Chapter 31: The Threshing Floor

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The children were delighted when Grandma really agreed to buy two watermelons. They immediately crowded around the cart, asking for the biggest ones.

Seeing this, the watermelon seller glanced at Liu Cuihua without saying a word and promptly picked out two large watermelons.

Yang Xingwu looked over the cart piled with watermelons. At a rough glance, there did not seem to be many—probably fewer than fifty—but they were enormous!

Their skins were black and glossy, the very black-skinned watermelons that would become so popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

These watermelons yielded heavily, producing several thousand catties per acre, and they grew to an impressive size. A ten-catty watermelon was considered inferior; a twenty-catty one was merely average. Thirty- or forty-catty melons were common, and the largest could weigh seventy or eighty catties.

After choosing the melons, the middle-aged man placed them in a fertilizer sack and gave it a hard tug. It did not budge. Embarrassed, he tried again. The sack rose, but it was difficult to balance the scale. With that, he called out to Yang Xingwu:

“Young man, could you give me a hand lifting this?”

Yang Xingwu hurried over when he heard the call.

The watermelon seller pulled a thick wooden pole from the handcart and brought out a large steelyard.

He threaded the pole through the loop on the scale and handed the other end to Yang Xingwu.

Each of them lifted one end, raising the sack off the ground.

The seller moved the counterweight several times before it finally settled. The two men lowered the sack.

“Old sister-in-law, it’s a full seventy-one catties. I’ll count it as seventy!”

“That heavy? Brother, you really grow fine watermelons! Every one of them is shining like oil.”

“You’ve got that right. Our village has very little land, less than an acre per person on average. But we have plenty of sandy soil, which is perfect for growing watermelons!”

“That’s pretty good, then. Watermelons yield so much that one acre can be traded for several acres of wheat!”

“You can’t put it that way. Everyone in the village grows watermelons, so we only earn a little more at the beginning. Once the melons hit the market in a few days, the price will drop sharply.

“You know about green wheat ears, right? At first, one ear sold for a cent. Later, three ears went for a cent, and quite a few people lost money. That’s how it works!

“It’s fortunate our village has so little land. We were afraid something like that would happen. Look behind you—those people all lost money. Weren’t they just asking for trouble?”

When Liu Cuihua heard this, her heart jolted. She was terrified that someone might notice something unusual.

“I see. Wait a moment. The wheat has just been cut and hasn’t been threshed yet. Little Tiger, go call your grandpa and the others over to eat watermelon! Remember to bring some wheat with you!”

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After hearing this, Yang Xinghu hurried to the wheat field to call the others.

“No need to thresh it first. We can weigh it as it is. Just weigh the ears directly, but you’ll have to give me a little extra!”

Yang Xingwu listened to their exchange, speechless. This whole affair had actually become a cautionary tale.

Yang Xinghu left quickly and returned just as quickly.

Yang Kaishan came along behind him, with his two sons carrying two large bundles of wheat. They borrowed a fertilizer sack from the watermelon seller and stuffed all the wheat ears inside. Then they carried the sack over to a nearby tree and swung it forcefully back and forth. Once most of the grain had come loose, they gave the chaff and debris a rough cleaning.

They weighed the sack and found it contained forty catties. After removing several catties, they left thirty-six catties of wheat. Since some fine husks were difficult to clear away, they left an extra catty for the watermelon seller.

After receiving the wheat, the middle-aged man set the two watermelons on the ground, helped cut one of them into pieces, and then left.

Yang Kaishan called everyone over to eat.

The three children—Yang Xinghu, Yang Xiaolan, and Yang Xiaofeng—quickly picked up watermelon slices from the ground and handed them to their grandparents and parents. Only then did they each take a piece for themselves, devouring it eagerly until juice splattered everywhere and their faces shone with satisfaction.

Yang Xingwu squatted on the ground and picked up a slice. As for the taste, how should he put it? It was nowhere near as sweet as the 8424 melons still in the laboratory, but this watermelon was truly enormous!

There were fourteen people in the extended family. Each had a large slice of watermelon, and more than half of the melon still remained on the ground.

Perhaps the disappearance of black-skinned watermelons had something to do not only with their sweetness, but also with their size. At the time, large watermelons were an advantage. Later, they became a disadvantage. In the future, most families would consist of only three or four people. A watermelon this large might not be finished in a day, and it would easily spoil if left sitting around.

After finishing the entire watermelon and chatting for a while, the whole family worked until dusk before heading home.

That evening, Yang Chunsheng went to the production brigade and borrowed an ox. He also brought back a stone roller.

Early the next morning, Yang Chunsheng led the family to dig up the wheat stubble from a plot of land. They harnessed the ox to the stone roller and leveled the ground, turning it into a threshing floor for drying wheat.

Once the ground had been leveled, Yang Xingwu went to fetch his second uncle’s handcart. The family then hauled all the wheat beneath the shed over to the drying ground.

It was a brilliantly sunny day, perfect for drying wheat.

After making two trips and spreading all the wheat evenly across the drying floor, it was time for breakfast.

After eating, Yang Chunsheng pulled his younger brother’s cart and took Yang Xingwen with him to help gather the wheat.

Yang Xingwu stayed behind with his mother and younger sister to turn the wheat.

Freshly cut wheat could not be threshed immediately. It contained too much moisture, and the grains would not come loose easily. Only after being dried beneath the blazing sun would the grains separate properly.

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The sun was growing fiercer by the minute.

Yang Xingwu and the other three picked up wooden forks and began turning the wheat.

When they finished, everyone sat beneath the shade of a tree to rest.

Hearing the cry of an ice-pop vendor, Yang Xingwu took out five cents and gave them to his little sister to buy ice pops.

Yang Xiaohong returned with four ice pops, her face full of displeasure.

Seeing this, Yang Xingwu asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The ice-pop seller is so stingy! I bought five, but he wouldn’t even give me one extra!”

Yang Xingwu could not help laughing. His little sister was quite the clever schemer.

He remembered that when he had first regained consciousness, the family had asked her to look after him. Instead, she had secretly run off to play and did not return until nearly noon. When she saw that Yang Xingwu was still asleep, she assumed no one had discovered what she had done and had smugly basked in that belief for quite some time.

Now she was trying to get the ice-pop seller to throw in an extra one.

“The ice-pop factory in the county has fixed wholesale prices. A one-cent ice pop costs seven-tenths of a cent wholesale. Selling four earns the vendor one and two-tenths cents. If he gives away an extra one after selling five, he’ll earn only eight-tenths of a cent. Who would agree to that?”

“All right, don’t be upset. Keep that one cent. Just don’t lose it. When the ice-pop seller comes again, buy from someone else and eat it right in front of him, all right?”

Only then did Yang Xiaohong cheer up. She quickly clenched the coin tightly in her hand. After handing out the ice pops, she carefully began licking hers.

Yang Xingwu picked up his ice pop and took a long suck. Its icy coolness immediately drove away the summer heat.

The ice pop had little flavor otherwise. Its taste was terribly uneven—some parts were sickeningly sweet, while others were completely tasteless. It was nothing more than sugar-flavored water frozen into ice.

After finishing his ice pop and resting for a while, Yang Xingwu saw that it was about time and went to turn the wheat again.

The wheat on the drying floor had to be turned once every hour to ensure that it dried evenly. That way, when the stone roller passed over it, the grains would come loose properly.

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