take a wife to support the family

Chapter 50

Just after the heavy rain in the Qingming Festival, the seedlings in the vegetable field grew wildly. The cabbage can be ignored, and the corn seedlings can wait for another two days.

Cucumbers, lentils, and cowpeas all need to build a shelf, otherwise they will not be able to bear fruit if they lie on the ground.Lily had been anticipating this day, and paid attention to it when burning firewood and picking raspberries on weekdays. When she saw bamboo sticks and wooden sticks that were as tall as a person and as thick as fingers, she collected them for future use.

Now these wooden sticks have accumulated hundreds of them, fully half of the room, and they are all piled up in the west room.

There is no need to go to the market to buy hemp rope, all the women in the country know how to make hemp twine, and use a "hemp cart" with a handle to twist the skin torn from the hemp rod into a strong rope, which can be used to hold the soles of shoes, It is also used for daily binding at home.

Song Haonian's family doesn't grow hemp or have a hemp cart, but the hemp rope can be used as a gift. When she sent fried petals to the neighbor's house earlier, someone returned a roll of hemp rope, which was heavy in her hand, enough for It weighs two or three catties.

Lily and Lamei walked to the vegetable field with a dozen sticks, scissors and hemp rope in their hands.Three wooden sticks are built into a "herringbone" shape, placed on top of a bean sprout, and the three feet are pressed down into the soil to make them firmly inserted, and then the intersecting part of the top is tied with hemp rope. The shelf is set up.

In order to make the bean sprouts and melon sprouts grow well, the bean vines should be gently wrapped around the sticks with your hands. In this way, you don’t need to worry about it in the future, and the seedlings will climb up the built shelf by themselves. Just don't fall.

One of the two sisters supported the wooden stick, and the other tied the twine. Compared with the heavy work of digging the ground and fertilizing, this was an easy job, and they were tied together lightly and delicately.

The rest of the day left to set up a shelf, and the sun slowly heated up, Lily felt her face was burning hot, so she hurried back to the house to find two scarves, and she and her sister put them on one by one.

Lamei felt that the headscarf was ugly, and it was only worn by old women like mother, so she whispered, "Sister, I don't want to wear it."

After thinking about it for a while, Lily realized that the girl loves beauty, and said with a smile, "Put it on quickly! It doesn't matter if you are ugly for a while, but you will be ugly for a lifetime if you get sun spots on your face."

Lamei reluctantly put on her turban, feeling as if she was 20 years older.Lily looked at her face carefully, and found that there were many freckles from the sun, and her skin was not as delicate as a girl of this age should be, not too different from a woman who has been exposed to the sun all year round.

"Tomorrow I'll go to the market to buy two straw hats. From now on, as long as the sun is shining, you can wear them when you go out."

Lily reckons that she is in the same situation as Lamei, and she should take care of herself, otherwise, a person who is not yet 20 years old will have a white body, with a thick black and purple face, what does he look like?

Hearing that there was a straw hat, Lamei was not happy either.Girls at this age are always pretty, even if they have no money to buy flowers, they will find ways to pick some wild flowers and decorate their hair with red ribbons and duck egg green ribbons.

Wearing a turban will cover up these outfits that have taken a lot of thought, and the turban will look old, and it will make people laugh when you go out.Lamei is timid and doesn't like to talk to people. If people laugh at her twice, she will be even more reluctant to go out.

Straw hats are better than headscarves, but most people only wear them during dog days in June, when rice and wheat are being harvested. Lamei also feels weird when wearing straw hats early.

Lily ignored Lamei's little thoughts, and went back to Jishang to buy two straw hats.The straw hats at this time were made by flattening straw and weaving them into straw ropes, and then weaving straw hats with straw ropes. Skilled people could sell straw hats at the market while weaving them.

When Lily went there, she didn't ask for a straw hat, so she told the man what it looked like, and asked him to do the same, and finally added two extra dollars.

The straw hat she got was lighter and more beautiful than ordinary straw hats. Now Lamei was so happy, she put it on her head and went to the water's edge to look at her shadow.Lily remembered how she was frightened by the shadow, and when she was about to stop her, she realized that Lamei would not be frightened by the shadow, she was already used to her appearance.

She still feels her heart tremble when she thinks of her face like a starved ghost. Every day when she combs her hair, she always combs it tentatively, and she doesn't dare to go to the water's edge to take a look at her own shadow.

It has been two days since the beans and courgettes have been erected. It rained again in the afternoon, and the seedlings have grown taller. The corn seedlings are already more than a stick long, and they must be thinned.

When planting corn, three seeds are used in one litter, lest some seeds are bad and cannot germinate.Now in the corn field, two or three seedlings grow out of each nest, and they compete for nutrients. In the end, no one can grow well. This season's corn is considered white.

At this time, people need to pick and choose, and keep the strongest tree in the nest, and pull out the short and thin ones to prevent them from robbing nutrients.

Lamei had never seen corn seeds before. Lily heard from Mrs. Sheng that the imperial court promoted corn in the northwest many years ago, but there were few seeds in Nanzhili, and no one knew how to plant them.

