Huo Xi watched blankly as her father rowed the boat to the shore, then watched as Yang Fu helped build the gangplank to the shore, and then watched him take people into the boat.
Three people, one woman, a boy, a girl and two children. How big or small is the baggage?
She glanced at her father and said, OK, her mother worked in Qionghua Lane to earn money for the family, while her father worked on the water. Where is the corner of the Fan family? One penny? It seems to be ok. I have enough money for a day.
.
If you earn one penny a day, you will earn three taels a month.
good.
Seeing that Yang Fu had put away the gangplank, her mother took the three people into the cabin and sat down.
Huo Xi thought for a while and got in.
"Ouch, are there such a young child on your boat?"
The woman reached out to tease Huo Nian, who had just woken up. Huo Nian was half asleep. He just woke up and didn't want to talk to anyone. He looked at them and then lay softly back on Yang's shoulder.
"This child looks so good." Not only the woman, but also her two and a half-year-old children stared at Huo Nian.
Seeing Huo Xi and Yang Fu come in, they stared at them again.
"Are you going on a wedding trip?" Yang asked the woman.
"Yes. We are going to my mother's house in Fanjiajiao."
Huo Xi glanced at the three of them and asked with a smile: "Auntie, are you all going to the river to find a boat? It doesn't cost a penny to rent an ox cart, right?"
The woman looked at her and smiled: "The ox-cart is cheap, but the ox-cart is slow and the road is bumpy. If it weren't for the long distance between the two villages, I would have wanted to walk there. My two children don't like to do that either.
The bullock cart is so bumpy that it hurts your buttocks."
Huo Xi glanced at the two children. The eldest sister lowered her head, while the younger brother looked at her and smiled at her.
"Yes, I don't like riding in a bullock cart either. I'd rather walk." Yang agreed.
"Yes, the road is easy to walk, but not easy to walk down and push. Moreover, on the boat, our two children can rest for a while or look at the scenery when they are sleepy, and I can also do some work along the way.
Shoe soles or doing some needlework can pass the time.”
Huo Xi couldn't help but look at her with admiration.
This woman is very smart. With the bullock cart bumping like that, there is no way she can do work to pass the time. If the work she does can be sold for money, won't the extra travel expenses be made up? Maybe there will be some surplus.
The woman and two children sat in the cabin and kept looking at it: "Isn't your ship a passenger ship?"
"No. My family is a fishing boat."
"Fishing boat?" It doesn't look like it, "Then what's written on that sign outside?"
"Huo's Floating Grocery Store."
"Floating grocery store? You sell goods?"
Yang smiled and nodded: "I'm fishing and selling goods at the same time."
"That's better than just fishing. I'm just saying that such a big boat can't just be a fishing boat. Seeing that your boat is new and has such well-built cabins, I thought you were a passenger boat or something like that.
A kind of pleasure boat.”
Fortunately, the fishing boat picked up the three of them.
While looking at it, he asked, "What do you sell?"
"Rice, flour, grains and oils, daily sundries, needles, thread, children's toys, and some ordinary pastries."
The eyes of the two children sitting next to the woman, one on the left and one on the right, lit up.
The woman glanced at the two children and said to Mr. Yang: "If there is anything you can feed the children, let me take a look. If the price is right, I will buy some."
Yang held Nian'er in her arms, and Huo Xi called to the two children: "Then you come with me to have a look."
Anyway, it's on the shelf in the next cabin, so taking them to see it saves them having to move it around.
The two children glanced at their mother, then stood up and followed Huo Xi.
Huo Xi took her two children to the shelves and watched them choose several items. She thought to herself that this woman must have a well-off family. Her family was not rich farmers, but at least middle peasants.
For the sake of my own comfort, I was willing to spend a penny to take a boat ride, and the clothes I wore were not patched. Although I was dressed better than usual when I was visiting relatives, I looked in good spirits.
The two children quickly took more of them into their arms and walked out.
As expected, the woman didn't say anything, so Huo Xi felt that she had guessed correctly.
"Mom, they have a lot of things on the boat! There is also wine."
"Yes, didn't Mom say she wanted to buy wine for grandpa, but she couldn't bring it with her, so she didn't buy it in the end? They have it on the boat. There are several kinds!" the older girl said to the woman.
Sure enough, the woman's eyes lit up: "You still sell wine?"
"They are for sale. They are all good wines from Shuangquan Village."
"Let me take a look!" The woman stood up hurriedly.
Yang asked Yang Fu to follow him.
Soon the woman picked out two jars of good wine, and after listening to Mr. Yang's talk about the beauty of the brown sugar wine trough, she bought a few bags of brown sugar and wine lees.
"Oh, if I had known I could meet you, I wouldn't have to go to the city to buy those cakes. If your cakes were of better quality, I would get some from you too."
It's a pity that they are only average, so it's hard to get them to my parents' house.
Yang then said: "The pastries sold on my boat are sold to fishermen who make a living on the water, and some children in the villages along the river buy sweet ones. They taste good, but it is not appropriate to give them away."
“Mom, it’s delicious!”
The girl handed the cake to the woman's mouth. The woman took a small bite and sipped it. Well, it tasted pretty good.
Seeing this, the little boy also put the cake in his hand towards his mother's mouth: "Mom, you eat."
"If mom doesn't want to eat it, you can eat it yourself."
"You two children are so sensible."
A smile appeared on the woman's face. She glanced at the two children and said, "I took them to wait by the river for a long time, but no boat was willing to take us. The children are all hungry."
Then he said to the two children distressedly: "Eat it. If you don't have enough, I will buy it for you."
The two children nodded, holding the cakes and eating them happily.
After eating, they started playing with the toy they had chosen, the nine-ring ring. The little woman also took out some things from her bag and started to work.
"Are you making velvet flowers?" Ms. Yang was a little surprised to see someone making velvet flowers in front of her.
Huo Xi also turned to look at her.
Velvet flowers are a specialty of Jinling City and are not cheap in the city. Finely crafted velvet flowers are even more expensive.
Jinling is the production site of Yun brocade, one of the three major brocades, and Yun brocade is a tribute. It is also because of the mass production of Yun brocade that there is a lot of silk scraps, so velvet flowers are born.
Many workshops specializing in the production of velvet flowers were born in Jinling City.
Although it is made from silk scraps, it is still silk after all, and the flowers it makes will last forever. And because it is a homophone for "ronghua", women in Jinling City, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, like hairpin flower headdresses.
The velvet flowers became more and more exquisite. Eventually, the scraps were not enough for production, and the workshops directly used good silk to make them.
Seeing Yang's question, the woman nodded, not afraid of leaking her craftsmanship. She twisted and trimmed the ball of velvet with extremely dexterous hands, and soon it turned into a beautiful velvet flower.