437
PARTISAN REVIEW
"You are a sensible child, and Father likes you. He is tough
on children, but you should understand why. Every father hopes
his son can become a dragon (great man). Grandpa, my father,
always said to my younger brother, your uncle, that a ten-year–
old boy should be as ambitious as his father. You are going to be
thirteen. You should distance yourself from the wild boys and
behave like a grown-up. Share the hardship with Father and be
an excellent student. Then you can stand on your own two feet
and be someone in the future."
She walked home in front of me, carrying the basin. Her
bound feet moved like the tips of a drawing compass that had dis–
abled her since she was an infant. How many times had she
fallen down, scattering vegetables or washed clothes from her
basket? How many times had her feet caught in the crevices and
holes of the wooden floor? She never complained, but how could I
let her serve me forever?
I was inspired by Mother's words and determined to work
like a man. The new semester started, and the review during the
summer had kept me in good shape. Mter school, I picked
purslane from the grasses on a stream bank and gave it to Mother
to cook for supper. I also moved the rubble away from a vacant lot
near a well, and tilled it into a vegetable patch. I watered and
spread manure. Eventually the radishes and cabbages grew big,
and I felt proud to harvest them and bring them to her.
* * *
The civil war was raging in the north, where the major coal
mines were located. The cities in the south depended on the coal
supply from the area where we lived. By the end of 1947, the
railway branch, which had been dismantled a few years before,
had been rebuilt.
It
skirted the west side of the county, about five
kilometers from our home. Meanwhile, the abandoned coal
mines were put back into operation. The businessmen set up
fenced freight yards along the loading line of the railroad station,
where the coal was heaped in small hills. A government
agency, which owned the largest mine, had six new Dodge
trucks shuttling between the coal mine and the railway station.
It
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