Among the many teachers who taught me to read and study, xu teacher is the most worthy of my respect and memory.

1978 I was eight years old, and everyone in my village who was born in the same year went to school. I am alone, playing with a group of three or four-year-old children or swimming in the fish pond all day. Or a few children go to the village next to the village, go to the small ditch in the paddy field to touch small fish, dig loaches and catch eels. Thinking about playing all day.

I remember that one week after school started, xu teacher came to my house one night to mobilize my dad again, hoping to let me go to school early. Xu teacher told my father that Ashi (my nickname) is eight years old, and it's time to go to school for education. Being older and later may delay his future.

My father covered his head, smoked and said nothing. Under the dim kerosene lamp, his face was expressionless.

My mother sat under a small kerosene lamp in the corner, turning the wheel of a small spinning wheel in her right hand and slowly and rhythmically turning a cotton sliver in her left hand, all of which were said to be pulling and spinning.

There was silence for a while, only my mother's spinning wheel made a babbling sound.

Xu teacher also said that parents should take a long-term view and think more about their children's future. Everything in the world is low, only reading is high. Children can only do some things by reading when they grow up. ...

Father finished smoking a cigarette and began to roll a second cigarette. As he rolled, he sighed: I don't want Ten to stop studying, but I want Ten to continue studying in A Jiu after graduating from junior high school next year. Now three children can't afford to read at once!

At that time, the third brother was in the third grade in Baima High School, and the third sister was in the fifth grade in Lianjing Primary School in the village.

Xu teacher said with a sigh, people of the same age as Ashi in the village have gone to school, and only Ashi is still wandering outside the school.

Mother also issued a long sigh: alas, alas.

Father said to xu teacher helplessly, xu teacher, I know you mean well, but you know about our family, right?

Xu teacher said that if there is really no money, let Ashi go to school first, and if there is no textbook, let him borrow a classmate's book. When we are old, we can delay everything, but we can't afford to study!

Two days later, I came to the primary school in the village with a small table and bench made by my father. There are no textbooks. The exercise book is a book that Third Sister can't finish writing and tear off. Several books were put together and mother sewed them up with a needle and thread.

At that time, we were no strangers to Mr Xu. Lianjing Primary School is built next to the vegetable field behind our village. From the time I was sensible, I saw Mr. Xu living in school and teaching children to read at school. Every day after dinner, just after dark, he went door to door to visit.

According to my father, xu teacher came to Lianjing Primary School to teach when he was a teenager. There is not a student in this village who was born in 1950 who is not his teacher. There are a dozen or twenty families in the village, which one has several children, what are their nicknames, what are their names, whose children this is, what are their names, and what is their ranking at home. These are not difficult for xu teacher. Few people in the village remember Mr. Xu's real name, except that his surname is Xu and he immigrated from the countryside to live in the village. All ages in our village call him Mr Xu.

Xu teacher seldom goes home. After the last Saturday of every month, he will wear a big bamboo hat and rush to his home at the foot of the mountain 20 miles away to reunite with his family. He hurried back to school at dawn on Monday morning.

Xu teacher teaches us Chinese and maths in Grade One.

That year, he was nearly sixty years old, tall and thin, with a thin face, pale temples, deaf ears, hunched back and wearing reading glasses in class.

There is a pond near Laidi behind the school, which is used by all the villagers in our village for drinking, washing vegetables and watering. As soon as the water in the pond is used up, the village will go to Baima Hydropower Station for irrigation and pumping. Water flows from Baima through the irrigation ditch to the paddy field near the pond, and then branches into the pond.

There is a small vegetable field near the pond, which is specially used by xu teacher in the village to grow vegetables.

Every day after school, xu teacher will go to the vegetable field to water vegetables, pick vegetables and come back to cook. After dinner, he took a bath and washed clothes. When it was dark, he began to visit his family.

Visiting home at night and making up lessons on Sunday-for those students who are absent from class or have poor grades-have been compulsory courses in xu teacher for decades.

On holidays, the villagers give their steamed rice noodles or glutinous rice, raw rice noodles or rice cakes or rice cakes to xu teacher, or invite xu teacher to dinner at home in the evening.

If someone kills pigs in the village, he will also ask Mr. Xu to come home for a drink. When there is a wedding in the village, xu teacher will come to help after class.

When I was in the third grade of primary school, xu teacher suffered from liver cancer. His son, Mr. Xiao Xu, came to substitute for us and taught us math in the third and fourth grades.

In the village, sick Mr. Xu walked back to his frightened home at the foot of the mountain 20 miles away.

At noon that day, many people in our village came to the school to see xu teacher off.

The trunk was covered with thick straw, and Mr. Xu, who looked ill, sat on the straw, very tired and haggard.

Before leaving, Mr. Xu told Mr.: "Remember, coming here is land reclamation! Not for enjoyment! "

It is said that Mr. Xu died of illness soon after returning home.

Later, the Lianjing Primary School where I once attended was cancelled. There are only a few broken walls left in that row of tile-roofed classrooms. Looking back, sighing is unbearable!

Those loud reading sounds and naive banter sounds are gone forever.

When I was bored, I remembered xu teacher's words: "Come on, come on, it's reclamation! Not for enjoyment! "