Father and his red mule (original prose)

# Prose # Author Wei Shui Qing Chi Author Furong

I suddenly remembered the earth-red mule I had at home, and naturally I thought of my father.

My father has been dead for more than twenty years, and his khaki mule has left him. I don't know where he went. It must be said that he has been dead for more than twenty years. If it is fate that people meet and get along with each other, is it fate that people meet and live with livestock? God knows. In the 1980s, when the household production was contracted, the Tuhong mule assigned to my house was too old to eat the chaff mixed with dry wheat straw and became an old man with gray hair like his father. I don't run when I walk. I'm too thin to pull heavy trucks and plow hard ground. I had to reluctantly sell it to someone else's house in a distant village.

Father and his red mule have become distant stories. I want to tell my children and grandchildren about my father's life and his red mule.

Father loves his red mule very much. He loves mules more than our brothers and sisters. Red Mule and his father, our family, are really affectionate, have supported us for most of our lives, and have forged a deep fate with our family. I clearly remember that 1985, a few days before my second brother took me to the fair, my father was unhappy, smoking a cigarette alone, walking around the mule, patting the soil and stroking the tail hair from time to time. Tu Hong mule seems to know something. She meekly kept her father, turned her head, and still kissed his shoulder and cheek, but she was not in the mood to eat forage with tears in her eyes.

On this day, my father didn't hum a word or look at the red mule early in the morning. He went out to work in the field, and the second brother took the mule away. In the evening, the second brother came home with a halter and said he bought 500 yuan. Our family has lost its soul and is not interested in working for a few days. My mother sighed all night, and my father didn't eat two meals. There are tears on the back of his hand. The mule was twenty-six years old that year, and I was born in the same year. Has become the old man of mules. But I'm in my prime. According to the old people, mules are generally old when they are in their thirties, and quite a few people live to be in their seventies.

I heard my mother talk about my father and his red mule in the fifties and sixties. Before liberation, my family raised a grass donkey to support the family with my father. Father said that three years ago, the Red Army lived in the village for the Long March, and a Red Army cadre asked his father and donkey to transport the vegetables they sold to the residence of the Red Army in Qijiayao Village on the hill of the neighboring village. After arriving at the mountain village, the Red Army lived everywhere. Little dolls lined up like primary school students, practicing playing the trumpet in the wheat field, and their voices were magnificent and warm. The Red Army cadres were paid and their father was mobilized to join the Red Army, but his father did not agree. I went home as soon as I got some big boards of sand and copper. One of them, a mother with a big sand copper plate, stayed until six years ago. I used to play it when I was in primary school. It is produced in Sichuan province. I clearly remember rusty copper coins. After liberation, my family also got land after the land reform. 1956, my mother gave birth to me, and the grass donkey gave birth to a mule. My mother is happy to have me, and my father is happy to have mules.

My parents happily joined the activists in the village, joined China, and became village cadres and group leaders. In addition to meeting and studying all day, they are also actively engaged in the collective productive labor of the socialist revolution. Later, the local mule entered the society and was owned by the collective. But most of the teams were raised by their fathers. The earth-red mule is getting stronger every day and looks fat enough to pull a cart to plow the fields. Like other horses, cows and donkeys, it has become the main production animal of the production team.

Because my father often works as a team breeder, coupled with diligent and eccentric feeding of forage to the Tuhong mule, the thin and fat Tuhong mule has great strength, but only his father can raise it and only his father can use it. When others use it, they will jump, kick and bite, scaring everyone into not using it. The captain had to arrange for his father to feed and order food, and often engaged in production with his father. Remember to come back from school and follow my father to mow the grass and pick up wild vegetables. My father let me ride on the back of a mule. Father shouted and walked on the road in the field. I am very happy in the sunset or autumn wind. Sometimes when I see the mowed grass, I come to feed it. Steal some ears of wheat or corn cob from the team and feed them quietly where no one is around. Mules also eat obediently and wag their tails at mosquitoes and insects. No one else is allowed to ride it anyway. Father and mule worked together in the fields before dawn, and when they came back, they worked as keepers, earning double points. Often provoked individual members to comment, and my father gritted his teeth and earned more.

