The water in the urn is used for drinking water and for cooking and cooking.

The water must be fetched from the river first, and it must be fetched in the early morning or evening. After a day and night of settling, the water on the urn can be scooped out gently with a ladle for consumption.

This urn needs to be cleaned regularly, as a lot of precipitated soil and impurities accumulate at the bottom of the urn.

Next to this water urn, there are two wooden buckets filled with water and a bamboo pole with a hook.

In the middle of the main room, there is a wooden rectangular low-legged table, which is multi-functional and can be used as a dining table, a coffee table, and sometimes a writing table.

The low table is surrounded by three long benches and four short benches.

In the late Qing Dynasty, almost no furniture was assembled with iron nails. Whether it was a large wooden bed, a cabinet, or a table or stool, the fixed shape was connected with mortise and tenon joints.

The so-called mortise and tenon is a concave and convex connection method. The protruding part is called a tenon, and the concave part is called a tenon or mortise.

There is also a couch made of pure bamboo in the house, where you can lie down and sleep or sit on it.

Anyway, when you sit on it, it keeps making a squeaking sound, which sounds like it's sore and uncomfortable.

Dinner has begun. After cooking it in an iron pot, a copper basin of braised river clams with green vegetables is brought out. This is the main course tonight.

There was also a bowl of stir-fried snail meat, a large bowl of cold cucumbers, a plate of pickled vegetables, and finally a Shaoxing specialty, soybean products called mold Qianzhang.

Four bowls of rice, and a pile of steamed sweet potatoes on top of the rice.

This kind of dinner is considered rich and nutritious in farmers' homes nowadays.

There are pollution-free fresh vegetables, fresh river mussels that are also cooked without pollution, and snail meat. They taste fragrant and delicious. These are authentic green foods.

In future generations, green food will be used by high-ranking officials, but this may not always be the case.

"Come on...eat more, these river mussels seem fatter than before..." my mother greeted.

Of course she didn't understand that the Tu Gen in front of her was no longer the timid young man before. He was now a very good swimmer, more courageous, and could hold his breath longer while diving.

He dug these big and fat river mussels from the bottom of the deep lake. He specially prepared a small iron rake with a short handle.

Mother suddenly muttered, "To touch the river mussels with soil roots, just get them near the eaves of the lake shore. It's almost the Mid-Autumn Festival and the water is very cold. Don't go to the middle of the lake. It's dangerous if you get cramps in your feet."

Tugen is an only son in the family. The custom in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is to favor boys over girls. Therefore, Tugen rarely does farm work at home. Going down the river to touch mussels and dig out snails is purely his personal hobby as a boy.

When he was a child, his parents sent him to a private school in the township, and in the past two years, they sent him to a foreign school in the city. Both parents hoped that he would be successful in the future.

A few days ago, his father, Chen Shaoan, went to the city school to pick up Tugen and take him home. He also picked up a business deal. As a result, this business deal cost him his life.

Now that her husband is dead, Xue Wanzhen can no longer afford to send her son to school, and she has to let him go out to do some things. Otherwise, what will happen to the family's life and debts?

"I understand, mama..." Chen Tianhua quickly nodded in agreement.

He comforted his mother with his mouth, but secretly thought in his heart that in the shallow water of the lake, the river mussels had been touched by others for a long time. If it was not in the deep water, how could there be a few big foot basin river mussels.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River have had double crops of rice a year, divided into early rice and late rice. In the countryside, most people eat new rice.

But the current rice is incomparable to the Northeastern rice of later generations. We don’t talk about the size of the rice grains, but the surface of the rice.

Today's rice grains look relatively rough, and many of them are half-grain and half-meter. To be precise, they should be called millet.

This is because in the countryside at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was no rice-beating machine that could automatically peel off the rice husks. The villagers had to manually hammer the rice with a mortar and pestle, and then use a dustpan to throw away the chaff. However, there was still a lot of chaff left on the surface of the rice. Why?

Maybe it can be cleaned up.

Chen Tianhua was not used to eating at first. The hair in his mouth was so poking that it was difficult to chew and swallow.

However, I feel much better today. This is called a habit becoming natural.

A nutritious dinner of river mussels and snail meat made the whole family quite satisfied.

After a meal, Chen Tianhua habitually washes his face. After taking a look, he saw that there were two homemade thick-lined towels hanging on the wooden washstand at home. The top one was slightly better for washing his face, and the bottom one was naturally used for wiping.

of feet.

This is a daily necessities shared by the whole family. The most unbearable thing for Chen Tianhua, who came from the civilized world, is that he cannot brush his teeth, wash his face and take a shower.

This was much more uncomfortable than eating rice and sleeping on straw mats. Looking at the yellow and white teeth of the whole family, Chen Tianhua felt particularly uncomfortable.

He took off the washcloth and touched it with his hands. Wow...it was greasy...

I just washed it with soap yesterday, and the whole family was using it to wipe their faces and necks throughout the day, so you can imagine how greasy it is.

The soap used at home is now called foreign soap, which is a rarity in the countryside. It is said that my father, Chen Shaoan, brought one back from the county town half a year ago. This is the last piece.

After dinner, my mother and eldest sister took out the spinning machine from the utility room.

This hand-spinning machine belongs entirely to the history museum.

Under the smoky oil lamp, in the dim light, the eldest sister Tingjuan was spinning yarn from cotton, while the mother used the light to wash the dishes and clear the stove.

This beautiful oil lamp with a glass shade is very finely crafted, and the English word "mobil" is vaguely engraved on the belly of the oil lamp.

This should be an authentic product produced by Mobil Oil Company of the United States and will be an absolute antique for future generations.

The oil burning inside the oil lamp was actually low-quality oil produced by Mobil Oil Company. All the oil emitted was black smoke, and the lampshade was completely black.

After cleaning up the stove, my mother said that she had walked a lot today and wanted to wash her feet.

My mother usually works as a tailor with her grandmother. Today, when her health is better, she goes to work at her parents' house. All she can think about is foreign debt.

Within a few dozen miles of Shuangqi Township, grandma is quite famous for making clothes, and the prices are reasonable. She is well-known far and wide, so people often come to ask her to make clothes.

Now that my grandma is getting older, my mother gradually inherited the craftsmanship and took up the job, setting up a tailor shop in front of my grandma's house.

But making clothes in the countryside is not as high as in the city. The fees for cheongsams and new-style dresses are higher, and you can earn more money.

In the countryside, the clothes worn are coarse cloth clothes, double-breasted or diagonal-breasted cotton-padded jackets and other old-fashioned styles. Naturally, the prices are cheap, so you can only save a small amount of money.

Most of the wealthy families here, such as the Fan family, Peng family, Liu family, etc., go to the city to have their clothes made. Who would go to the country tailors to have their clothes made?

Fortunately, my grandma’s house has a hand loom, so I can use the yarn I spun to make coarse cloth, and the cloth can be made into shrouds for sale.

In short, the self-sufficient rural life of a large family can still survive if there are no natural or man-made disasters.

Seeing that his mother wanted to wash her feet, Chen Tianhua hurried to the wall and brought over a smaller wooden footbasin, probably for washing feet.

"Tugen, help your mother get some hot water from the soup pot. You need to soak your feet!"

"Hmm..." He snorted and became confused again.

He picked up the small wooden basin, but his feet didn't move much. The memory program in his mind was spinning.
Chapter completed!