A voice came from far below the window of the building; “Eeyo, Eeyo …… selling chicks” gradually came closer and louder.
A child looked up from his home and listened with wide eyes for a while, “Chickens! Chickens!” The children called out. The four children simultaneously abandoned their pens and dashed downstairs, as if a flock of sparrows on the road had heard the footsteps of pedestrians and flown away.
I had just picked up the stool they had brought down and picked up the pencils that had rolled off the table when I heard a shout at the front door: “Buy chicks! Buy chicks!” There were cries mixed with them. He was afraid that the chickens were bought by his brothers and sisters, so he was crying fiercely. I helped him out of the gate and saw a group of children greeting a man carrying a load of “ee yo, ee yo”, welcoming him closer. Yuancho immediately left me and went up to join the group, jumping and shouting, “Buy chicks! Buy chicks!” . Tears dripped from his face to the ground as he jumped and jumped.
When the children saw me coming out, they all turned around and surrounded me: “Buy chicks! Buy the chickens!” The shouts changed from a tone of command to a tone of petition, shouting even louder than before. It was as if they wanted to store these tones into me, hoping that they would open out from my mouth. The only one who shouted wildly was Genkusa, who pulled the rope of the stretcher directly.
I had no interest in raising chicks; and I thought of all the trouble ahead and felt terrible. But the countryside is so lonely that it would be cruel to force a group of children to live in seclusion in a few rooms that they are used to seeing on a Sunday without any external temptation. Let this “Eeyore, Eeyore” to break the silence of the courtyard, as a kind of embellishment for the long idle spring day. I called the stretcher-bearer and asked him to show us the chicks.
He stopped his burden and uncovered a cage in front of him. The sound of “eeew, eeew” suddenly amplified. But see a fine net underneath, wriggling countless cute chicks, like many live snowballs. Five or six children squatted around the cage, and all together they cried out with love, “Yes! Okay, come on!” For a moment, my heart was lost in the beauty of the animals’ gestures, and I felt the children’s love for the chicks. Many small hands reached into the cage and pointed to a pure white chick, some almost catching it through the net. The stretcher-bearer was busy putting the lid on relentlessly, and the many “eee-yo, eee-yo” snowballs and a group of “good to go, good to go” children became a stone’s throw away. The children looked despairingly at the lid of the cage, clinging to my side, and some reached out to touch my bag. I then spoke to the man who was carrying the load.
“How much do you sell the chickens for?”
“Four for a dollar.”
“How much do you charge for a small one like this? Can you do it cheaper?”
“I don’t think so. 20.5 cents is the least.”
He said, picked up the burden and left. The older children watched him with affection, while the younger ones pulled on my lapel and shouted, “Buy! I want to buy!” The faster the stretcher-bearer walked, the louder they shouted, I shook my hand to stop the children’s shouting, and then asked the stretcher-bearer.
“Do you sell them for 10.5 cents each? I’ll give you sixty cents for four!”
“No bargain!”
He did not stop, but slightly rotated his head to say this sentence, and rushed to the front. The sound of “Eeyore, Eeyore” gradually got farther and farther away.
Yuan Cao’s shout became a cry. The older child looked at the back of the bearer with a frown on his face, and then looked at my face. I covered Yuan Cao’s mouth with my hand, and greeted the bearer from afar.
“Twenty cents a piece, sell it!”
“No counter-offer!”
He said and carried forward, calling out long and loudly, “Sell-chicken-!” And his back disappeared around the corner of the entrance. I was left with a bawling child.
The sister-in-law across the street, who had peeked out from the low door to see the chickens, came out with her needle and thread, leaned on the door, smiled and comforted the crying child, saying.
“Don’t cry! I’ll call you when there’s another load coming!” She smiled again and said to me.
“This chicken seller wants to do good business. When he sees children crying to buy, the more he refuses to give up the price. The one I bought yesterday for 10 cents was half as big as the one I just bought!”
I talked with her for a few minutes, and pulled the crying child back into the door. The other children also followed lazily. I wanted to find some embellishment for the long idle spring day and came out of the door, but I didn’t expect to be bored, so I took a crying child and came back in. The willow trees in the courtyard were swaying in the myrrh of spring, and the swallows in front of the hall were whispering softly on their new nests. We, the tricky stretcher-bearer and the weeping child, were at odds in this peaceful and beautiful spring scene!
Closing the door, I wiped the tears from Yuan Cao’s eyes and said to the children.
“All of you say ‘good to come, good to come’, ‘to buy, to buy’, that person will not give up the price!”
The younger children did not understand my words and continued to choke; the older children listened to my words thoughtfully. I continued to soothe them.
“Let’s wait for a while before we buy. The lady next door will call us. But you guys next time ……”
I don’t say any more. Because the following words are “not to say yes to what you see good, not to say yes to what you want”. If we go further, it becomes “the mouth should say no when you see good, and the mouth should say no when you want”.
Where can a father who teaches his children like this be hidden in the bright and innocent spring scenery?
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