Chapter 17 The Name That Makes People Laugh
Ironing fabric is difficult, but ironing a wide, pleated skirt is even more difficult.
Before ironing, Lin Xiushui straightened the pleats, folding each one neatly. This kind of pleated skirt, no matter how wide the skirt is, is covered with pleats, making it narrow and thin, unlike the three-pleated skirt, which, although wide, only has three pleats.
Moreover, she found that she was not comfortable using this iron. The feel of ironing flat and ironing with pleats was different, so she took an old piece of cloth and folded it repeatedly to practice.
When ironing the pleats of the skirt, you need to work from top to bottom and use a thick cloth to separate them, ironing two pleats at a time. Otherwise, the embroidery thread underneath might get smudged. Ironing the reverse side isn't enough; you also need to iron the front side.
Lin Xiushui ironed for half an hour until her hands trembled with exhaustion, then sat down. She saw Xiao Chun'e lying on an empty stove, turning left and right, blowing on it with a bamboo tube. She choked on the ash and coughed violently.
She quickly got up, handed the water cup to Xiao Chun'e, and noticed that her eyelids were covered in ash and her mouth was black. After thinking for a while, she asked, "Do you really want to only burn charcoal in the future? Why don't you learn to iron cloth with me?"
She wasn't just making a casual promise; she was simply thinking that she wouldn't be ironing cloth here forever, and since she was on good terms with Xiao Chun'e, she naturally wanted to give her something in return.
The monthly wage for burning charcoal is six hundred, and for ironing cloth is one string of cash. Moreover, if you can iron cloth, you can earn more by going to other clothing stores or fabric shops.
“But I love starting fires,” Xiao Chun’e put down her bowl, revealing her face covered in soot. Her eyes shone brightly. “I can tell the quality of each basket of charcoal, and I know which ones will burn quickly and which ones need to be left at the bottom to burn slowly.”
"I can use many stoves: sleeve stoves, hand stoves, square braziers for brewing tea, copper stoves, clay stoves. No matter how difficult a stove is to light, if you give me a fire poker, I can make it burn brightly."
Xiao Chun'e coughed a few more times, then laughed and said, "My mother said that for people like us who don't have much ability, it's good enough if we can do one thing well. Even if it's just burning charcoal, if I burn this stove well this year and that pot well next year, I can always make a living."
After she finished speaking, she took a few steps over, her hair bun swaying back and forth. "Last time I said I wanted to go to Lin'an Prefecture to be a kitchen maid, that was just a joke. I really want to go to the oil and candle department of the four departments and six bureaus."
She counted on her fingers, “There are all sorts of things inside, like lighting candles, repairing candles, lighting lamps, and pressing lamps down. The most important thing is to fill the fire and gather charcoal. That’s what I’m aiming for. I want to be a really good fire-starting woman.”
"I thought it was too narrow."
Lin Xiushui felt somewhat ashamed. Sometimes, the most ordinary and trivial tasks seemed insignificant to her, but others did not.
She was so engrossed in listening to Xiao Chun'e that she didn't even notice the charcoal fire in her iron had gone out. She hurriedly took out the charcoal with small pliers and replaced it with new charcoal.
Lin Xiushui couldn't help but think of herself; when she struggled to make a living, tailoring was her means of survival.
Perhaps one day she will feel that tailoring is far more important than making money, then she will have the confidence to say it. But for now, she should focus on making money so that she can live a good life.
On this day, she still ironed that silk dress, finished work on time as usual, and set up her strange little shop sign as usual.
As she was tidying up that gaudy jacket, a group of children were gathered at the corner of the alley. Zhang Tiesheng, with his three braids, was licking candy, his mouth smeared with it. He looked up and asked Xiaohe, "Why haven't you been playing with me these past few days?"
“Yes, Xiaohe, you won’t come even when I ask you to play with the Thousand Cars,” another child with a bun and a red ribbon in his hair said curiously.
Another older girl said, "Yes, yes, if you don't play with them, why don't you play with us either?"
Xiaohe raised her head and put her hands behind her back. She didn't say anything, but paced back and forth in front of the children, deliberately raising her feet high and then putting them down heavily.
