Old things in the south

Chapter 70 Poverty is not a crime

They asked me, how did I deal with the incident where the rich kid was beaten up by the poor kid?I would like to tell them, but I must first correct the name of this incident, it should be said: the rich kid humiliated the poor kid and was beaten.

I was really impatient to bother me on the weekend afternoon; when Mr. Feng ran into my room in a panic, I was about to lock the door and go out to watch the movie at 05:30. He was waiting for me. I.

"Hurry up and watch the fight between the two kids in your class. Is that little skinny sheep trying to beat Qiu Naixin to death? He beat Qiu Naixin's head and face like a piece of hot iron."

I frowned upon hearing this.

As they were talking, the two students were surrounded by their classmates.Seeing Qiu Naixin, who is as strong as a calf, being beaten like this, I couldn't help but wonder, where did Zhang Yixiong, who grew up eating vegetable roots, come from beating people so hard?

Before I knew the cause of this incident, I drove away the students who were watching the excitement outside the window, and I said: "Go home, don't crowd around here, this is not the Seventh Division Bureau!"

Then I closed the windows and doors, and there were only three of us in the room.I thought it was important to heal the wound first, so I wiped Qiu Naixin's wound with cold water and applied swelling ointment, and said to Zhang Yixiong:

"Kazuo, it's really impressive to see how you beat him up. He's already bruised. What is it for?"

"I don't allow him to imitate my father like this, say my father!"

The little face that spoke had bulging veins, his voice was trembling with grief and anger, and there were tears in his eyes that were about to burst out.

Needless to say, I also know that Qiu Naixin learned from Zhang Yixiong's father, the lame man with a single crutch under his armpit.It's ridiculous to say that even when I first saw that one-legged man hopping around, I couldn't help but keep my lips tightly shut, for fear that I might accidentally laugh out loud.Qiu Naixin is extremely smart, so if he learns the single crutch, it will surely cause the students to roar with laughter.Coupled with the fact that he laughed at Zhang Yixiong's father who was once framed for harboring stolen goods, the feeling of being ridiculed really required a considerable degree of patience.I believe it was an explosion after too much tolerance.

When I put the detumescence ointment on Qiu Naixin's mouth, I casually asked:

"Then you are imitating his father's walking style again! Jumping and jumping! You also told your classmates that his father was sued for hiding stolen goods?"

Qiu Naixin did not answer, expressing his acquiescence.

I asked Qiu Naixin to take off the upper body of the boy scout uniform, because two buttons were torn off, and when I took off the clothes, I saw two bruises on his arms, which were as strong as a mallet.I slightly motioned for Zhang Yixiong to look at it, his eyelids lifted, and then he lowered his head.

"Qiu Naixin, is your father going abroad?" I asked while sewing a button.

"Yes, Mr. Lin, Dad is going to Europe for investigation this time."

Speaking of father, that was something Qiu Naixin was most proud of, and it was true, he was really a father worthy of making his son proud!This father is a rich farmer. Qiu Naixin once said that his father's fields are bigger than Taipei City. This is not an exaggeration. When you take the train to the south, you can see the endless Chianan Plain.Last year, I led a group of children to travel to the south. On the train, Qiu Naixin pointed to the second-phase rice in the plain and told me that the good fields in the Jianan Plain belonged to his family.Moreover, such a young child has a lot of knowledge about agriculture, which should really be attributed to the rich peasant's ability to teach his children well; he took his beloved children to the countryside every year in order to let them know about farming.Not only that, but he is also an expert in water conservancy. He has made a lot of contributions to the irrigation of the plains. He is not only for his own fields, but also for the benefit of all farmers. Therefore, when the "Qiu Zhizai" is mentioned, people are in awe. , They all prefer to call him by his nickname, Zhizai, but forget that his real name is "Qiu Tianzhi".The descendants of Mr. Qiu Tianzhi have nothing to say. Naixin’s elder brother majored in agricultural chemistry and was sent abroad the year before last; although the second elder brother did not study water conservancy engineering as his father expected, he did not go out of the land circle either. Study the soil.The hope of the water conservancy project is all pinned on the youngest son Qiu Naixin.Naixin will not disappoint his father. Since he is extremely smart, of course he can learn anything. Isn't it similar to learning from a cripple?
"Is your father going to investigate water conservancy again this time?"

"Yes, he will go to many countries to investigate, and it will take half a year." He answered me, but his eyes slipped away at Zhang Yixiong with a look of disdain.That poor boy, his head is even lowered. He has been waiting for my punishment since he entered this room. I know he doesn't want to appeal for more reasons, because he is unreasonable.

"Naixin, your father is really an admirable father!" I said when I sewed the button and handed him the clothes, but I hesitated for a while and then said: "But Zhang Yixiong, he also has a What an admirable father."

