Reborn in the 70s / Reborn in 1978

Chapter 12 Fishing and Catching Crayfish

Summer fun is inseparable from water.

The small stream in Nangou runs along the hillside and flows into the river in the fort. The river is clear and transparent, and the river is more than ten meters wide and less than one meter deep.Going down the river and crossing a highway bridge, the river water meets another larger river, and the river surface suddenly widens, forming a curved lake surface of tens of meters.Weeping willows and sash on the shore, flowers and plants flourish.

Here is Sandaohezi.

Every summer, children big and small in the castle often gather here to bathe, touch fish, and catch toads.

Taking a bath is to play with the water. A group of half-baked children are splashing around in the water. The river here is deep. The one in the middle can be as long as one meter, which is a bit dangerous for children. Generally, no matter whether they recognize it or not, the older children will always take care of it. Little ones, don't let them go into the deep water.

Enough splashing in the water, pull a handful of grass on the river bank, and scrub your body from head to toe.

The leaves of this kind of grass are very wide, and the stems are purple. When washed with water, it will form a small amount of foam, which can decontaminate. Many rural people use it to wash clothes.But I really can’t remember what it’s called, Yangtie Yezi?Soapwort?forget.

After the big ones are washed by themselves, they will pull the small ones over and rub them again, regardless of whose family it is.

After brushing and cleaning, some packed their clothes and went home, but most of the children would not leave and started playing.

Zhang Xingming asked his brother, "Shall we go back?" He didn't like being soaked in the water like this. Although it was only thirty or forty centimeters deep, he was so small that it had already reached his thigh.My brother glanced at him and said, "It's so early to go home? It's still early for dinner, let's touch some fish, and go back to get fish sauce to eat."

My brother is an expert at catching fish, and he slowly searched along the bank in the shallow water shaded by bushes and trees. He couldn't walk too fast, or he would startle the fish.While looking for it, he said to Zhang Xingming: "Go behind me, don't get so close, the fish will be scared away." Zhang Xingming really didn't want to follow him, but there were no roads on this shore, it was a meadow, and the grass was bigger than the grass. He is tall.Simply find a shallow place to stand in the water and look at my brother.

The surface of the water suddenly became quiet, only the cries of toads could be heard from everywhere.Everyone was looking for fish carefully, and slowly dispersed, and no one could touch them when they were crowded together.

The wind passed through the treetops, and the willow branches swayed gently, occasionally brushing across the water.The sound of the water flow became louder, rushing into the distance.At that time, the water was so clear that one could see everything under the water clearly. Fish, big and small, were swimming quickly among the rocks at the bottom.

The elder brother moved slowly, bent over, put his hands in the water, stopped suddenly, waited for a while without moving, slowly stretched his hands to Yu Yu's side, then quickly closed his hands, pulled them out of the water, and turned back to call Zhang Xingming "Er Ming, come here, grab it." Zhang Xingming walked over, his brother slowly opened his hands, and a small fish struggled between his hands.

Fish can only go forward and cannot go backwards. It is easy to catch after calculating the amount of advance. It is said that it is catching fish, but in fact, at that moment, the hand is waiting for the fish to come in by itself.In the water, the hand is not as fast as the fish. If you don't count the amount in advance, you will never catch it with your speed.

The same is true for catching toads. After being frightened, a toad can jump several meters away, and when it jumps up, it can't catch up.You have to calm down first and observe. The toad can only jump in front of its mouth, which is considered a good amount of advance. When jumping over, the hand must block the direction of its jump in advance, and then it hits and catches it. .

Zhang Xingming went to the bank and pulled a straw, and handed it to his brother, who passed the straw through the fish's gills, let Zhang Xingming hold it, and went to catch another one.Zhang Xingming took the straw and soaked the fish in the water so that the fish would not die.This is also because small fish are weak and cannot be pulled off. If it is a larger fish, it will tear off its gills and run away.

After catching seven or eight small fish, my brother was still not satisfied, and started to circle around a pile of rocks at the bottom of the water. There were more fish in the crevices of the rocks.Zhang Xingming called him: "Brother, don't touch the cracks in the rocks, or you can find a rock and hit the rock with fish."

