Chapter 72
The words of giving priority to supporting Ping'anzhuang's agricultural production successfully comforted Xia Juhua. She energetically followed the people called by Technician Xue, loaded the wooden racks and iron barrels onto the tractor, sat in the co-pilot's seat, and drove out of the gate of the agricultural machinery station.
"Technician Xue, can your stationmaster agree to this?" Xia Juhua still wanted to settle the matter with Technician Xue, otherwise she would not be willing to accept it.
The wind was strong and the tractor itself was noisy. Technician Xue didn't hear Xia Juhua's question clearly and thought she was worried that the sweet potatoes she made would be wasted. He nodded desperately, feeling unsure, "I think it's OK. There shouldn't be any problems. Even if there are problems, there shouldn't be many changes."
Xia Juhua only heard the words "no problem" and was already beaming with joy. She didn't even hear Technician Xue's subsequent words about whether to make changes or not. She was very satisfied with the conversation and smiled until a cyclist appeared in front of the tractor, forcing Technician Xue to brake the tractor.
"Mr. Xia, what are you doing?" Technician Xue stopped the tractor and yelled at the person who came.
The one who stopped Technician Xue's tractor was Captain Xia, who was riding a bicycle with several members of the Red Team. Hearing Technician Xue's accusation, Captain Xia did not look angry at all. Instead, he twitched his lips, squinted his eyes, and looked at Xia Juhua sitting on the tractor and asked:
"Captain Xia, since you have come to the commune, why don't you take those people from your production team away? Do you want us, the Red Team, to support them for the rest of their lives?"
Xia Juhua was so busy that she almost lost her mind. If Director Lin hadn't suggested that she go to the commune to find someone from the agricultural machinery station, she would have forgotten about Sun and Liu Sizhuang's family of three. Even if she came to the commune, she never thought of taking Sun and her family back to Ping'an Village.
What a joke! Now every household in Ping'an Village has its vegetable cellar filled with sweet potatoes. Anyone with eyes can tell what's going on. Bringing the Sun family members back to Ping'an Village is because they are afraid that the production team's secrets will be known to others?
But when facing Captain Xia, Xia Juhua had to reason with him (funny or not, when facing unreasonable people, we often have no choice but to reason with them): "Captain Xia, we have also been waiting for the Red Team's notice. In the past, people who entered the study class were not notified to the brigade or production team to lead them after the Red Team's education and transformation, and their thoughts were touched. How dare I go to the study class to pick them up without receiving a notice?"
Captain Xia was choked and said with a bad look on his face, "Isn't your mother-in-law there? As a daughter-in-law, you don't even want to take your mother-in-law home for the New Year?"
Young man, the New Year has passed early, okay? Xia Juhua smiled at the gloomy Captain Xia: "Captain Xia, I remember telling you a long time ago that I separated from the Liu family after my husband died. After Sun reported me last time, I drew a clear line with the bad elements who slandered the revolutionary members in front of you. It was her other two sons who wanted to take her home for the New Year, right?"
"You are the production team leader, and you are the only one who can pick them up."
"But our production team has to listen to the notification from the brigade before we dare to come to the commune to pick people up." Xia Juhua sincerely hoped that Sun and others would stay in the study class honestly and not return to Ping'an Village to cause trouble and harm others.
Captain Xia got the hint: "Captain Xia, why do I hear that you are unwilling to let your mother-in-law and her family return to Ping An Village?"
Having dealt with them so many times, Xia Juhua didn't mind letting Captain Xia know some of her thoughts: "Captain Xia, their family has framed me several times in a row. I don't need to count them, right? I am really afraid of them. I hope the Red Team can educate them more deeply, so that after returning to the production team, they will not report me to the Red Team for some trivial matter again."
With such straightforward words, Captain Xia really has no way to deal with Xia Juhua. After all, he was the one who took people to Ping'an Manor to investigate when Xia Juhua was framed twice. Next time, if a few people from the Sun family make trouble again, will he take people to investigate or not?
