19 父爱之舟

Lesson Nineteen

The Boat of Paternal Love

1. It was the experience of my dream last might. I just woke up!

2. In the dim light, father and mother rose in the middle of the night to add mulberry leaves to the silkworms ... Time of the year to sell the cocoon, I always follow behind my father, sell the cocoon, the father will buy me a lot of loquat to eat…

3. I saw little fishing boat of my uncle-in-law again.

4. My father always borrows that small boat to send me away from my hometown to apply for school.

5. He and my uncle-in-law went boating to see me off.

6. We took rice to cook on the boat and slept on the boat at night, which could save money on meals and hotels.

7. We were not willing to go ashore easily. The lesson of spending money in hotels was too deep.

8. Once, my father and I stayed in the cheapest Inn. In the middle of the night, I was bitten up by bedbugs and my body was covered with red pimples.

9. My father was so distressed that he called to the waiter and opened the mat to let him see the bedbugs crawling around the bed and my pimples.

10. The waiter said there was no way to do it, and suggested that we could change to a better room by adding money.

11. My father was moved. Although I was young at that time, I had already realized the difficulty of making money.

12. He was very economical, and was not willing to spend any money. I have been bitten in the middle of the night anyway, and I did not want to change the house in the latter half of the night.

13. In a trance, I was in the temple fair once every two years. It was a great pleasure to see the grand festival. I was very happy.

14. I watched all sorts of rehearsals singing as they walked.

15. Walking on stilts, shrimp soldiers, mussels, ox heads, horse noodles, etc. The street was crowded with people, including all kinds of candy, chicken, duck and fish.

16. My father and I were hungry. How greedy I was!

17. But I didn’t dare and couldn’t want to ask my father to buy it.

18. My father took zongzi from home and we ate cold zongzi in a place with less people.

19. After eating zongzi, my father thought I was too aggrieved. He took me to the stall and bought a bowl of hot jellied bean curd. I told him to eat it, but he refused my invitation.

20. There were also a lot of things to sell, such as colored paper windmills, cloth tigers, clay figurines, bamboo flower snakes... Although it was impossible to spend money on them, my father understood my reluctant thoughts. After returning home, he pasted a kaleidoscope with a few pieces of glass and colored paper scraps, which was the only and most precious toy in my childhood.

21. The ever-changing patterns in the kaleidoscope were my earliest inspiration of abstract beauty!

22. My father often said that I should study well, and I’d better go out to be a teacher, so I never miss classes or play truant.

23. When I was young, my father carried me to school because of heavy rain and heavy snow.

24. With my schoolbag on my back, I put up a pair of rhubarb oilcloth umbrellas.

25. He tied up his trousers, wore a pair of deep spiked shoes, lifted up the lower part of his cotton padded robe and tied it in his waist. The extremely long pink green silk scarf in his waist could be wrapped around his waist for two or three times, which was the dowry of my mother when they got married.

26. When I graduated from the lower primary school, I passed the examination of higher primary school.

27. If I wanted to live in school, I had to pay for meals, accommodation, school fees, and book fees, so they sold the rice and pigs in my family, and raised a lot of money at the beginning of each semester.

28. There was not much money, but my parents were willing to spend it all on me.

29. I took the money to pay my tuition, and I felt very sad.

30. My father took me to school and made my bed. When he came home, I cried secretly.

31. This was the first time I really feel sad and cried, which was quite different from the crying of coquetry, losing temper and fighting at home. It was a new taste in the road of life.

32. My only magic weapon was the examination. I have never fallen off the list.

33. I was going to apply for Wuxi Normal School.

34. In order to save the travelling expenses, my father borrowed the small fishing boat from my uncle-in-law and drove me to Wuxi with him.

35. It was a summer day. In order to avoid the heat, they took turns to paddle and let me sleep in the cabin.

36. But I couldn’t sleep well, because I really realized the seriousness of failing to pass the examination. Naturally, I couldn’t appreciate the poetic and painting artistic conception of stars all over the sky and a lonely boat in the river walking slowly at night.

37. The boat has clay stove on board to cook and eat by ourselves. The boat also served as a lodging and restaurant, saving travel expenses.

38. However, we did not stop out boat near Wuxi Normal School for fear of being ridiculed by other candidates and parents.

39. God helps those who help themselves, and I passed the exam.

40. When I was sent to school, it was still the boat, and my father and my uncle-in-law were still in rotation.

41. When my father didn’t paddle, he took the time to mend the quilt for me, because my long-term sick mother could not prepare all the packing for me.

42. When I looked out of the cabin, my father’s figure of bending down and mending his head blocked my view, but the figure in the cabin was also very obvious and could never be erased!

43. It is not only the back that always appears in front of my eyes, but also the awning boat written by Lu Xun is always so kind to me.

44. Although our little boat was only covered with a shabby awning, which was far less exquisite than that of Shaoxing’s black-awning boat, our little fishing boat was still so kind and unforgettable... When can I draw the boat carrying father’s love with my pen in my hand!

45. I wake up, and the pillow is wet.