Text: Wu Mo
Every time I see the melons, fruits, pears and peaches on the streets, I am very happy. Today’s day is indeed countless times better than before. At the same time, I can't help but recall a peach tree that once existed in my home. I feel emotional every time I recall it, and its taste is full of mixed flavors.
When I was a child, my family was poor and I could rarely eat fruit. I only ate watermelon two or three times a year. It was not easy to eat other fruits. Occasionally, I felt so sweet after eating it once. memorable.
I remember it was probably one summer two years before the Cultural Revolution. When I came back from school, my mother gave me a big peach and told me to eat it. She said it was a peach bought by my eldest sister. When I bit into it, there was a deep hole, and the peach juice was smooth. It dripped down from the corner of my mouth. It tasted so delicious. It was surprisingly sweet and had a different kind of fragrance. The water was so big that I was drowning in the pit. I kept sulking my head and devoured it bit by bit. I swallowed it in a few times. Belly, the feeling can be expressed in two words: "so beautiful"! After I finished eating, I asked, Mom, are there any more? Mother said, no more, we will buy it later. In fact, there are two or three left for older brothers and sisters. My mother said, this peach is really good. I have never tasted such a good peach before. Bury the peach core in the yard. Maybe a peach tree will grow and it will be remembered in the future. At that time, my family lived in a residential area, at the end of a row of bungalows. We had a small fenced-in courtyard. My father planted a few trees and flowers in the courtyard. All kinds of flowers and plants are vying for beauty, which is quite a pastoral scene. I used a small shovel to dig a small hole in the open space in front of the kitchen, buried the peach core in it, poured half a scoop of water, and planted a peach tree. From now on, every day after school I would check to see if there were any peach trees growing in that small pit.
Nature is so magical. All things have their own laws of growth. A peach stone also proves its tenacious vitality to pass on the family line from generation to generation. Thank God, that peach pit was really up to the task and lived up to its owner’s sincerity. I can’t remember how many days later a new green shoot sprouted from that small pit. It was less than an inch tall. It looked so delicate and cute, and it was light under the breeze. The slight shaking of the head and tail is really a joy. After that, I watered it every few days, and before I knew it, it grew one or two feet tall by the end of autumn. Just like this, winter passed, spring came, summer ended, and autumn passed. He grew up with me, and slowly grew into a small tree. In spring, it sprouted and turned green. In summer and autumn, it sprouted branches and leaves, and gradually turned into a green umbrella. It was growing well and the situation was gratifying. I just hope that it will bloom and bear fruit as soon as possible, so that I can taste the taste of my own peach as soon as possible. Farmers' proverb says, "Peach, pear, four, apricot and five years." This means that a peach tree will bear fruit in three years, a pear tree in four years, and an apricot tree in five years. My peach tree may have been planted out of season or too late. It didn’t produce many flower buds until the fourth year. It bloomed sparsely in the spring breeze, and the flowers were smaller than others. Although the flowers were not The fragrance also attracts the favor and stop of bees and butterflies. Shortly after the flowers fell, small green-green fur ball-like "peaches" appeared, which were about the size of the nail of a pinky finger. They looked quite poor and ugly. Now I have more work to do. I loosen the soil and water it every few days. I just hope that it will grow into a big peach soon and wait for the joy of harvest. It was cared for so carefully, but it didn't seem to appreciate it. A lot of those green peaches fell to the ground with the wind and rain several times. I counted how many more there were all day long. I kept praying for it in my heart, for fear of another strong wind. The heavy rain killed them in hope and expectation. The sparse peaches on the trees are also called shy and small. When they mature in late summer, the big ones will be the size of today's nectarines, and the small ones are only the size of table tennis balls. They are different from their parents Yunni, as if they are seriously malnourished. Like a bad, weak child, it seems that it can't bear the owner who worked hard to water it, but the taste is still somewhat original. I collected a large and small sieve, and the total number was a hundred and ten. Such a harvest inevitably makes people feel disappointed, and they have doubts and confusions in their hearts. With so much care taken, how come there is such a big gap between effort and harvest, expectations and reality? It's really puzzling.
My parents were born in the city and had never grown crops or fruits, and I couldn’t figure out why it was such an unsatisfactory result. Aunt Cheng, who lives in the row in front of my house, grew up in a rural area. She said that fruit trees are just like people. If they just drink water and don’t eat, they will not be nutritious. Peaches will not grow well if they are only watered. When a person is pregnant with a baby, he or she needs to eat nutritious food, and a peach tree needs to be fertilized just like it is when carrying a baby. The fertilizer should be applied slowly on the ground, and not too much at once, as this will burn the tree to death. As the saying goes, if you know nothing, you will earn hundreds less, and this statement is absolutely true. Fortunately, we still had a few chickens at home, and the chicken manure was enough to provide fertilizer. According to Aunt Cheng’s instructions, we dried the chicken manure and buried it next to the roots of the tree and watered it enough to let it add necessary nutrients to the tree.