As soon as I said this, the person who was getting dressed and the person who was waiting to be punished suddenly raised their heads, because this sentence was unexpected and unexpected, so they stared at me in unison. Wait for me to explain what the meaning of this sentence is.

"Everyone's dad is their hero, so..." I turned my eyes to the calendar on the wall, because I didn't say this to any one person, "Everyone wants their dad to be respected." , but not to be humiliated."

"Speaking of Zhang Yixiong's family, they are really poor." When I said this again, I turned to Qiu Naixin, "Of course, Yixiong's father's feet also affected their family's life."

Speaking of Zhang Yixiong's poverty, several deep impressions immediately came to my mind: the pure white lunch, the colorful coat, the wooden house under the street porch, and my father's one foot.

More than once, when the poor boy opened his lunch box, it was indeed full of white rice, but beside it was a pinch of white sugar.Rice mixed with sugar reminds me of my mischievous childhood, and the fun of eating rice with soda and biscuits with ice cream comes.But his rice mixed with sugar is not for fun!It's just because a pinch of sugar is always more economical than frying vegetables with oil.And his coat, made of several different materials, once made me think his father was a tailor.

You are also the parent of a student, but when you know that one has a field as vast as the entire city, you can hardly believe that there is another such poor person in the world!One day, when I walked towards the alley with arcades on both sides, and found a temporary wooden house built under the arcade, I couldn't help but silently recited a short sentence from the Indian poet Tagore: "Little grass! Your feet The steps are small, but you have the ground under your feet." Seeing such a precarious hut, I can't help but envy Xiaocao for the people in the house.

I was doing a family visit that day, but I didn't go into the family that blended with the street. Zhang Yixiong's father asked me to sit in their "treasure hall" - next to the stall he set up outside the alley.In addition to selling some sugarcane candies, this stall also sells small people made of glutinous rice flour, which are human figures and animals made of steamed glutinous rice flour and mixed with various pigments.I think this is the craft he used to make a living after he broke his leg and couldn't make a living.

When talking about the life of poverty, the one-legged parent inevitably mentioned the story of his leg: it was the end of the war, and unfortunately he was recruited to mainland China to be an interpreter for the Japanese army.Once, in a feeling of intolerance, he let go of a young Chinese who was an anti-Japanese underground worker.As a result, his leg was broken under the wrath of Major Ikeda. He dragged his remaining leg and returned to Taiwan, which was riddled with holes by the bombing of the Allied forces. Soon after, Japan surrendered.

"That leg is left on the mainland, and this leg makes me useless!" I remember he smiled wryly at this point, pointing to the little noodle man on the stall, "I'm in the business of deceiving children, raising me Family of six."

Looking at that small face man, I once had a strange thought: If I were the principal, I would invite him to come to our school to teach labor.

"It doesn't matter if you walk like Zhang Yixiong's father, but you might as well know why his legs are like this." So I told Qiu Naixin the story of the broken leg.

I think the son of man is the same. When he told the story of the one-legged father, the eyes of the thin lamb were also full of brilliance.

"I also know very well about Zhang Yixiong's father being framed for hiding stolen goods." I will tell Qiu Naixin again, because I must correct his wrong impression about this matter.I said, "Naixin, poverty is already painful enough, but there are many unfortunate things that come with poverty. Zhang Yixiong's father was poor, lame and unlucky. One day, a bad neighbor forced a small box to be sent to him. He suspected that it was not an ordinary thing, so he decided to send the small box to the police station the next day. But he was one step too late, the so-called neighbor's thief had been arrested, and the police were coming. I went to his house to pick up stolen goods, so he was also arrested and charged with harboring stolen goods. As soon as this matter was published in the newspapers, I knew it must be wronged, and I must know that in fair Under the law, his crimes will be wiped clean. Sure enough, he was proven innocent soon. Look at Naixin, his father set up his stall outside the alley, and no one dares to look down on him."

As for the dispute between the two children, my words ended here. This is how I dealt with them, but they were not satisfied. They must ask me, which one should I order to apologize to the other party first?Regarding this, I am very sorry, because I really don't know which of the two children apologized to whom first.I thought who would apologize to whom first, each of them would naturally have the fairest judge in their hearts and decide on their own, no—and I don't need to order it, and I don't need to know.At that time, I just took the key out of the drawer and put it on the table, because I was ready to go out, and I finally said this to them both:

"A sound society is made up of two forces: one is the 'wisdom to benefit the people', like Qiu Naixin, your father. The other is the 'spirit of persevering in poverty', like Zhang Yixiong, your father. Well, you two, no matter who apologizes to whom first, but don't forget to lock the door for me before you leave."

Of course, in the whole process of dealing with this matter, it is not difficult to see that there is only one important meaning that I uphold: poverty is not a crime.

(End of this chapter)