Chapter 4 Going to the Market
As soon as I opened and closed my eyes, the night passed quickly.
Amidst the crowing of cocks, Zhang An quickly woke up.
Today is Sunday, the day of the big market in Hongyan Town. Some families who need to carry extra things at home to sell at the market will get up very early and start their journey before dawn.
When Zhang An was still studying, every time he returned to school from home, he had to get up before dawn and rush to town to catch a bus.
Because there is a period of time from Changqing Village to Hongyan Town, a distance of more than ten miles, and it takes more than an hour to walk on the 11th road.
The shuttle bus only runs from the town to the county. Villages that are on the way can still hitchhike. For villages that are not on the way, you can either take a carriage or ride a bicycle. If you don't have either, you can only walk.
In order not to spend money on food on the street, Wang Fang got up early in the morning and started to light a fire to cook.
What I ate this morning was no longer noodles, but the leftovers from last night’s dinner, stir-fried with rice.
I was originally going to walk to the town, but when I got to the village entrance, I met the villagers driving a carriage, so I took the opportunity to hitch a ride.
Carriage is now considered a big item in the village. Not only does it cost hundreds of dollars to build, but a horse alone is worth a lot of money, so there are only three or four families in Changqing who raise horses.
But there are also benefits to raising horses. You can usually drive various things for others, such as food crops, stones, lime wood, etc. to build houses, etc. The money will be paid back in a year or two.
In fact, oxen can also pull carts, but the temperament of oxen in mountainous areas is a bit too stubborn, and the efficiency of pulling carts is much lower than that of horses.
From the village to the town, going uphill and downhill, the various insects and birds in the forest began to perform a concert.
Getting on the carriage, the journey was much faster than walking. It took about half an hour to reach the town.
In fact, the entire market is not an open dam like the markets of later generations, but stalls are set up along the roads in the town.
There is a basketball court at the entrance of the street, but every time it is time to go to the market, there are horse-drawn carriages parked inside.
As you walk along the road, you can see various stalls, selling clothes, pots and pans, and food.
I heard from my dad that a few years ago, when there weren’t so many people buying their own goods and setting up stalls, most of the things had to be bought from the supply and marketing cooperatives. But in the past two years, although the supply and marketing cooperatives are still open, , but there are not as many people there as before.
Dad Zhang Jianguo obviously had a plan. When he came to the town, he walked towards a restaurant with a basket on his back. After a while, he came back with an empty basket on his back.
It should be that every time my father had something, he would sell it to this family, so he was a long-term partner.
“Six fish weighed seventeen pounds, and the boss gave me one yuan and ten cents per pound.” The father who spoke handed the eighteen yuan to his mother.
Sure enough, the financial power of the family is still in the hands of my mother. My mother is a kind of family-oriented and budget-conscious person. In her words, when they separated, my grandparents didn’t give me anything. Basically, it's two pounds of oil, two handfuls of noodles and a small bag of rice.
The two of them started from scratch. They shared a room in the old house and now they have built a house by themselves.
It is said that my father, Zhang Jianguo, was not trouble-free when he was young. He often went out to play with his friends and would not go home for several days. Later, I don’t know what happened, but my father never went out again, but worked diligently. Work diligently at home.
So my mother must be the biggest contributor to the current conditions at home.
After shopping around a few times on the street, Zhang An carried the ten pounds of lard his mother bought at the butcher stall on his back, and bought some vegetable seeds and seasonings, and there was nothing else he needed to buy.
While his parents were going to the butcher stall, Zhang An also took the opportunity to ask the old man selling peaches for a price. The peaches are now on the market, but most of them are local varieties and not big. The taste is pretty good, so it's not expensive, only 50 cents a pound. It's now eight or nine o'clock, and the sun has already risen. If we don't go back now, we will be unbearably hot when we walk back at noon.
The reason why people come very early every time they go to the market is that the distance is long, and the other reason is that they come early and go back early to avoid rushing in the bright sun.
On the way back, although the journey is relatively long, it doesn't feel difficult to walk when we have enough time to talk.
"Dad, why don't we also raise a horse at home? Instead of buying a big horse, just buy a small pony. Anyway, I'm fine now. I can take it up the mountain and raise a pony. It will take a few months to cultivate the land. It will save you the trouble of borrowing other people’s cattle every time.”
After hearing Zhang An’s words, Zhang Jianguo also thought deeply, and he had already asked someone to find it for his son. I got a job, but there was no news so soon.
"You can also buy one. Ponies are not expensive. It is more convenient to have one at home. I often borrow others' ones. Even if I give them corn every time, they are not happy every time." Mom also expressed her opinion.
Because in the village, not every household has valuable things like livestock. Changqing belongs to a village with a lot of paddy fields and cultivated land. It is definitely not possible to cultivate the land manually, so we often borrow other people’s cattle and horses for use. , as a condition is to give some corn as a reward every time.
But even so, you still have to wait for the host to run out, and sometimes you have to queue up. The host will not be happy if the number is too many.
“It’s okay, I’ll plant the rice in these few days and harvest it in a few months. I’ll go to the cattle and horse market in a few days to have a look. If there’s anything suitable, I’ll buy a pony and raise it. Anyway, the pen at home is too big to keep just two pigs.”
“It doesn’t have to be a pony. If you don’t find a suitable one, a calf will do. Our family doesn’t plan to pull the cart anyway.”
It was too hot to walk home with the sun above our heads, so no one had much appetite at noon, so they just grabbed something to eat and that was it. I went to the mountain with my hoe to see the corn in the field.
Zhang An was left alone at home with nothing else going on, so Zhang An plowed through the empty space in the vegetable garden.
While at the market, Zhang An saw that his mother had bought vegetable seeds, and she must have been thinking of planting the empty space.
Nowadays, if you don’t plant when you are idle, you will have no vegetables to eat when you are busy. When rural people go out to hold banquets, they basically have no idea of buying vegetables to make a living.
The vegetable plot of Zhang An's family is quite large. This is because the land was already quite large when the house was built.
When I later came to see someone, I found that the homestead of the house happened to be in the middle. As a result, there was a large yard in front of the house and a three-quarter-sized vegetable garden behind the house.
Because my mother can’t stay idle, this vegetable field is full of vegetables all year round.
Zhang An first removed the weeds on the ground. He originally planned to feed the pigs in the pig pen, but who knew that these two pig-headed ya would not even look at them.
After all, I am used to eating space grass, so it is difficult to accept this kind of weed. Even if I eat it almost, it must be more tender.
In short, it is from simplicity to luxury and ease, from luxury to simplicity, and I am used to it.
Zhang An even laughed. If he hadn't waited for the two pigs to grow meat and sell them at a good price at the end of the year, he would have really starved them for a few meals.
Finally, Zhang An took the grass aside and let it dry in the sun. After the hardened land was loosened and the grass was almost dry, he piled it together and lit a fire to burn it into ashes.
Because it wasn’t too much, it didn’t take long to burn.
(End of this chapter)