The thick soles of the shoes landed on the stone bricks with a clattering sound, finally attracting the attention of the group of children.
"Hey, Xiaohe, you're wearing new shoes and a cat head!" "It's a big yellow cat, just like the black cat that's lying on the wall of my house."
"I haven't seen these shoes, Xiaohe, take them off and let me wear them." Seeing that she had attracted everyone's attention, Xiaohe finally couldn't help but smile. She actually loved to show off, but as long as her mother fed and clothed her, that was enough. She never cared about what looked good.
She was dressed in drab clothes and liked to crawl and roll on the ground, since it was hard to tell that her clothes were dirty. But this time was different; she was dressed neatly, with her hair in a three-bun style and a blue and green embroidered ribbon.
Her old lined jacket was now embroidered with patterns, and she wore a beautiful new collar and a pair of cat-head shoes that no other child in the alley had. She was so proud of herself and no longer wanted to crawl on the ground and play the kowtowing trick.
“Of course you haven’t seen it. My older sister made it for me,” Xiaohe said, her head never lowered. She raised her tail feathers like a rooster. “My older sister can make so many things.”
Xiaohe showed off her new pillowcase, and then she got a small bag and a new hairband. She also got a cloth tiger.
The other children were filled with envy. One of them said, "What's wrong with that? I know where your older sister is. I'll ask my mother to go to her and buy her a pair of shoes just like yours."
"I, I'll go to my mom to buy it too. If she, if she doesn't buy it for me, I, I, I won't buy it."
Xiaohe was so angry she looked like a frog. She puffed up her cheeks, put her hands on her hips, stomped her foot, and ran away.
She was just angry; she wasn't stupid. Everyone had to buy her sister's things to earn money.
But she was still really angry.
Xiaohe ran to Lin Xiushui's side, pouted and said, "We need to ask them for lots of money."
Lin Xiushui was wiping her scissors. She looked down at Xiaohe, not understanding what was going on, when she saw two or three women being dragged over by their children at the alley entrance.
"I want shoes like these, and I want cat heads!"
"I love it, Mom, please buy it for me, I'm begging you."
The children were making a ruckus, and their mothers were at their wits' end. They complained to Lin Xiushui, with Zhang Niangzi saying, "Look at my daughter! She's not like a proper girl at all; she's a real little rascal. She cries and screams all the time at home, and I can't even make her a little sweet porridge."
“Who says otherwise? The oil in the pan was hot, and I was about to put the food in when they grabbed my clothes and started pulling me out. They even knocked over a bucket of water, so I hit them a few times. They’re completely out of control.”
Lin Xiushui listened to their complaints with a smile, saying only to wait a moment. She took out the shoe uppers sewn together from scraps of cloth from the house. They didn't have soles, but the shapes weren't limited to cat heads. There were rabbit heads with long ears, tiger head shoes, and even fox head shoes.
When she was working in the oilclothing workshop, she had thought about selling shoe patterns, but she gave up the idea because the price of paper was very high and the business was not sustainable.
However, she still had some scraps of fabric left. If she used them for patching or padding, she wouldn't earn much money. So she decided to make some simple shoe upper designs to sell first, in order to earn some more money to buy more scraps of fabric.
Unexpectedly, before she even put it on the market, Xiaohe had already brought in customers for her.
“These single-layer shoes only cost ten coins, and the soles are all sewn from silk,” Lin Xiushui interjected amidst the complaints and tantrums. She waved the shoes in front of everyone, and when they turned their attention to her, she added, “Children’s shoes wear out quickly, so you can use your own shoe soles, or I can make them here.”
"It was just something I made casually for fun, nothing particularly exquisite."
Ten coins are a small sum for the families in the alley, especially since these shoes only have uppers and no soles. Even if the style is novel, novelty can't put food on the table.
Two or three immediately changed their expressions, forcibly dragging their children away while cursing those who made money off their kids. A few women, however, bought the items, saying the price was indeed cheap.
Of course, there was more hesitation than anything else. I wanted to buy it but didn't want to buy it. I asked around again and again, but in the end I still bought it.
Lin Xiushui collected money from each person, and only five women paid to buy, which attracted a crowd of people who thought she had made a fortune and done several big deals.