Science and technology are productivity, which has been strongly verified in my peach tree. The next year, the spring breeze blew all over the tree, and the peach blossoms were in full bloom. The flowers were crowded together on the branches. From a distance, there were no leaves, only bright flowers. The peaches hanging on the branches after several winds and rains are still in bunches. In the warm weather, the peaches gradually grow up and bend the branches. Some of them hang down on the roof of the kitchen, and the other part presses the branches into each other like bows and arrows. Usually, my father had to use wooden sticks to support it. Watching the peaches grow and change color day by day, the side exposed to the sun has a red face, and the side facing the sun is a very pleasant milky white. The appearance is more and more similar to their parents. It seems that the genes have not changed. It's really beautiful at first glance, and this peach tree finally paid off for a year's hard work.
In those days, children living in that residential area were generally missing their mouths. Although this peach was not yet fully mature, it had already made the greedy people itchy, and they wanted to have this peach in their hearts. During the day, there are many people and it is difficult for them to take action, so they start to act at night. One night when I was fast asleep, my father heard a huffing and puffing sound in the tree in front of the door and shouted, "Who is it? What are you doing?" Suddenly, I heard someone jumping down from the tree, and then a burst of chaotic footsteps speeding away. Early the next morning, unripe peaches and leaves were scattered all over the ground. My father said, "Why are you so anxious?" Can I not give it to you to eat when it’s cooked?
The harvest in the second year was not satisfactory, and the hard work and sweat were not in vain. There are a lot of fresh peaches on the tree. The big peaches are white and rosy, almost exactly the same as the peach that was used to make seeds. Some of them are even bigger than the original one. My father said that these are three taels. It's heavy, and the honey juice overflows when you take a bite, and the sweetness fills your heart instantly. I collected a few sieves this year, and my mother said they weighed dozens of kilograms. Eating home-grown peaches makes my heart sweeter than peaches... My mother picked out some better-looking ones and gave them to the neighbors. Aunt Cheng, who had given me help and advice, said that these peaches are more delicious than those sold on the street...
This joyful harvest came two or three times in a row. This peach tree also grew thicker and bigger, but it was not tall. After school and my homework, I sat on the tree after a while, playing with a slingshot under the thick shade, aiming at the big tree. Cicada... Even though we were poor in those years, we still had unforgettable happy moments in our lives. But this joy was ruined by my ignorant good intentions.
The place where I live is at a high point in the city. In the summer, the water supply is cut off almost every day due to insufficient water pressure. The water supply is cut off from five or six in the morning until one or two in the middle of the night. The water buckets were lined up under the faucet early in the morning. By night, the line of buckets was dozens of meters long. Every household has to carry water. There is only one water tank at home and it cannot store much water, so water is particularly precious. People need water to drink, but flowers, plants and trees cannot do without water. At home, they are usually watered with dishwashing water. Peach trees need more water to nourish their fruits, but they still occupy a secondary position compared to people, and are often not allowed to do so. Don't aggrieve it. At that time, my brothers and sisters were still working in the countryside. There was a lot of miscellaneous grains in the city, so they would carry wheat home after the summer harvest. The wheat was left with dust and other debris when it was beaten, and it had to be washed after taking it home, which required a lot of water. . That time, my mother told me to quench the thirst of the peach tree with the water used to wash the wheat, so I poured it under the roots of the peach tree. The peach tree was indeed extremely thirsty. When two large basins of water were poured down, it quickly seeped down with a rustling sound in the blink of an eye, leaving no puddles on the surface. My mother said that now the peach tree has quenched its thirst. I also think that it will not be thirsty even if it is not watered for ten or eight days. Unexpectedly, within two days, the leaves of the peach tree began to wither and then turn brown, and then the small branches also began to wither. It was quite puzzling and confusing. I don’t know why it suddenly became like this, and there was no way to stop it from accelerating. In less than half a month, all the green leaves of the tree have fallen off, and the branches have become brittle. They break into several sections with a snap and I can't save it even if I try to rush. I just watch it helplessly. It is so heartbreaking to die day by day. Aunt Cheng was away from her hometown during that time. When she came back and saw the dead peach tree and asked why, she said that the water used to wash the wheat was very hot and the peach tree was watered so much when it was thirsty. How could it endure it? The roots are burned to death, and the tree cannot speak. No matter how uncomfortable it is, it will never tell you that your kindness has harmed it... At this time, I feel sad, sighing, and only regret my ignorance.
In this way, a good peach tree, a peach tree in the harvest period, quietly left and disappeared from sight. It was very sad, and it also made me remember. Learned the profound and painful lessons caused by ignorance.
Now that life is getting better, eating peaches has become as simple and easy as a common meal. Every time I eat peaches, I will think of the peach tree I planted, and I will often feel depressed and guilty. To be honest, the peaches produced by that peach tree were out of date compared to the peaches on the market today. Whether it was size, color, or taste, they could not compete with the various fresh peaches today. Even though it is not as beautiful as it is today, it was planted and carefully raised by myself. Just like a child raised by myself, I poured my own hard work and sweat into it, and I poured into it a unique emotion. I still have a feeling in my heart when I think of it. A feeling of deep regret and emptiness. An ignorant act of kindness and extra care harmed it and sent it to hell, while also leaving itself with eternal regret.
Everything in the world has its own laws of survival and growth. This is true for people and so is the tree. Violating objective laws, even if you are well-intentioned and sincerely doing good for it, sometimes the effect may be exactly the opposite of what you want. The understanding, familiarity and mastery of this law lies in learning more, thinking hard and thinking hard. Only with scientific knowledge can we do good things with good intentions. The profound lesson of the peach tree will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.