love education

Chapter 41 May (5)
It was like a thunderbolt in the clear sky, and Marco couldn't bear the despair anymore, he suddenly burst into a fierce roar, "Oh, what curse has fallen on my head? Am I destined to die on the road? But I haven't found my mother yet, I'm going crazy, I want to kill myself, God! What's the name of that country? Where is it? How far is it from here?"

"Oh, poor child," said the old woman, full of sympathy for the boy, "what a joke, we are at least four or five hundred miles from here!" Marco covered his face with his hands in grief, and sobbed He said, "What should I do now!"

"What should I tell you? My poor child!" replied the old woman, "I don't know!" Suddenly, an idea occurred to her, and she hurriedly said to Marco:
"Listen, boy, I've got an idea now, there's only one thing you can do now, go down this street, and in front of the third house on the right you'll see a courtyard where a The contractor, he is doing business with others, and he is going to Turkmenistan tomorrow with his truck and cattle, go and ask him if he can take you with him. If you agree to work for him, maybe he can work in his There is a seat for you in the truck, hurry up!"

Marco grabbed his bundle and thanked the old woman as he ran. Two minutes later, he came to the courtyard.This is a large brightly lit courtyard with many lanterns lit, and many people are unloading large sacks of rice from some large trucks, which look very much like movable houses where some charlatans live. A house with a round roof and tall wheels on the body.A tall man with a moustache, a black and white cloak, and long boots was directing the work of the gang.Marco approached the man and timidly told the man his request. He said that he came from Italy and wanted to find his mother.The contractor signaled his supervisor to search Marco.The manager is the leader in charge of the entire team. He looked at Marco sharply from top to bottom, and replied coldly, "There is no room left!"

"I have fifteen lire," said Marco pleadingly. "I can give you all my fifteen lire. I will help you on the journey. I can feed and water the horses and the cattle. I I can do any hard work, I just ask you to give me some bread and let me stay in your car, sir."

The contractor looked him up and down again, and his tone softened, "We have no more places left, and we are not going to Turkmenistan either, we are going to another town called Santiago, We can only drop you somewhere along the way, and you'll have to walk for a while on foot for the rest."

"Oh, I'll go twice as far!" Marco exclaimed, "I can go, don't worry about it, I'll find a way to get there, I'll find a way anyway, just Please find me a place! Sir, have mercy, have pity on me, and don't leave me here alone!"

"You have to know that this trip has 20 days."

"It's nothing to me."

"It's not going to be easy."

"I can overcome all difficulties."

"You'll have to travel alone afterwards."

"I'm not afraid of anything, as long as I can find my mother, please show kindness." The contractor put his face close to the lantern, looked at Marco carefully, and after a moment of silence, he said:
"Very good." Marco kissed the man's hand. "Tonight, you can find a carriage to live in." The contractor said, and left, "I will wake you up at four o'clock tomorrow morning, good night."

At four o'clock in the morning, with the stars still shining faintly, the long train of wagons, each drawn by six bulls and followed by a number of spares, set out on the road, making all sorts of annoying noises. The herd, it is better to replace the cattle in front when they get tired.Marco was fired, and he was now lying on a pile of big bags in one of the vans, and soon fell asleep again.When he woke up, the convoy had stopped on a wasteland, baked by the scorching sun, and all the hard laborers were sitting around a piece of calf's leg, the piece of beef was about a quarter of the whole cow One, the size of one, was roasting beside a great fire in the field, which flickered brightly in the field wind.After eating, these people took a nap and continued to set off again.The journey started again, and the convoy moved very regularly, just like an army.Every day at five o'clock in the morning, the convoy will start on time, stop at nine o'clock to rest, start the journey again at five o'clock in the afternoon, and set up camp at ten o'clock in the evening.The hired laborers rode on horseback and drove the cattle with goads, while Ma Ke worked every day to light the bonfire of roast beef, feed the livestock, wipe the lanterns, and fetch enough water for the convoy to drink.

The convoy was moving forward in the vast wilderness, looking around, the surrounding scenery was so monotonous, so monotonous that it passed through Marco's eyes like a dream: low brown bushes everywhere, villages with sparsely dotted houses, the The front is covered with red mottled brick walls, and there are small holes in the walls.The vast land in front of us may have been the bed of a huge salt lake in the past. At that time, the water of the lake may still be shining white, extending to an invisible end.No matter where you look, you always see this vast plain, so lonely and quiet.Occasionally the convoy would encounter two or three travelers on horseback, and behind them would be a herd of well-selected horses that would pass the convoy in a whirlwind.These days were comparable to Marco's days at sea, and they were so far away and so boring.The only consolation is that the weather is always good these days.

But those hired workers are getting harsher day by day. Marco seems to have become a slave to them. Some of them are really abusing him and threatening him from time to time. They always ask him to do something This and that, they would make him carry great bales of hay, and send him far to fetch water.Marco is often so tired that his bones seem to be falling apart, but at night he still can't sleep peacefully. It creaked.

In addition to these, the wind in the wilderness will also blow up the slightly reddish, oil-stained dust. The dust seems to cover everything, and it will get into the bullock cart, slip into the quilt, and fall into the air. It gets into people's eyes and mouth, forcing them to be unable to open their eyes or breathe.He is always doing hard work, sleeping very little, not wearing warm clothes, and being often scolded and abused by the hired workers. The poor boy's mood is getting more and more depressed every day.If the contractor hadn't said a few heart-warming words to him from time to time, he would have collapsed completely.He always hid in an empty corner of the bullock cart and wept, often resting his head on the bundle, which contained nothing but some rags.Every morning he woke up weaker and more depressed, and whenever he looked out of the car, he always saw the endless, unsettling plains, like land Like the ocean above, he always said to himself:

"Ah, I must not survive tonight, I must not survive tonight, I will die on the road today."