To be honest, the Red Team is also very annoyed with the Sun family members. Every day in the study class, they either beat their children or scold their wives, or they fight with the three people from the old Sun family, but they can't come up with anything new. Everyone in the Red Team is hearing noises.
Today, it was rare to see Xia Juhua in the commune, so Captain Xia stopped the tractor and wanted Xia Juhua to pick up the Sun family members. As for the remaining Sun family members, without the Liu family members to quarrel with them, the Red Team was much quieter.
Technician Xue had already lost his patience and yelled at Captain Xia, "Come on, come on, you just love to arrest people and put them in training camps. You can show off your power by locking them up there, but why do you want to take them back? When they can start farming, you can just let them go back and accept labor supervision."
Even though Xia Juhua didn't know that Technician Xue was actually exiled to the Red Star Commune, she still worried for him: the Red Squad before them was where Tian was the boss and they were the second in command. Technician Xue spoke so aggressively, what would he do if he was directly taken away by the Red Squad and sent to a study class?
Even if she couldn't borrow the tractor to plow the land, Technician Xue was stopped by the Red Team today because of her. If he was really caught by the Red Team and sent to a study class, Xia Juhua would feel guilty to death.
Captain Xia didn't seem to notice that Technician Xue's tone was too aggressive, and asked, "What were you doing with her?"
Technician Xue looked impatient: "When did the Red Team take charge of agricultural production?"
It was not until the tractor drove onto the dirt road to Ping'an Village that Xia Juhua asked Technician Xue with a lingering fear: "Technician Xue, why are the Red Team so polite to you?"
Technician Xue said as a matter of course: "You won't eat or drink when you are a member of the Red Team. They are all in the production teams. When a production team wants to ask the Agricultural Machinery Station to help them turn the soil or repair machinery, the first people they look for are the people in their own production team who are in the Red Team. They think that they are easy to talk to because they are in the same commune as the Agricultural Machinery Station. These people are usually not polite to us. We tell them that we can't fix something when we can, and the car is broken when it can be used. Do they know whether it is true or not?"
It turns out that none of them are completely soft persimmons. Xia Juhua is half relieved: "It's good that they won't cause you trouble."
Technician Xue nodded and said, "You don't know, our stationmaster's family and that Xia are from the same production team. So he has to call our stationmaster "Grandpa". He doesn't dare to do anything to the people in our agricultural machinery station." Then he asked suspiciously:
"I think he seems to be picking on you. When did you offend him?"
The bitter smile that had not appeared on Xia Juhua's face for a long time returned to her face. She told Technician Xue in detail about the several clashes between herself and the Red Team, and even said that she did not want the Sun family members to return to Ping'an Village.
Technician Xue nodded thoughtfully and said nothing else. Xia Juhua felt that the Red Team had given her a reminder today. She could ask Liu Zhishuang to find Qi Weidong and ask him to ask the Red Team to lock up the Sun family members until the spring ploughing season and then release them back to Ping'an Village.
By that time, the sweet potatoes in each household would have long been turned into vermicelli, and the extra ones could be directly exchanged for money. Even if Sun and his friends had sharp eyes, could they still tell that each household had hidden extra money?
Therefore, as soon as the tractor stopped at the door of Liu's house, Xia Juhua had to stop the naughty children from touching the tractor, and asked Chen Qiu Sheng to go and call someone to take down the wooden frame.
While Technician Xue was installing the drum, Xia Juhua quietly told Liu Zhishuang about her plan. Liu Zhishuang went to borrow a bicycle from Liu Erzhuang. As they walked, he said to Xia Juhua, "Mom, why don't we buy a bicycle? It will be convenient for you to ride to the commune or the county."
I still want to take a plane. Xia Juhua gave him a slap, and Liu Zhishuang rode away with a grin.
Chen Qiusheng happened to come over and asked, "Captain, what is this thing used for?"
Xia Juhua told him that she had wanted to ask the Agricultural Machinery Station if there was such a thing, but she didn't expect that Technician Xue had already made a machine for making sweet potato pulp. Unfortunately, she hadn't tested it and didn't know if it worked, so she brought it to Ping'an Village to test it out.