The elder brother stood up and glanced at him, thought for a while, nodded, lowered his head, and fished out a stone the size of an adult's fist from the water. It was all over the place, and my brother himself got all covered, and his clothes were all wet.But it succeeded, the little fish was stunned and slowly floated up.

The elder brother grabbed it in his hand, wiped his face with the other hand, and said to Zhang Xingming, "It's hit."

It is very dangerous to touch fish in the crevices of the stones. Many stones are washed very sharp by the water. The scratches are light, and the heavy ones cut off fingers.

As soon as I put this unlucky fish on the grass pole, I heard someone shout: "Dajun, you pull the second child, there are water worms. (water snake)" I saw the fourth master's grandson rushing over with a stick in his hand, The two brothers stood behind them, looked around with their eyes, and said, "Dajun, take the second child ashore, hurry up." Water snakes are poisonous.

The elder brother pulled Zhang Xingming ashore, found a rock for Zhang Xingming to stand on, and looked at Brother Mancang together.

Mancang poked a stick in the grass a few times, and with a swish sound, a water worm almost one meter long swam from the grass into the water at a very fast speed, and its gray-white body twisted rapidly in the water.

Mancang reacted very quickly, and he pulled the stick up, hitting the water worm, and the worm froze immediately, only its head was still bending back and forth, floating along the water.Mancang threw away the stick, went up and grabbed the long worm's tail with his hand, picked it up and swung it vigorously a few times, but now the long worm's head did not move, and the bones of the whole body were disjointed, but if it was brought to the mouth, it would still be bitten.

Grabbing the tail with one hand, and pinching the head of the snake with the other, Mancang breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and said to the two brothers: "There are a lot of worms here, don't come here to play in the future, are you listening?"

My brother said: "I'm not afraid, I've beaten the worms before." Mancang was fifteen or sixteen years old at the time, seeing his brother happy, he reached out and handed the long worms to his brother, saying, "Give it to you."

The elder brother looked at the long worm, swallowed it a few times, and said: "No, you hit it, you go back and eat it yourself, I will catch the fish."

Mancang rolled up the long worms and threw them into the grass far away, saying: "Water long worms are not tasty, they are fishy. Let's go, brother will lead you to touch the crickets."

Crayfish is a relatively common aquatic product in the river here. It looks exactly like a crayfish, but smaller, with a light blue body. It swims backwards in the water and runs fast.This stuff is delicious, and the output is also large. If you use gauze nets, it is normal to catch more than a dozen in one net.But after 95, it gradually became less and less, and it was rare to see it.

The three of them landed, and Brother Mancang led them upriver until they were not far from the bridge, telling them to wait, but he went under the bridge by himself, and took a net after a while. I came over, checked while walking, and said: "It's okay, no one has used it, it's still good."

The water flow in this area is shallower than the bottom, and it is also faster than the bottom. I put the net into the river with a full warehouse, and slowly dragged it against the water. After walking a dozen steps, I set up the net and dragged it out of the water. Looking into the wind, there are indeed several crayfish jumping on the bottom of the net.

Mancang asked his elder brother to hold the net, and went to the shore to get straw to weave a small basket, came over and poured the crayfish into it, handed it to his elder brother, and went to catch a few more nets, a total of more than a dozen, and then put the net again. Go to the bridge hole and say: "Okay? Take the second child back quickly, don't run here in the future, if you want to eat something to find me, I'll get it for you. The water here is deep and there are many insects. Do you hear me?"

The elder brother held the crayfish, nodded in satisfaction, and said, "Well, remember, brother Mancang, can you catch toads? That stuff is delicious. I heard there are a lot of toads here."

Mancang looked around, listened for a while, turned around and walked into the meadow, walking more and more slowly, carefully bowed his waist, observed for a long time, slowly bent down, and suddenly jumped out, clasping his hands in a bush On the grass, he turned over and sat up, and said: "Come and see, this is not a toad, this stuff is called Sao Jizi, it's not tasty."

The two brothers ran over to look in his hand. He held a green frog in his palm, and his jaw bulged.

Mancang let go slowly, held the frog with one hand, turned it over and let the two brothers look at the belly, and said: "This kind of frog, Sao chicken, has a white belly, and there is a red belly, called pepper, and you can't eat it." If you want to eat the ones with black backs and patterns on their stomachs, they are toads, and they are bigger than this one. There are more of them in the ponds, but less in the running water."

