Gentlest When the Sack Was on My Shoulder

Gentlest When the Sack Was on My Shoulder Our family grew two crops of grain a year, one season of wheat and one season of corn. When the grain came back from the fields, it was still damp. It was put into sacks, and the sacks had to be carried, one by one, up onto the roof to dry in the sun. Each year there were about thirty sacks of wheat, and the corn could be even more. When it had just been brought back, each sack weighed about a hundred jin (a jin is half a kilogram). To carry one, you first got the sack up onto your shoulder at the main gate, then walked through the house, then climbed the stairs, then reached the roof. Once you were up there, you set the sack down, opened it, poured the grain out, and spread it out to dry. At first, it was my father and my mother who carried. Later, when I had grown a little, at about twelve years old, I began to carry too. After I began carrying, my mother no longer carried sacks into the house herself. She stood beside me and helped me lift the sack up onto my shoulder. With one hand I grabbed the top of the sack and pulled upward, and with the other hand I held a bottom corner, while my mother supported the bottom of the sack and helped lift it until it settled onto my shoulder. Once it was on my shoulder, I walked into the house on my own. My father carried a sack, and I carried a sack. My mother stayed there, and helped me lift the next sack up in the same way. For my age and my build at the time, those sacks were already very heavy. But I went on carrying. My thinking was very simple: if I carried one more sack, my parents could carry one less. I also remember that when I was working for the family, my mother's way of speaking to me was usually a little gentler than at ordinary times. Sometimes she would smile a little. Sometimes she would ask me a question or two about something or other. She did not praise me for being capable, and she did not commend me. But I could feel it: when I was working, the way she spoke to me was different. When the work was finished, things between us went back to the way they usually were. That little bit of gentleness seemed to appear only while I was working. While the sack was still on my shoulder, her voice was gentle. Once the sack was set down and the grain was spread out, everything was the same as before again. My father did not change in that way. Whether I was working or not, in my memory he very seldom spoke to me. Most of the time, he either ignored me, or treated me sternly when he was displeased with something. Two seasons a year, year after year, it was always like this. When the wheat was in, the corn followed. When the corn was in, the wheat came again. More than thirty sacks were not one extra sack that had appeared by chance in a single day. They were work that had to be carried sack by sack, every season. One sack, a hundred jin, up onto the shoulder, through the house, up the stairs, poured out and spread, then back downstairs, and then the next sack. The road was not long, but with the sack pressing on your shoulder, every step was solid and real. So that little bit of gentleness from my mother was not something I heard only once. As long as I was working, as long as the sacks were still going up onto the roof one by one, the way she spoke was different from when I was not working. There was no praise in it, and no commendation. Her voice was only a little softer, her face now and then held a little smile, and now and then she asked a question or two about nothing in particular. For another child, that might not have counted as anything at all. For me, it was already a manner she very seldom gave me at ordinary times. I could feel the difference, and precisely because I could feel it, I remembered it for so many years. There is one more part of the work itself that I remember clearly, because it was repeated so many times. The sack did not go onto the shoulder by itself. At the gate, I would bend and get my hands into position, one hand pulling at the top of the sack, the other holding a corner at the bottom, and my mother would get her hands under the base of it and lift with me until the weight settled across my shoulder. Only then could I straighten up and start through the house. My father, meanwhile, was carrying his own sack on the same route, through the same rooms, up the same stairs. When I came back down, my mother was still at the gate, ready to help the next sack up in the same way. That is how a season's grain went up onto the roof: not in one effort, but in that same small arrangement, repeated until the yard was empty and the roof was covered. The next time there was heavy work, I still went and did it. Not because of that little bit of gentleness, but because in my heart, if I carried one more sack, they could carry one less. Only many years later did I find that what I remembered most clearly was not how heavy the sacks were. It was the way my mother spoke when she helped me lift a sack onto my shoulder. That voice, at ordinary times, I could not hear. — Mufan From Mufan's memoir *At Fifty, I Came to the Wu River* — Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HMFM99H8