Chen Qiusheng smacked his lips repeatedly when he heard this: "This is such a coincidence."
It was just a coincidence. It happened that Technician Xue was thoughtful and Ping'an Village had a large amount of sweet potatoes for Technician Xue to test.
"Caifeng." Xia Juhua called to Wang Caifeng who was watching the excitement: "Go chop the chicken that Qi Weidong brought. No matter what, you have to keep Technician Xue for dinner before leaving today."
Chen Qiu Sheng said quickly: "Even if there is food left, it is the responsibility of the production team. We can't just let your family provide the food." Chickens are such precious things that women in confinement may not even be able to eat one.
Xia Juhua stewed only half of the two chickens Qi Weidong brought during the Chinese New Year, hoping to keep them frozen for a while while the weather was cold, so that she could nourish the pregnant woman Wang Caifeng. Now, in order to use the tractor during the spring ploughing in Ping'an Village, she had to give it up, so she ignored Chen Qiusheng's words and told Wang Caifeng to do as she said.
Wang Caifeng was now extremely obedient, almost to the point that she would never go west if Xia Juhua told her to go east. Unfortunately, Xia Juhua had been so busy these days that she had no time to give Wang Caifeng any orders.
So when Wang Caifeng heard that her mother-in-law finally had a use for her, she was very happy to respond and even offered a suggestion: "Mom, Zhiquan brought back some mushrooms from my mother's house. Can we stew chicken with mushrooms?"
"Okay, you do it. I'll go see if the thing is installed and whether it can be used." Xia Juhua was still worried about wasting the sweet potatoes, so she went to see Technician Xue's "high-tech" with concern.