The elder brother looked at the frog and nodded, looking like he was being educated, and looked at Brother Mancang with eyes full of admiration.

Mancang looked around, smiled and said, "Look, I'll teach you how to play." He reached out and pulled out a straw from the side, and bit it off with his mouth. The middle of the straw was hollow, like a straw.

Then he turned the frog over, rushed the butt, inserted the straw into the toad's butt, and slowly blew air with his mouth, and the frog's belly slowly swelled up, becoming bigger and bigger, like a balloon.

Mancang pulled out the straw and put the frog into the water. The frog couldn't move anymore. It could only float on the water surface, and slowly drifted away with the water. My brother laughed loudly.

Chapter 13 Nesting Cotton

Mancang sent the brothers to the crossroads and went back, and the younger brothers returned home. At that time, it seemed natural for the older children to take care of the younger ones. The older ones did it naturally, and didn’t care about anything. gains and losses.

When I got home, I gave the small fish and crickets to grandma. Grandma patted my brother on the back a few times and scolded, "I went up to the river again, what if I was caught by a water monkey?" She didn't try hard, and my brother didn't care either. , or explained: "It was caught by the warehouse, I can't catch it without a net."

The grandma stopped beating and said, "Take the second child to the river and I will beat you to death." It was quite serious, but it had no deterrent effect on the elder brother.

The small fishes were packed, the crickets were peeled off their shells, chopped together and mixed into the sauce, and fried in oil, it was simply delicious.In fact, most of the real deliciousness is such a simple and natural taste.

After eating and sleeping for a while, my elder brother couldn't stay still anymore. He tossed and tossed on the kang for a while, and said, "Er Ming, let's catch grasshoppers."

Zhang Xingming rolled his eyes and said, "That thing bites and jumps high. Where can I catch it? Besides, where can I put it after I catch it?" My brother said, "That's because you are stupid. I can catch it. Just put it in a straw cage, I have two cages." "Then what do you feed? Stop barking when you're hungry."

Grasshoppers catch it just to listen to its barking, and it's no fun if it doesn't bark.Compete with the children, if yours doesn't bark, it will be embarrassing.

My brother got up and ran to Beikang to lie on the window and look out. After watching for a while, he sat down discouraged and said, "Well, the melon flowers haven't bloomed yet."

Grasshoppers are caught and raised, usually for melon flowers, pumpkin flowers, but I don’t know what else to feed them.

My brother is very good at catching grasshoppers. In his last life, he often led Zhang Xingming to the fields to catch grasshoppers.Zhang Xingming couldn't find it at all, so he just listened to the call, while his brother observed and clasped his hands, and he got one hand, and put it into the hand-woven straw cage.

If you catch a grasshopper, be careful not to get bitten. The mouthparts of this thing are quite powerful, and the bite is just a hole, which is painful and swollen. I don't like it.

Zhang Xingming remembers that there is also a three-calling donkey with a tail knife, which screams loudly and crisply, and a knife-like thing as long as its body is dragged from its tail.But Zhang Xingming is not interested in these things, because he can't catch them, let alone catch them, even find them out from the grass.

Catching grasshoppers to raise them, catching knife mantises, and burning and eating grasshoppers are the things that rural children are most willing to do in summer at this time.

The elder brother stared out of the window in Beikang for a while, then suddenly said: "How about we go find Womian? It's delicious." Zhang Xingming thought about it, and it wasn't dangerous, and he didn't need to dig into the grass to climb a big tree. Just nodded and said, "Okay, let's go."

"Wo Mian" is what the children here call it. I don't know what it is called, but it is a black stick that forms at the place where the sorghum ears grow after the sorghum earing fails. It tastes a little sweet and very dry. It will stain the mouth and teeth black.

Often, a large group of children would go into the sorghum fields to search for them, and whoever found them would let out a joyful cry, and the crowd would swarm up, inevitably breaking a few sorghum trees, and the older children would lift up the broken sorghum trees and use the sorghum leaves If you wrap it around a few times, you usually won't die.

Smaller children simply dig out the broken sorghum stalks and eat them by the root. The spongy body in the stalks has a lot of juice at this time, like chewing sugar cane, but not so sweet, and not every sorghum Both are sweet.