I remember that in 1970, the team had to repair the stable of the breeding house and foster the animals to the members alone. Naturally, no one dared to raise the earth-red mule, so he gave it to his father for special breeding and kept it in the stable of our earth house. Father feeds mules diligently, and mules with bad temper usually eat grass meekly. Father often said: "People raise animals, animals raise people, and animals are more bitter than people." Tuhong mules often carry grain to grind flour. My neighbor is sick, so I help to go to the county to see a doctor. In his spare time, like his children and grandchildren, his father combs his hair and touches the soil, shovels and repairs his hooves, dresses up the red mule beautifully, and is often rated as an excellent model by the village brigade, and hangs red flowers on the red mule.

At that time, in the production team, for the sake of collective production, Tuhong mules were responsible for hard work, threshing wheat and plowing fields, picking manure and delivering fertilizer in winter, getting up early and going up the mountain in the dark, and returning late at night. Father and mule are flying in Dai Yue. They have made great contributions to the collective production of the production team year after year and earned more work points for their families. At that time, the earth-red mule carefully fed by my father was plump and strong, shiny and smooth. On one occasion, my father plowed the land up the hill with a red mule. When he returned to plow, his father accidentally slipped off the ridge and fell to the ditch, where there was a cliff dozens of meters deep. Father clung to the rope, and the earth-red mule insisted on slowly pulling his father onto the ridge, saving his life. His father just scraped a little skin and had a thrilling trip. Since then, my father has become more dear and likes red mules more. Another time, the red mule was ill, and the vet said he had grass colon. Father walked around the mule from night to dawn, and finally got well. Father took out a few catties of eggs saved at home and gave them to Tuhong mule. I still remember a time when a red mule was eating forage in my stable. Suddenly, my mother's pig ran under the mule's stomach, and the mule was electrocuted or kicked with fodder. Mother heard the angry voice and came to see it. Ah, the pig is in danger. She was afraid to step on the pig and pounce on it. She just held the pig in her arms and fell under the mule's stomach. It's dangerous. Stepping on it will kill your mother, or at least hurt someone. The mother mule growled, and the khaki mule threw the hoof-jumping bullet on the wall, made a push-up handstand and stopped for a few minutes. We quickly helped mother and pig out of the stable, and the red mule put down her hoof to be quiet. It didn't hurt the pig and mother at all. Mother said: "Tuhong mule is considerate, kind-hearted and conscientious, knowing that I feed the grass and water well every day." After many years of living and working together, my father and family all like Tuhong mules, and Tuhong mules also have great feelings for our family. I remember another time, after the land was contracted to the household, our family was assigned to raise red mules. One reason is that my father insisted on the red mule, and other members were afraid that the red mule would lose his temper, so no one dared to ask for it if it was not used. Naturally assigned to my home. Our family is also very happy. Now the earth-red mule is committed to supporting our family. One day, my father had something to do and asked me to carry a red mule. I am also happy to ride on my back, ready to cross the Weihe River to eat grass in another river. When they reached the river, the Tuhong mule looked down and smelled the water, but they couldn't get into it. But turned and stopped at the shore. I tugged at the reins, but I didn't listen. I lowered my head and slid me from my back to my neck. This is a risk. That's a canal. The canal is in deep water. It will hurt me, I will scream in fear and my hands will dance in the air. At this time, the earth red mule raised its neck, slowly raised its front hoof arm, and slid me onto its back to stop firmly without falling off. This is a close call. It's safe. At the sight of the river, the Weihe River became a big river with a sigh. The upstream water was overwhelming, and in a short time, the two sides of the strait were completely flat and choppy. I suddenly understood why the red mule didn't get into the water and cross the river, thus avoiding a great danger. Looking at the earth-red mule, I ate the grass peacefully, and my nose gasped gently. On this day, I stole a few more corn cobs and fed them quietly.

1856, the earth-red mule was old, and it lost its youthful luster. Like an old man, his head is not high, he eats grass slowly and loses his former glory. His hair is long, showing his bones, dragging his stomach and wagging his tail. My father is much older, too. In his seventies, his face was wrinkled and his stubble was pale. He also took his red mule to Sichuan to graze, and his father cherished the red mule and stopped riding it. He often pats the mud and cleans up the red mule. Tuhong mule followed his father meekly. Without his bad temper in the past, even little women and dolls dared to touch his ass hair.

Nowadays, with the rapid development of reform and opening up and economic construction technology, the vast rural areas use small machines to cultivate land. There are no horses, cows, mules and donkeys. The production years of cattle and people have become history, and those events in the sixties and seventies have become stories. Recalling the hard days in the past, I will never forget my father and his red mule. The mule with its head held high and trotted lightly, just like a movie, every scene floated in my mind from time to time. I will never forget the khaki mule, which is a very spiritual animal.

Written on July 18.

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