The sweet potatoes were washed and cleaned according to the original method and put into the iron bucket one by one. When it was half filled, Technician Xue called a halt. Xia Juhua calculated that this half bucket could hold about 130 kilograms.
薛技術員不放心的再看一次鐵桶與木架子固定的是不是牢靠，才向劉志全點了點頭。劉志全拉起履帶，鐵桶裏咯楞咯楞響了起來。
“行了嗎，咋還不出漿呀？”劉大喜蹲在出漿槽前，恨不得把腦袋塞進去看看進展。劉志全一心只拉着履帶，一拉一放之間，咯楞聲慢慢變小，夏菊花知道這是快出漿了。
很快，潔白的漿水真的順着出漿槽流了出來，開始只是細細的一小绺，慢慢的蓋住了半個槽口。
“出了，出了，真出漿了。”劉大喜興奮的挪了一下接漿的大盆，生怕漏出一星半點兒。薛技術員也很興奮，一直催着劉志雙快點兒拉履帶。
沒一會大盆就要接滿了，夏菊花手疾眼快的幫着劉大喜換上另一個盆子。
“嫂子，這玩意可比咱們自己絞快多了。”劉大喜過了最初的興奮勁，對“高科技”滿意的不得了，擡頭看薛技術員的眼神都放着光：“薛技術員，你可太厲害了，這東西你都能想得出來。”
薛技術員被他誇的不好意思——自己只是按着絞肉機的原理做了一個放大版，還真不算是創新。不過做出來的東西得到認可，他也很高興，得意的看了夏菊花一眼。
如果單靠人工絞紅薯漿的話，每次也就絞個四五十斤，現在一次絞一百三十斤，看劉志雙的狀态也沒人工絞那麽累，夏菊花覺得薛技術員的确可以得意一下。
“薛技術員，幸虧我今天去農機站遇到的是你，這東西可要幫我們生産隊立功了。”
聽着夏菊花的誇獎，薛技術員覺得比劉大喜的崇拜受用多了，不過還沒到沖昏頭腦的地步：“究竟好不好用，得看一次最多能裝多少紅薯，還有刀頭能用多長時間。”
看，搞技術的人多嚴謹，夏菊花就沒想過刀頭會磨損的麻煩，有些擔心的問：“那得多長時間換一次刀頭？”要是換的太頻繁的話，就不劃算了。
薛技術員有些無奈的說：“這都得試過之後才知道。夏隊長，你們生産隊有這麽多紅薯嗎？”
找到願意讓自己試驗的生産隊不容易，薛技術員希望一次把所有需要試驗的項目都做完。夏菊花沒說話，只是向他點了點頭，薛技術員哪怕覺得她沒完全理解自己的意思，仍然報着一線希望：
夏菊花是生産隊長，她說能幫着自己試驗完，是想把全生産隊的紅薯都集中起來吧。
等頭一桶紅薯全部磨成漿後，拆洗濾網遇到了一點兒麻煩，好在薛技術員多做了兩個濾網，這次也一并帶來了，直接換上一個新的，再清洗用過的濾網就行了。
不過夏菊花還是發現了一個問題，那就是用鐵桶磨出來的紅薯漿是細，可是留下的渣滓相應變多，算下來需要五斤半紅薯才能出一斤紅薯澱粉。
“娘，這不算事兒。”劉志全自己不到一個小時的時間，就絞出一百三十斤紅薯，整個人都膨脹了：“剩下的渣滓我跟老二再過一遍包，還能出點兒澱粉。”
農民，哪兒舍得浪費一點兒糧食，就算返二遍工，劉志全也覺得很值得——往常他和劉志雙兩個累死累活一天，差不多能絞二百斤紅薯，現在一個小時多點就能完成，再用一個小時還不能把渣滓重新過一遍？
過渣滓可比先砸後擠再絞又過包省事兒多了。
薛技術員在一旁自己念念有詞的說着什麽提高離心力等等夏菊花聽不懂的話，只知道他在想怎麽改進也就夠了。人家進了平安莊就開始試驗，冷風地裏站了一個多小時，夏菊花很不落忍的想讓薛技術員進屋裏歇會兒。
偏偏薛技術員是個犟的：“夏隊長，這才剛開始試驗呢，你看能不能再搞點兒紅薯，咱們試試一次多裝點兒，能不能磨出來？你別擔心出渣多，這剩下的渣你們可以喂豬了能漚肥，不浪費。”
不種地不知道糧食金貴吧你？夏菊花讓劉志雙先用笸籮把渣滓盛好，再去菜窖重新搬紅薯過來。薛技術員發現劉家竟然還有紅薯，吃驚了：“夏隊長，你們村種的紅薯可真不少。”
夏菊花看了他一眼，經過大風大浪的薛技術員再一根筋，還有什麽不明白的？一直到離開平安莊，再沒問過一句關于紅薯多少的話。
跟這樣看似倔強實則通透的人打交道，夏菊花是願意的，口頭上不能表達什麽，那就在飯菜上下工夫。本想讓王彩鳳炖雞，改為夏菊花自己掌勺，桌子上除了小雞炖蘑菇外，還有一個小炒肉、一盤炒雞蛋，一個炝拌土豆絲。
很久以來一直吃食堂的薛技術員，毫不客氣的吃了三塊餅子，才打着飽嗝說：“夏隊長，我今天能住到你們家嗎？”
