Ida hesitated at first and didn’t want to sit with Ruby. She sat in a haystack with her legs pressed against her skirt. Ruby smiled at Ida as if to say that I can sit like this because I never obey the rules. You can also sit like this because you have recently released the rules. The door of the hut is wide. Ida got up and sat next to Ruby. They looked lazily with their legs in their mouths like small ones from the warehouse door. The fields on the back slope of the high house were full of eyes, and then the autumn colors were mottled and the cold mountains looked angular in the dry and clean air. It seems that the room is spotless and looks clean and beautiful. A wisp of blue kitchen smoke rises straight from the black chimney in the kitchen and is swept away by a breeze blowing in the ravine.
You said you wanted to know about this land, Ruby said.
be
Ruby got up and knelt behind Ida and put her hands over her eyes.
Listen to Ruby. Her hands are warm and rough. They smell like hay, tobacco, flour, something deeper, a pure animal smell. Ada felt her phalanx pressing her eyelids.
Hear what Ruby asked.
Ida said she heard the wind blowing through the Woods and rustling the dry leaves.
Is a tree a tree? Then you are still far from it. Ruby said contemptuously, as if she had expected Ida to say such a stupid answer.
She took her hand and sat down beside Ada. She stopped talking about this topic. Ada thought Ruby meant that the world is made up of different things. It is the easiest time to distinguish the sound of poplar and oak at this time of year. If she can’t even do this, she has not yet started to understand the world.
Towards evening, although the weather is still warm, the oblique and weak sunshine shows that the year is coming to an end, so there are not many warm days. Ida Ruby specially decided to have dinner in the pear tree outside. They baked the loin of deer from Esco, fried a pot of potatoes and onions, and mixed some autumn lettuce with oil. Then they swept away the fallen leaves on the table. While setting the tables and chairs, Stebrod suddenly appeared from the Woods. He sat down at the table with a sack as if he were carrying a post in his pocket.
I’ll get rid of him if you say one, Ruby said to Ada.
Ida said we had enough dinner.
As soon as Ruby said nothing, Stebrod Ada talked about the war. He said that he hoped that the war would end as soon as possible and he could come from the mountains, but I’m afraid it would take a long time. The suffering is about to fall on everyone’s head. Ada is Nuo Nuo, but when she looks around and bathes in the light blue valley, she feels that the suffering seems to be far away.
After dinner, Stebrod picked up a small piano from the ground and put it across his knee. It is very novel in design. Generally, it should be carved into a snake’s head at the end of the piano, and the snake’s eyes are clearly carved. Stebrod’s pride is beyond words. He is also qualified because although it is far from perfect, this small piano was designed and built by him during his escape for several months. It was stolen by others on his way home. It is no wonder that it looks like a strange antique, which was produced in the ancient times when human beings just played musical instruments.
He turned the piano upside down and showed it to them. Then he told them that after several weeks of trekking in the mountains, he chose suitable spruce, maple and boxwood to cut them and dried them. After that, he worked for several hours to cut all the parts of the piano according to his designed shape. He boiled the side plates until they were soft and shaped, so that after drying, they would not break the flexible curve. He boiled the deer’s hoof with his own hands and used it as glue to drill and install the tuning pin. Then he put all the main parts together and installed a wire to install the sound column business road. Juice dyed the fingerboard black, and then carved it in the back for several hours. The snakehead stole a small pot of paint from a tool shed to paint the piano, and finally strung it for tuning. He even cut a long-haired bow from a ponytail one night and matched it with bow hair.
He loves himself and thinks that he is one step away from getting the desired music. The idea that he is going to kill a snake is not short. He estimates that putting a rattlesnake’s tail ring into the piano case will definitely improve the timbre and give it a unique and mournful sound. He believes that the more rings, the better. Stebrod said that this is a part of his pursuit of music progress. Finding the ring is equivalent to a mysterious penance, and its effect may be as good as that of the ring in the piano case.