Others don't understand, but Lily knows how to grow corn.Corn is no better than rice or wheat. It is the easiest to survive. As long as it is properly thinned and watered enough, it can grow well.

La Meixin said that it was the first time for her elder sister to grow corn, but she said it clearly and clearly, she deserved to be an elder sister.With Lily as the backbone for her, she was more courageous, and followed what Lily said, and followed the elder sister to divide all the corn seedlings in a field.

The most tiring part of doing this is the waist. I have to squat on the ground. After a while, my waist becomes sore and my back hurts. I have to stand up and stretch my waist before squatting down.Fortunately, the land is not big, and the two sisters finished the work in a day.

The crops wait for no one, and it is urgent to clean up the fields. When the beans and courgette vines are climbing and winding on the shelves, and the corn seedlings are neatly arranged in the field, another torrential rain comes. Looking at the kitchen floor There was a big puddle of water, and Lily realized that the problem of the roof could not wait any longer.

There are several methods of repairing houses in the country.The most particular class is like Master Liu’s house, with two-way and five-entry courtyards, blue brick walls, black tile roof, three-story stone threshold in front of the door, a black oil gate lined with a powder wall, and the main house is a girder The tall five rooms, two wing rooms, verandahs, and inverted seats are all available, which makes people admire the wealth and generosity of this family.
The second-class ones are made of solid wooden beams, or tile-roofed houses with three or five rooms in length, separated by rammed loess walls with splints in the middle, and the side rooms on both sides are also made of bricks or rammed earth walls. There is a screen wall at the entrance, which is also a very particular house.

Once again, there are tile-roofed houses with beams and rammed earth walls, plus two or three rooms with adobe walls and thatched roofs.

The worst thing is Song Haonian’s family. When they separated, they didn’t have a penny. Even with the help of sworn brothers, they could only build a thatched hut with three adobe walls. Stepping over, let alone guard against thieves, even a little naughty doll can't guard against it.

The adobe is nothing more than digging some mud from the river, putting it into a mold and pounding it firmly, and then it can be used to build walls when it is knocked out and dried in the sun. People don't know how to use adobe to build houses for people to live in. At most, they can build pigsty and cattle pens or something.

The huts of Song Haonian’s house were made with some wheat and rice straw in the soil when building the adobe, which is still strong, and it has not been watered after several rains.Naturally, there are no beams on the top of the adobe wall, but a few wooden rafters are used to build a rough shape, and the top is covered with wooden planks, then covered with mud and straw, and finally covered with thatch.

Inside the house, a layer of grass-mixed mud is applied to the adobe wall, and the fire is used to bake it. If the mud does not fall down, it will be done.

The thatch roof needs to be repaired every once in a while, otherwise the thatch will rot, and the mud underneath will melt when it rains, and the house will leak.

In the past, Lily had repaired faucets and replaced fuses, and could do many things by herself, except for the roof.If it is a tile house, there is a professional bricklayer to repair it, but her thatched house cannot invite anyone, so she has to do it herself.

Lily was a little apprehensive about things she wasn't sure about. She wandered around the rooms with her head up, trying to memorize the structure of the rafters on the roof.

Lamei saw that the eldest sister was going to do it by herself, and said in a low voice, "Elder sister, call someone to help."

"Who are you calling?" Song Haonian's group of brothers were all outside, and the only one left, Wang Xiaofu, ran from village to village, rarely seeing anyone.Father Liu of Liu Sanping's family is too old, and no one can trust him to go to the house. As for Li Caifeng, even if she is capable, she can't do this job.

After all the calculations, I really had to roll up my sleeves and go to the room.

Repairing the roof is not something that can be done by remembering the position of the rafters. Lily puts on the basket first and asks Li Caifeng to borrow straw.Her family didn't grow rice, not even straw, and she didn't know which brother gave the straw mattress on the bed.

Liu Yi's family planted rice, these days Li Caifeng was planting rice seedlings, and Xiaofeng also came to help, seeing Lily came to borrow straw, she quickly opened the grass door to fetch it for her.

The grass building is an adobe house with a thatched roof on top to make two floors. The upper floor is filled with straw and wheat straw, and the lower floor is the cattle pen with a yellow cattle.

Lily left four eggs for Xiaofeng: "The straw is for the cows to eat. If I take these away, the cows will eat less. Don't take me for politeness."

As soon as Xiaofeng heard that it was the truth, she accepted the eggs.Anyway, their family is planting rice seedlings, and they do a lot of cooking, so they just call Lily to eat later.

You need a ladder to go up the thatched building. Lily looked it over and felt that the ladder was a bit short, so she didn't ask to borrow it. She first carried a basket of straw home, and then took Lamei to Liu Sanping's house to borrow the ladder.

The carpenter has to build beams for people, and the house has all kinds of ladders.When Father Liu heard that she was going to repair the roof, he volunteered, "I'll fix it for you!"

Lily hurriedly stopped her, and finally asked Father Liu to pick out a ladder that was lighter and tall enough for her, and she and Lamei carried it home.

(End of this chapter)