mother, and four brothers. This was the second oldest, a farmer, of average appearance. The eldest brother was still single, having recently returned from studying away from home, always engrossed in books and neglecting farm work. The third and fourth brothers were next in line. The three main rooms and three side rooms were small and dilapidated; the family had little to offer. The second sister remained noncommittal; she already sensed she had no say in the matter and had to listen to her father. The groom's family, of course, had no objections; her father maintained his condition of two hundred yuan, which the family readily agreed to.

Two hundred yuan was sent over, and preparations for the wedding were made.

My father used the two hundred yuan to pay off the famine caused by building the side room.

The Liu family had three main rooms. The whole family lived in the east room, while the second sister's wedding was held in the west room. They shared a central passageway with the kitchen stoves on either side. This layout had always been the standard for the three rooms in this area.

On their wedding night, the second sister moved her belongings to the end of the kang (a heated brick bed). For seven days in a row, her husband asked her why. The second sister said, "I didn't agree to marry you, but my father wanted two hundred yuan, so I had to come with you."

Less than three months after the wedding, someone proposed marriage to the eldest brother-in-law, and they got engaged and were to get married. The second sister was then forced to live in the side room.

The north wing had a small stove right inside the entrance. A step away was the stove in the south wing. Inside, there was a kang (a heated brick bed) with two mattresses covering it. On the floor was a cabinet for clothes, less than a foot away from the kang, so you had to squeeze through sideways. The room was low and dark.

The second sister got married first and became the main breadwinner of the family, shouldering the heavy burden. After marrying her sister-in-law, the grandmother proposed dividing the family property, and two hundred yuan was allocated to the second sister as a famine relief fund. When the second sister asked what the famine was, the grandmother replied, "Your father wants two hundred yuan for the famine relief work. If we don't give it to you, who else should we give it to?"

The only possessions given to my second sister were a half-dilapidated room, half a sack of dried sweet potatoes, and a dozen kilograms of wheat. My second sister and brother-in-law were two young people; how could they possibly have enough to eat? They drank thin gruel all day long.

They lived in the side rooms and cooked for themselves. The eldest daughter-in-law and her family, who lived in the main house, lived in the opposite room but did not actually share food. Once, the second sister went over on business and saw her younger brother-in-law tending the fire, while her sister-in-law was scooping out dry rice and making tofu. The grandmother who had separated the family property had concealed two large vats of rice and several bags of sorghum, beans, and other grains from the house.

By autumn, my second sister and her husband had earned enough work points to manage their own food rations, and finally they had enough to eat. They made a pot of sorghum porridge, and gave the wet nurse a large bowl of the thicker porridge. My second sister's husband had a lot of work to do, so he gave him the thicker porridge, while my second sister still drank the thinner porridge.

When I get home, I nag my mom about it, and she always says, "That's how you should do it; you have to respect your elders."

After the family split up, the second sister still made clothes for the entire family, including the grandmother.

At this time, Jinzi, the eldest daughter of the aunt in Xihutong, had turned twenty-five. She was proud of her good grades since childhood and her skillful hands. Her father was the brigade accountant, and her family was never short of work points. She was used to a life of luxury at home and looked down on most people. She was determined to marry into a higher social class and find a government official. However, she had not met anyone by this age. Someone recommended a farmer to her, so she had no choice but to marry him.

The second daughter, Huan'er, is the complete opposite of her older sister. She lost an eye at a young age, is short and dark-skinned, and always feels like she lives in her sister's shadow. She is not as good at studying as her sister, nor as good as her younger brother, "Yinglai," who is two years younger.

Seeing her older sister and younger brother, both fair-skinned, tall, and slender, and academically excellent, looking like they shared the same mother, she felt extremely inferior. She was dark-skinned, short, and only had one eye. She dropped out of school early to work in her small production team, avoiding the need to interact with a wider crowd.

When he turned twenty, he had a matchmaker. The matchmaker was Li Kongzhi from Nanzhuang, nicknamed "Silly Kongzhi". This man was tall, with a pointed head, bald, with big, staring eyes with double eyelids, a straight nose, protruding teeth, a slightly protruding upper lip, and a loose lower lip that often drooled. He had sparse, unpleasant, crooked beard on his lips.

He has two rooms and a courtyard, and he is thirty years old but still unmarried.

Huan'er thought to herself, this place might be a good home for her. With her disability, how could she expect to find someone who was good in every way?

So she agreed to the marriage without hesitation.

These two older sisters and my second older sister all got married within the same year.