What made him even more sad was that his hard work continued to intensify, and those hired workers with malicious intentions tried their best to torture him.One morning, when the contractor left, one of the hired men actually started beating him because he was late in fetching water, and then many of the hired men started beating the boy.At last, when they gave him an order, they kicked him and shouted at him:
"Kick me, you little tramp! Bring that kick to your mother!"

His heart was about to break, and he fell ill. For three whole days, he lay in the cart without getting up, with only a quilt covering his body, struggling with high fever all the time.No one came to see him except the contractor.The contractor brought him water and felt his pulse.Marco gradually believed that he must have lost his mind, and he kept calling his mother's name:
"Oh, my mother, my mother, help me, come to me, I am dying. Oh, my poor mother, I may never see you, my Poor mother, I'm sure to find my dead body by the side of the road."

He folded his hands on his chest and prayed silently in his heart. Unbelievably, the boy's body gradually recovered. Of course, this was thanks to the care of the contractor.As his body recovered, so did the most unfortunate day of his journey.On this day, he will be thrown on the road alone and start his own journey.These people had been on the road for more than two weeks, and they came to a fork in the road, where one went to Turkmenistan and the other to Santiago.The foreman told Marco that they had to go, and he gave the boy some information on how to get on the road, and helped him tie his pack over his shoulders so he could walk, and walked quickly away from the boy As if afraid of being affected by the emotion of parting, Marco barely had time to kiss him on the arm to express his gratitude.Another man, the hired man who had treated him so badly in the past, seemed moved by the sight of his future travels alone, felt a little sorry for him, and gestured to him as they left. Say goodbye to him.Ma Ke didn't bear any grudges, and waved his hand to greet them, standing there watching the convoy go away, gradually disappearing into the flying red dust.

Marco sadly set out on the road alone.One thing is still consoling, that is, after so many days of traveling across the Great Plains, after seeing the endless and monotonous plain scenery, what now appeared in front of him was a row of towering blue mountains with white tops , which made him think of the beautiful Alps, and he felt as if he had returned to his hometown all of a sudden. Of course, this mountain range is the Andes, which is the backbone of the entire American continent. latitude.Another thing that makes him happy is that the weather seems to be getting warmer a little bit, because the further north you go, the closer you are to the tropics.There are several small houses not far away, and there is a small shop near the small house.Marco walked quickly to the little shop and bought something to eat.

He met a group of men on horseback, as well as women and children sitting on the ground. They all looked solemn and did not move. Raised, the women stared at him intently, followed him with their eyes, turning their heads slowly, like some robots, they were all Indians.During the first day, he kept walking until his strength was exhausted, and he didn't sleep under a tree until night.On the second day, his progress was not as good as the first day, his mood was not high, his shoes were worn out, his feet were hurt, and his stomach was weak from rotting food stand up.At night, he seemed to be worried again, because when he was in Italy, he had heard that there were many poisonous snakes in this place, and he even vaguely heard the sound of poisonous snakes crawling towards him.He stopped, and then ran quickly again, with cool sweat all over his back.Sometimes, he would also be deeply sad for himself. Whenever he would walk and cry quietly, he thought to himself, "If my mother knows how scared I am now, how worried she would be!"

However, a thought made him regain his courage. In order to stop thinking about some terrible things, he began to think about his mother. He recalled what his mother had just left Genoa. When he was lying on the bed every night, his mother would pull the quilt under his chin for him. Every time his mother held him in her arms, he would say to his mother:

"Stay with me for a while longer!" At this time, his mother would stay with him for a little longer. She rested her head on her son's head, thinking about the problem. At this time, the boy thought:

"Can I see you again? My dear mother! Can I persevere until the end?" In this way, with the belief that he must see his mother, he continued to walk, passing through strange trees, through Through the vast plantations of sugar cane, and through the endless fields, although he always stood in front of those towering dark blue mountains, the tops of which pierced into the sky seemed to pierce the sky.Four days passed, a week passed, his physical strength was not as good as before, and his feet began to bleed. Finally, at sunset one day, someone told him:

"Turkoman is only fifty miles from here," he exclaimed cheerfully, and quickened his pace, as if at that moment he had regained his vigor.

That feeling was just his momentary illusion. His body suddenly couldn't bear it anymore, and he fell headlong by a puddle, exhausted.However, his heart was still beating contentedly at this time, the night sky was full of bright stars, he seemed to have never seen such a beautiful starry sky.When he was lying on the grass, stretched and ready to sleep, he stared at the beautiful night sky and thought, maybe, at this very moment, his mother was looking at him too.Thinking of this, he said to the starry sky:

"Oh, my mother, where are you? What are you doing now? Are you thinking of your little son? Are you thinking of your Marco? Who is with you now?"

Poor Marco, if he had known at that moment what was going on with his mother, he would have driven with superhuman momentum so that he would have seen her hours earlier.His mother had fallen ill and was lying in a cot on the ground floor of a stately mansion in which the McGinnies lived, and they had grown very fond of the woman by now and helped her. Quite busy.When engineer McKinney is unexpectedly sent off-site, far from Buenos Aires, she falls ill.But when she came to Cordova, her sick body did not recover because of the mild climate of this place.Moreover, since then, she has never received a reply from her husband, nor has she received any news about her hometown from her cousin, and everything makes her have an ominous premonition.

(End of this chapter)