The well in front of the old house

? Strictly speaking, the well in front of the old house in my hometown is not an old name. It was built in June when the reservoir immigrants moved to the new village. After all, after half a century, we stayed in the village for less than 40 years and never met each other, so we barely became an old brand.

? At that time, I was a 13 half-pull boy, studying in a high school in the village next door. It was winter vacation and I was digging a well. A group of adults pushed around the door, and people at the well squatted in front of the fire lit by cotton firewood to keep warm. I don't know who carried a big tree root, probably because it was not very dry and it was still smoking heavily. Grandpa Duan sometimes blows the burning cotton firewood below, sometimes turns his head and wipes the tears in his eyes with his skirts. "The fire of the twelfth lunar month is like a mother." Despite the smoke, there were still people in front of the fire. Because it is also a rice steward, the aroma is fragrant, attracting me, a child who doesn't count, to take the initiative to be sandwiched between adults and push wooden poles on both sides of the iron guy. I remember that the dish is stewed vermicelli with cabbage, and occasionally a small piece of trembling fat pork can be caught in the gap between the wolfing adult chopsticks. The taste buds in the mouth are very enjoyable, and the comfort in the stomach is beyond words. It took two days and one night to drill the well, and the shaft kept turning day and night. When we got down to the pipeline, it was the most boiling moment on the construction site. People call Jiang a stout middle-aged man. Like his old father, he is the most conspicuous commander in chief in the crowd. He can only shout: "Get up!" " "Xia (ha, dialect)" a little to the left, a little to the left, Xia (ha)! "Vaguely, it is a pebble with thick cement. A person can't hold the pipe about one meter high and slowly falls on the shelf.

The well was finally built, and the adults laid it around the wellhead with bluestone strips. Two large round-eyed bluestones were chiseled, and a piece of cypress-like wood was inserted. Above it is a round well wheel with many circles of rope wrapped around it. This is different from the well in Caijiaxiang, the old village. The brick wellhead is very shallow, and the daughter-in-law who makes her mother-in-law angry drags the well rope down to the well and cries on waist-deep water. Uncle Geng went down and tied his daughter-in-law with a well rope and shouted at the people above. When he finally came out, he held the bluestone by the well with his hands and climbed out of the round wellhead with difficulty. There is a pool of water near the wellhead. Moreover, this wellhead is square, so if two barrels go down at the same time, they can stay away from each other. The water is also obviously deep. When the bucket fell off the beam and disappeared, when people dangled in the water with hooks and finally fished it out, there was already a thick layer of mud at the bottom of the bucket.

? Because the well at the entrance of the old house is deep, people in the eighth lane screw water here through the seventh lane, so people often sit on the pole between two barrels and wait around the well platform. The village is not used to queuing like Shanghainese, but the order is familiar to each other. There were no quarrels or even fights over water grabbing. On the contrary, there is mutual humility: "You screw it first, I am not in a hurry!" And "I'm free too. You can twist it. " Although there is no "thank you!" From Beijing. Polite, but simple feelings are revealed in the thick dialect. There are sisters-in-law carrying water, one leaning on a stick and the other leaning on two pieces of wood standing in front of bluestone, listening to people telling their parents' stories, jokes or anecdotes, and giving out bursts of laughter from time to time.

? Sooner or later is the peak of wringing water, so that I live in the North House, and I am often awakened at dawn by the sound of wheels screaming (below) and squeaking (above) outside the house. When the bucket reaches the bottom of the well, I have to shake it from side to side. When I hear a "glug", it means that the bucket has sunk to the bottom. Otherwise it's only half a bucket of water. I am often laughed at by people around me because I can't walk and pump half a bucket of water. Under the guidance of my uncles or big brothers, I finally ground a bucket full of water. There are no trees around the well, but the shade in the courtyard of Huluge in the east is just suitable for enjoying the cool, so at noon in summer, people are often waiting under the corner of Huluge. People who twist water in winter are cautious, whether they pull the bucket out of the well surface gently or hold the bucket beam with both hands. Because water drops become ice, there is inevitably a danger of slipping on the ground. Whenever it snows, Xiao Xiaoqin's father and restless grandma Geng will sweep the snow on the well platform several times, and my father will also urge me to sweep the snow on the road below the well platform. I smiled at my little hand, which was red with cold, and watched the steaming wellhead being twisted by the same steaming bucket. There is a drop of water frozen into thick ice near the wellhead. I admire my aunts and grandmothers who wash sweet potatoes and radishes under the well in winter. Although the water in the big iron basin is steaming, they rub sweet potatoes and radishes with their hands and dig with their nails from time to time, saying it's not cold. Seeing their red hands breathing from time to time, my heart is cold.

? Because our Liuxia village is a new immigrant village, there are eight alleys with uniform layout and the same width, which are divided into left and right sides by the street. In the same way, there is an open space of three points in the middle, a well in the east and a stone mill in the west. All year round, people come with the well. A little donkey with an eye patch is slowly turning around. Aunt and sister-in-law are holding a grinding rod in their left hand, and rolling on the big grinding plate with a small broom in their right hand, constantly sweeping grains, pepper horns and the like. If it is a flower mill, there must be a group of children crawling on the mill pole with their heads down and tails pursed, pushing them around. What attracted them was that they finally cut their mother into pieces, rolled around on the mill, put the pieces stained with green flowers in the bowl with a small shovel, and the boy who was half drooling greedily took a bite.

? About the autumn of 1987, our family of four moved to a new house, and our daughter was only a few months old. People passing by the water pipe visited the rare concave new house in the village, indicating that the 23-year well next to the old house had completed its historical mission and died.

Now this well and the ruins of Nianzi have been included in Uncle Geng's base, and the alley leading to Wuli Lane where people draw water is still there. Because it is inaccessible, when Uncle Geng was building the courtyard wall, he broke a brick or something on the road, which was obviously much narrower. Because moved to the county, moved to Yuncheng, moved to Shanghai, this well, which has long been out of date, gradually lost its impression.

Occasionally, I can't help but sigh when I search for photos of old wells in rural areas from Baidu. Did Uncle Geng's second brother fill in the well in front of the old house?

? 202165438+February 3, Beijing