He said: "The Zhou family is generous and we will not embarrass them. The betrothal gift is three taels of silver. We will keep two taels and leave the remaining one tael to Erniu. We will bring her the dowry and that will be enough."
"
There is a saying in the countryside, whether you have money or not, it is better to have a wife to celebrate the New Year.
The more generous families will marry their wives before the winter solstice, so that they can save two months for the new daughter-in-law to come in, and they will be busy after the New Year.
But there are also some unlucky days. Firstly, they didn’t choose a good day. Secondly, people like the two of them said they would get married late. Most of them would rush to get married before the end of the year. Even though it is a small year now, the countryside is not particular about it. As long as
The betrothal gifts are collected quickly, and it is normal for the banquet to be held within three days.
In this way, the family will have an extra laborer at the beginning of spring, and it will be a busy time in spring.
Some people are mean. Even if they say they will get married early, they will deliberately push the time to get married around the time of their childhood. First, they can save the food rations in front of them and get married before the spring rush.
The more mean families will choose to get married in the first month of the new year, so that the new daughter-in-law will be busy as soon as she comes into the house.
To be honest, they said they were getting married late, and since Zhou Lang was already quite old, the Fang family was really worried that the Zhou family would choose to get married after the new year, so that the second girl would have to go to the fields as soon as she entered the house, and would have to adapt to the new life of her parents-in-law and sisters-in-law.
The Zhou family took the initiative to postpone the date to May, which shows that they have their own interests in mind.
The Zhou family is generous, and the Fang family is not unreasonable. The two parties went back and forth through a matchmaker, and the details of the engagement were finalized.
At present, a betrothal gift of three taels of silver is not a small amount, but it is not too much either. Considering the Fang family's family background, only three taels is considered a small amount.
Qian calculated that in addition to the betrothal gift, there were also banquets and other wedding gifts, which amounted to only five taels.
Originally, after Zhou Lang gambled, she expected that the cost of marrying him a good wife would be between seven and nine taels.
There was no way, the quality of the groom was too low, so I had to use the bride price to make up for it.
Fortunately, Zhou Lang didn't deceive the family on this point. He relied on his face and mouth to deceive, oh, no, he found a high-quality bride like Mrs. Fang.
My father-in-law doesn't have the money now, especially after my family moves into a new house.
Not long after Manbao recovered from his illness, the carpenter Lao Zhou hired finally finished all the custom-made furniture and delivered it to him.
A bed was placed in each room. Xiao Qian and the others also used the fabrics they bought to make quilts, stuffed them with cotton, and added some bamboo furniture woven by Zhou Lang.
Have a good day and move into a new house.
Of course it was a banquet, and Lao Zhoutou received a wave of gift money, but the gift money and the cost of the banquet were basically the same, so he had neither a loss nor a surplus.
So the money box that originally only had more than 200 Wen still only had more than 200 Wen.
Therefore, the three taels of betrothal gift given to the Fang family was money borrowed from Zhou Xi. At the same time, Qian also borrowed an extra two taels to prepare for the banquet in May.
Because until the autumn harvest, she estimated that her family would not have a large amount of income.
Although Lao Zhoutou had been clamoring for Zhou Lang to repay this debt by himself, it was actually impossible.
The night before Xiaonian made the decision, Lao Zhoutou also held a family meeting on the matter.
"The fourth brother is useless. He lost fifteen taels of silver last year, but he has returned it all this year. The money he owed you is all with us. He spent all the money he built on the house before." Old Zhoutou said: "This
Part of the account will be settled between me and your mother, and I will pay it back to you when the father-in-law has money."
No one has an opinion.
Lao Zhoutou continued: "Although I said that the fourth child has to pay back the money for his marriage, the money for your marriage is all paid by the father-in-law, and if you don't get it, there will be an exception, so the five taels of silver that He Xi received will also be paid by him."
Your mother and I will return it."
Zhou Xi opened his mouth, but finally said nothing.
Lao Zhoutou looked at Zhou Lang and said: "You are an adult after you marry a wife. You may become a father soon. Work harder and be more successful. If you continue to act like this, I will slap you."
"
Zhou Lang responded in a low voice.
That's how things were settled.
Because there was little money in the money box, this year was a bit slow. In order to save money, Qian cut off a lot of necessary expenses.
Such as meat.
In previous Chinese New Years, except last year when Zhou Lang lost money in gambling, Qian would buy a batch of meat to make bacon.
Not only can you eat it at home, but you can also take it to visit relatives.
This year, like last year, I didn’t buy any meat at home.
However, it is different from last year. Although there are still a lot of delicious food missing this year, everyone is very happy because they have moved into a new house.
Especially Man Bao and all the little ones, they are as happy as if they were celebrating a holiday every day.
She moved into her new house. Lao Zhoutou took her money and although he didn't buy her a big bed, he did buy her a normal-sized bed, which was a simpler version of the home-built bed that Manbao was sleeping on now.
The crib is much better.
Man Bao couldn't help but roll on the bed before looking at the furnishings of the room.
Zhou Erlang works hard every day to make bamboo weaving. In addition to getting bamboo baskets and dustpans sold in the market, there are also things that can be used at home.
For example, a bamboo screen was placed in Man Bao's room to separate the inner room from the study.
Knowing that Manbao likes all kinds of flowers and plants, Zhou Erlang also asked her to paint on the bamboo screen and put it in the room after drying it.
In addition, Lao Zhou bought her a dressing table and two chairs, one in front of the dressing table and one in front of the desk.
Lao Zhoutou also paid a carpenter to build the desk. He held a family meeting long ago and announced that from now on these things would be Man Bao's dowry.
It can be said that Manbao's room is the most expensive and the most fully furnished.
Zhou Dalang and Zhou Erlang also built a three-grid bookshelf for her out of bamboo and placed it next to the desk.
Then they used bamboo to make two cages for her, which could hold clothes and various sundries.
Of course, things made of bamboo are not as good as those made of wood, but for a girl who has not left the palace, especially a six or seven-year-old girl, these things are very precious.
All in all, Man Bao was extremely happy.
So even if she could only eat a few meals of meat during the Chinese New Year, she would still be happy every day.
She was so happy that she forgot to avoid suspicion, and ran up and down with Bai Shanbao every day. Even on the first day of the new year, they went all over the village to pay New Year greetings, and then received a lot of red envelopes.
Of course, most of the red envelopes given by the villagers contained only one penny, but Man Bao was also very happy.
Then when she was happy, she followed Bai Shanbao to Bai's house to pay New Year's greetings.
Of course, Mr. Bai would not give them just a penny. What he gave them was an exquisite purse, and inside the purse was a gold nugget with the title of Jinshi printed on it.
Manbao didn't notice it at the time, but she thought the purse was very beautiful and looked at it carefully.
Master Bai liked Manbao very much and thought she was a very smart child, so he specially brought his second son over and solemnly handed it to the two smart children and said, "You have to play with your brother, don't leave him behind."
Bai Shanbao and Manbao just accepted the gifts. Although they didn't want to play with this stupid classmate, they still patted their chests and told Mr. Bai that they would play friendly with him.