For this purpose, he wandered around the cold mountain looking for rattlesnakes. He knew that snakes would come to find caves for the winter when it turned cold in autumn. He found some rather large rattlesnakes, but after killing them, he found that their tails were pitifully short. Finally, in the mountains where black limbs were growing, he met an old wooden rattlesnake lying on a flat stone sunbathing. Such rattlesnakes were generally not surprisingly long, but they were thicker than the thickest part of a person’s arm, and the circular stripes had been squeezed. Connect with each other. It’s almost as dark as a black snake’s tail. The length of a set of rings drives his forefinger, Stebrod, to stretch his forefinger at Ida here, and then the fingernail of the other hand is painted in the second knuckle, saying that it’s so long, and then the fingernail is drying and the skin is repeatedly painted.
Stebrod walked near the stone and said to the snake, Hey, I want those big fists that ring the snake’s head. It raised its head from the stone, cut its yellow eyes with a thin knife, looked at Stebrod, and then half-coiled its body to show that it would rather fight than retreat. The snake wagged its tail for a while and warmed up, then the vibration suddenly increased, making it thrilling and sharp.
Stebrod took a step back, which was a natural reaction, but the temptation of those ringing rings was too great. He cut a thick branch about four feet long with a folding knife and went to find the snake. It didn’t move on the ground, and it seemed that he wanted to have a fight. Stebrod was estimating that the snake could attack, and the snake held its head higher one arm away.
Stebrod teased it to attack. Woo, he shouted and waved branches in front of it.
The snake continued to vibrate its tail.
Wow, Stebrod took a drink and poked it with a branch. The snake coiled up, its body moved, its tail rang smaller and lower, and then it seemed tired of not moving.
Obviously, you have to be serious. Stebrod moved closer, then leaned forward, put the knife in his mouth and bit the right hand. The branch was raised in the half left hand and waved quickly. It was already in the radius of the snake attack. It jumped up, and its body was parallel to the ground, the size of a palm, and its fangs were glaring at the snake and missed the target.
Stebrod stuck the snakehead on the rock with a fork in his hand, then quickly stepped on the snakehead, grabbed the twisted snakehead with one hand and took the knife in his mouth with the other, cut the rattle tail together, and then swooped and jumped like a frightened cat. The snake rolled up and put on its offensive posture again, bleeding blood, and the bald tail root was still trying to vibrate.
If you still want to live, just keep talking. Stebrod said, shaking the ring in his hand, and left. He believed that every note he had played since then was different, and there was a squeal and urgency in it. It was a rattlesnake warning.
After talking to Adaruby, Stebrod sat there and looked at Xiaoqin as if he still thought it was amazing. He held it up to show them that he was not the man who went to the battlefield in some ways. He said that the war had completely changed his music.
Ruby is still a skeptic. She said that before the war, you were not so interested in playing the piano. You would be satisfied if you could play a tune at the dance and have a drink.
People say that I play the piano like a madman now, and Stebrod has defended himself.
Stebrod said that his transformation happened suddenly in January 1962, when he was camping in the army near Richmond for the winter. One day, a man came to the barracks and asked who could play the piano, so he was sent to Stebrod. He said that his 15-year-old daughter made a fire every morning and poured kerosene into the newly added matches, but today the kerosene burned red charcoal. She just put the stove cover back and it exploded in front of her eyes. The stove cover was nailed to her head and face, and her flesh was almost sprayed to the bone. This is beyond doubt, but she was dying.
Stebrod walked along the road with the piano for about an hour and came to his house. His family sat in a circle along the wall of the bedroom. The burned girl leaned against a few pillows. Her hair was burnt to pieces. Her face looked like a skinned raccoon’s head. The pillowcase was wet from her face and was hit by the stove cover. The mouth wound stopped bleeding but it was still scarlet. She looked at Stebrod’s white eyes and her bloody face was shocking. Let me play something, she said.
Stebrod sat in a straight-backed chair in front of the bed and tuned the strings. He kept twisting the strings. The girl couldn’t say anything. You’d better hurry up and play the piano to see me off.
Stebrod played a piece of beans in a pot, and then replaced it with Sally Ann. They were all dance music. Even Stebrod knew that the occasion was really inappropriate. He tried his best to slow down the tempo, but no matter how slow the beat was, it didn’t have solemn and sad effect. When he finished playing, the girl was still alive.
Give me another one, she said
I won’t say goodbye, said Stebrod
That’s too bad. What kind of piano player does the girl say you are?
He said, "make up a few mistakes."
The girl’s face flashed a smile, but the horse’s eyes showed pain, and her mouth fell down again.