In the countryside at night, it gets dark when it gets dark. There is a symmetrical and self-consistent force at night, which seems gentle, but silently covers everything, making you unable to distinguish and escape. Walls and windows, connected into darkness, chicken nests and pigsty, occasionally make some subtle noises, only to know that there are living things sleeping inside. If there are no stars and the moon at night, whether indoors or outdoors, it is like stepping on a dark void and losing your way when walking.
If there is a kerosene lamp with a glass cover at home, it is a symbol of status and wealth. We call this kind of lamp "lantern", which looks like a fat gourd with a waist and a belly, and the lamp looks like a toad's mouth. The small knob next to the lamp mouth can control the size and brightness of the light. Carrying or doing farm work at night is not afraid of wind and rain.
Most people use waste glass bottles to make kerosene lamps. Burning kerosene is a big expense for rural people, so it must be used with caution. Once "the light is not connected", you will encounter the embarrassment of doing things in the dark at night.
The uncle in the village lives alone and is afraid of wasting lamp oil. He doesn't eat dinner every day and goes to bed as soon as it gets dark. He said it would save money and food. To this end, he contributed a two-part allegorical saying to the whole village: Uncle Tu's kerosene lamp doesn't work. He is single, and the whole family is not hungry, but more people, with the faint light of kerosene lamps, light up the night and continue their busy day and trivial life.
Kerosene lamp is a helper for rural women, and the lamp is beside the stove. The woman in charge rolled up her sleeves and quickly cut vegetables and potatoes. Boil the water in the pot, uncover the lid, and suddenly there is a mass of white fog, which is woven into a hot net with the light. With a clash, the dishes on the chopping board have been folded into the pot, and a simple dinner can be served. The old craftsman has a mark on his forehead that has been dragged by years. Under the hanging kerosene lamp, the bamboo knife has steadily split the bamboo pole, and the slender strips reflect the shadow. Thin bamboo, turning up and down between the craftsman's fingers, weaves two baskets overnight. Kerosene lamps are human eyes at night. Even an old woman who can't do heavy work can put a small bench under the dim light, put a pig grass chopping board under her feet, lean forward and chop pig grass.
My kerosene lamp was refitted by my mother with an abandoned ink bottle. She used it as an awl for shoes, and drilled a round hole in the middle of the bottle cap, which became the hole for inserting the wick tube. In the small round tube made of scrap iron skin, carefully put a pinch of cotton thread, and then use fine iron wire to insert the small round tube made of iron into the small hole of the bottle cap to find one end. This is a wick. This crude kerosene lamp can give us the greatest kindness and companionship in the dark.
We poured kerosene into the kerosene lamp, so focused that we couldn't bear to leak a drop of kerosene from the bottle. The thicker the wick, the brighter the light. In order to save fuel, the wick made by my mother is always very thin, faint and has a limited irradiation range. The flame of kerosene lamp is as bright as soybean, but it is enough to drive away the darkness in the house and bring us a bright and warm night.
Mom can't finish sewing under the kerosene lamp My seven brothers and sisters, like seedlings after the rain, are all rushing up. They are really busy for my mother. At night all the year round, she seldom gets a stretch of sleep. She always has to make shoes for this one, sew clothes for that one or mend pants under kerosene lamps.
The faint light of kerosene lamp swayed the figure of mother cutting clothes. She cleaned the dining table, put the sheets on it, put the kerosene lamp on the corner of the table, thought about it, cut the cloth, and then flew the needle. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, the dim kerosene lamp shines obliquely on the wall. A pair of cloth shoes, cotton-padded clothes and bedding at home have been rubbed into thousands of stitches by their mothers.
"Shallow planting and deep ploughing, harvesting particles in autumn and winter." Autumn and winter are the season of harvest and hard work. Corn cobs and cotton picked during the day need to be "reprocessed". Corn should be peeled with the palm of your hand so that it can be completely dried and preserved the next day; Cotton is to remove the residue stuck on it with your fingers, otherwise it will affect the acceptance level if it is handed over to the public. These two things don't seem complicated, but the same action has been done thousands of times, leaving only boring and unbearable muscle pain. Before the kerosene lamp, our family sat together, each holding corn or cotton, mechanically repeating the same action. We are young, sleepy, our hands are weak, our heads are pecking at rice, and our mother's gentle cough means reminding us. We immediately sat up and continued our work.
In a blink of an eye, I went to primary school and had to do my homework at night. Kerosene lamps are even more indispensable. The brightness of the light is limited, so I try to sit under the light, too close to the kerosene lamp, as if I smelled the flame, and my nostrils were blackened by lampblack. In the dim light, the handwriting on the book is black, and the more I look at it, the more I want to get close to the light of the kerosene lamp. At this time, a slight evening breeze, or a slight bow when in trouble, a lock of hair immediately burns, emitting a pungent burning smell. I patted my forehead hastily and felt the "new hairstyle" with tar at the beginning. It's hard to be shocked.
At the age of eleven, I had no choice but to leave the middle school campus because of a sudden serious illness. Cure the stubborn disease, the family burden is heavier, and you can't go back to school. Worried about the recurrence of leg disease, I also know that my physical strength is not as good as others. Even if I risk my life, no matter how hard I try to help this land, I may make ends meet. Life is like falling into a deep night, and the future is boundless. I don't know which direction to go.
Finally, I chose books. The kerosene lamp casts a faint light, breaking the shackles of darkness. Perhaps only by studying under the lamp can you become a farmer in the new era. No matter whether the outside world is noisy or quiet, I am calm and focused on books.
Keeping a low profile is a tradition of China literati since ancient times. Low-light lighting is a spiritual lonely journey, but also a cultural search and self-sufficiency. Lu You read books at night when he was young. "Self-modesty is still a person, and you can learn when you come back from playing pheasants." He studied all his life, and even though his eyes were dim, he still worked hard under the lamp: "Although the eyesight in front of the lamp is not what it used to be, there are still 20 thousand words in the classroom." Yuan Mei, a gifted scholar in the Qing Dynasty, even forgot to eat and sleep the night before the lamp: "Reading and forgetting to sleep on a cold night, incense is smokeless." Reading under a kerosene lamp and reading the elegance of the ancients gave birth to a feeling of "sadness" and made me feel very happy.
The flame of kerosene lamp is not very stable and naughty, and its activity urges me to meditate more and study more. Kerosene lamps are burning nonstop, and the flames are like beans, but they do their best to contribute to the light. Adapted to the shortcoming that kerosene lamps are easy to go out in the wind, being with them is like being in perfect harmony, reading under the lamp, without impetuous thoughts.
The night was deep and quiet, and the kerosene lamp sent me a dim beam. I studied hard night after night and finally sent me abroad and to the university. Kerosene lamp is my companion, my comfort, my peace of mind and motivation to move forward fearlessly in the dark.
Now children in their hometown study and study, and they don't have to suffer from kerosene lamps or the flickering lights. The times have changed the old appearance, and the years of kerosene lamp lighting have become history, a term in textbooks, a chapter in people's nostalgia for rural years, and a sealed memory, just like other things that have gradually disappeared. But for me, the kerosene lamp in my memory has long been closely related to the distant years in my life. No matter how long I leave, there is still a warm light that illuminates my way forward.