Before leaving, she muttered to the person next to her, "I heard she can earn several hundred coins a day, tsk tsk, you know, why don't I set up a sewing stall here too? I'm sure I can mend better than her."
"Alright, alright, you're shameless. With your skills, if you went out to set up a stall, people would be being kind by not charging you for your mending. Do you really want me to go to the government office to see you?"
The man also shouted, "It's definitely true that you can earn several hundred coins."
"Go ahead and make some money."
After listening, Lin Xiushui was filled with questions about who was talking nonsense and whether they could make up for the few hundred coins she hadn't earned.
She sets up her stall in the morning and takes on three, five, seven, or eight sewing jobs, mostly patching, sewing trouser seams, mending shoe uppers, and cutting garment lengths. She earns a maximum of thirty coins, and only occasionally does she get a few big orders.
That's utter nonsense.
After she finished eating, she told Wang Yuelan about it. Wang Yuelan slammed her bowl on the table and snorted, "Last time you repaired the kite for fifty coins, Chen Guihua talked about it outside. Now, the word has spread that you made five or six hundred coins."
Wang Yuelan became increasingly agitated as she spoke, "Chen Guihua's mouth is like a door with no latch; I really want to take the latch off her house and sew it onto her mouth."
Lin Xiushui wanted to say, really, it's really not that bad.
“You better remember this next time: shout out loud when you’re offering one penny, but hold your breath when you’re offering twenty or thirty,” Wang Yuelan spat. “A bunch of people who can’t stand seeing others make money.”
Wang Yuelan knew perfectly well that someone would come to her tomorrow, pleading poverty and asking for money, even if they were completely unrelated. After all, in this alley, whoever had money was the one who suffered.
The next morning, someone did indeed knock on the door. Wang Yuelan frowned, reached for the fire poker beside her, hid it behind her back, and went to open the door. If it was someone coming to borrow money, she would definitely swing the poker and knock them out.
"Madam Wang, these fish are for you and Madam Lin to eat," Zhang Musheng said, standing at the door with a bead of sweat on his forehead, grinning and holding a string of small fish tied with straw rope. He mainly felt that Lin Xiushui's method was somewhat useful, so he caught some fish and brought them to her house.
Wang Yuelan forced a smile, exchanged a few polite words, then her expression changed. She managed to get a few words out of Zhang Musheng, and feeling relieved, she finally accepted the fish.
When Lin Xiushui came downstairs, she pulled her aside and asked her to look at the fish, "Do you know who sent it?"
"Neighbor," Lin Xiushui said, preparing to fetch water to wash her face. Seeing her aunt's expression, she chuckled, "Aunt, don't overthink it."
Wang Yuelan didn't think much of it, but she was worried about Lin Xiushui's eyes, worried that she would be just as bad as her mother.
She pulled Lin Xiushui aside and said earnestly, "Your mother usually has very sharp eyes. She can spot people from afar. But when it comes to finding a partner, she would run two miles away, but her eyes would still be fixed on the house. In the end, she found someone as dark-skinned as your father. He was covered in charcoal, and all that was left were two holes in his skin."
"Then your mother gave birth to you. I was there to deliver the baby, and I was shocked. You were so ugly. You were so dark-skinned, so small, and so thin. You were nestled in your mother's arms. I thought some rat had left its offspring behind."
“Your mother and I were terrified, afraid you'd turn as dark as your father. That's why your mother named you A-Qiao, hoping that calling you that a lot might bring good luck. I always complained to your mother that she shouldn't have chosen someone so dark-skinned.”
"Auntie, please, stop talking, my eyesight is very good..."
Is it possible for an aunt to expose someone's shortcomings like this? That's too cruel. Lin Xiushui definitely doesn't want to recall her childhood. It was indeed dark back then, and some people nicknamed her "Little Hole Eye."
As for why it's not called "Big Hole," it's because her father called it "Big Hole."
She went to set up a stall feeling "sad" and decided to relieve her sorrow by mending clothes.
It didn't relieve her worries either; the first person to come to the stall was Chen Guihua.
A note from the author:
Thank you everyone, I'm giving out red envelopes in this chapter! [Sprinkling flowers]
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