已經從縣城回來的劉志雙，正好見識了“高科技”一桶絞二百斤紅薯的盛況，對造出絞漿機的薛技術員崇拜的不得了。不想一頓飯就把薛技術員收買了，劉志雙覺得自己要幻滅了。
夏菊花倒是樂見其成：“行呀，正好咱們晚上商量一下刀頭的事兒。”
被叫來陪客的五爺和陳秋生，都有些同情的看向薛技術員，他們早已經發現，夏菊花對自己生産隊的人很寬容，可對外人是能壓榨就壓榨，一定會為平安莊争取到最大利益。
因為得利的包括自己，所以兩人默契的幫着夏菊花向薛技術員抛出一個接一個問題，甚至問到了有沒有什麽辦法，能用麥麸做出口感好的食品來。
許是被平安莊人層出不窮的問題轟炸蒙了，薛技術員竟然答應寫信問一問家裏人，有沒有什麽辦法解決麥麸口感的問題——在搞研究的人看來，麥麸是粗纖維，也是可以果腹的，不過是口感差點兒不好消化而已。
多少對薛技術員有些了解的夏菊花，聽說他要給家裏人寫信，覺得有可能真的解決麥麸的問題，高高興興的讓劉志雙把他屋裏沒蓋過的新被子，快點給薛技術員鋪上，把炕再燒熱點兒。
睡着之前，薛技術員只來得及向劉志雙感嘆一句：“你娘可真不簡單。”
劉志雙很贊同薛技術員的觀點。他親娘要是簡單，能把自己兄弟兩個拉扯大，敢接任生産隊長還帶着生産隊越過越紅火？
最不簡單的是親娘該狠下心來的時候，真的不手軟，不想讓他奶回平安莊，直接就能把人留在紅小隊的學習班。想到這裏劉志雙打了個哆嗦：幸虧自己當年娶孫紅梅和鬧着離婚的時候，親娘沒有這麽對待自己，要不自己也只能窩在學習班裏，叫天天不應叫地地不靈吧。
自此劉志雙完全興不起絲毫隐瞞親娘的心思，服從命令聽指揮執行的那叫一個好。此是後話，不提。
夏菊花關注的重點還在薛技術員身上，因為今天絞到第三桶的時候，刀頭開始變鈍，出漿不再順暢，看的人幹着急幫不上忙。
“薛技術員，這樣的刀頭你還有嗎？”既然濾網都做了三個，刀頭難道不應該多準備幾套？
薛技術員很不好意思呀，他撓着頭的樣子竟跟劉志雙有點兒象：“因為沒試驗過，所以我只準備了一套刀頭。不過你放心，給我一天的時間，我可以再做出兩套來。”
說完也不管夏菊花同不同意，這人竟突突突發動拖拉機，跑了。
一直跟着試驗的陳秋生幾個滿臉不敢相信的捂住鼻子，免得把拖拉機揚起的塵土吸進肺裏，好一會兒才有人問：“隊長，薛技術員還會回來嗎，咱們還用這玩意絞紅薯嗎？”
絞，為啥不絞。哪怕刀頭已經鈍了，可勉強把紅薯絞爛還是能做到的，絞爛的紅薯泥用人工擠壓後過濾，也比單純用人工要省事些。
得到夏菊花的答案，大家馬上搶着想用絞漿機，先絞自己家的紅薯，最後陳秋生不得不出面給大家排好順序，排到後面的人才一臉遺憾的回家，繼續人工絞紅薯大業。
“隊長，現在咱們可以給婦女們分錢了吧？”忙活出一頭汗的陳秋生，需要關心的問題太多，連喘口氣都是奢侈。
夏菊花被他問愣了：“昨天不是讓你跟仙枝兩個一起給大家分嗎，咋還沒分呢？”
“那倆兒娘們說信不過我，沒你看着說啥也不同意分錢。”陳秋生也很無奈呀，他是那麽不值得信任的人嗎，真不信他，幹嘛把全生産隊的錢都放在他這兒。
“得得得，”夏菊花一聽就知道是趙仙枝能說出來的話：“叫人，分錢。對了，她們別是還沒開始編四季平安席吧？”
這個陳秋生還真知道：“編了，昨天你去公社她們就開始編了。不光在場院裏編，還讓姑娘們在家裏也編。聽我媳婦說，姑娘們的定量還是二百張，她們在場院裏的人得編八百張。”
“隊長，這麽多席，你們真能十天內編出來？”
Xia Juhua was a little surprised to hear that the women had allocated the quotas themselves: "Have they divided it all by themselves? Two hundred sheets is a little short for the girls. After all, the women will help the girls to make them after they go home."
"No, no, Captain. My wife said that the quota is the quota. All the women who weave mats, whether they weave at home or in the yard, will be counted in the production team's quota this time."