Ancient willow tree, bearing the story of several generations, when I was small, the village usually treat me very well, an old mother is always under the willow, hand me a small bench, let me sit down to listen to her story.
The old mother is a seventy-year-old woman, do not like me to call her grandmother, I think she showed her old, because she is particularly good to me, like a daughter as intimate, it has been called her old mother. Nowadays, although the old mom is old, but her heart is not old at all.
The first summer vacation of the university, I sat under the willow tree again, leaning on the chin quietly listening to the old mother when she was young.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Northeast was still very poor and backward, and the basic problem of food and clothing was very difficult to guarantee. The old mother was also talking about marriage at that time, that era, aunt married grandmother, aunt married grandmother marriage is not a few, is also regarded as inbred marriage, because they are relatives, it is free of the bride price and dowry money.
The old mother's parents insisted that she marry her second aunt's son, a crippled man, looks good, listening to the old mother said that her brother is one of the most handsome in the village, only because of the crippled has not been able to marry a decent daughter-in-law.
The cold winter months in the northeast of the goose feather snow, to use a northeastern words, then the snow is honest, thick to the calf belly, a step on the gabba gabba straight sound.
It was at that time when the snow came, the old mother gambled and left home because her parents want her to marry to the second aunt, she did not like the catty second aunt, and do not want to marry her brother. That second aunt to go to the old mother's home will never go back empty-handed, even a string of dried red peppers will not let go, would have been starving and freezing times there is nothing to protect against the wind and cold.
The old mother's family of nine siblings, she is the largest. A large family is braving the snow to come out to find her, such a family is quite warm, like other small family parents completely do not care about the death of the real many children, are to be strong to live on their own.
In the snow and wind, the old mother's mother called her breast name, finally still found the old mother, said that never again will force her to marry the son of the family with the second aunt.
Since then, the old mother has been helping her mother as before, taking care of her younger siblings, occasionally going to the night school near the village production team to secretly listen to the class, and stealing to learn a lot of Chinese characters, and more importantly, she met the most important person in her life.