721 721 Third brother is smarter than imagined1
Of course, Xiao Qinghe had eighty taels of private money given by Su Qingyue, and Su Qingyue herself had twenty-eight taels of private money. Neither of them had spoken of this.
The Xiao Family had finished the task Aunt Zhang gave them of weaving fifty bamboo baskets, and had delivered them to her. The money was settled. Even the money they usually earned from selling medicinal mud toothpaste had been entirely put into building the new house.
In short, once the new house was built, without using their private money, there was no chance of affording any furniture for the new house.
With the new house completed, it was customary to host a banquet to commemorate the move. But due to the lack of funds for the furniture, no move took place, thus the banquet was postponed.
"My wife, rest assured, I will work hard to earn money to furnish our new house," promised Xiao Yishan earnestly, looking at Su Qingyue.
Su Qingyue offered a gentle smile without uttering a word.
"My wife, I won't let you live a hard life," Xiao Yuchuan echoed.
Only Xiao Qinghe seemed downcast. This particular task from Aunt Zhang was completed, his second and third brothers had completely recovered, both were strong and capable of earning money, whereas he...
Su Qingyue noticed the desolation in fourth brother's eyes and it tugged at her heart. "I've never thought our life to be tough," she reassured. "With money, we can spend more. Without, we'll spend less. Our house now has ten acres of paddy fields. If we take good care of them, we won't have to worry about food for a lifetime."
"Er Gouzi's family had planted rice in the paddy fields we just bought. We agreed that the fields would be ours after they harvested the rice. There is still a while until the rice is harvested. After that, we'll formally take over," Xiao Yishan said. "Tomorrow, I can go hunting in the mountains."
"Second brother, our new house has such a large yard, I'm considering developing some vegetable plots in the yard. What do you think?" Qingyue asked.
"Sure, you can do whatever you want," Xiao Yishan replied. "How about I stay tomorrow to help you with the vegetable field first?"
"I'll also help my wife in the vegetable field first, and then find short-term jobs in the town," Xiao Yuchuan offered.
"Okay," she didn't refuse. She planned to plant vegetables in both the front and backyard, so long as it didn't interfere with drying medicine or walking. She needed to dig out six vegetable plots on the hard mud, which was too hard for her alone. It would be great if both the second and third brothers could help.
After dinner, it was time for the Xiao Family's three sons to practice writing.
Initially, she only taught them five characters a day. However, the third and fourth brothers were quick learners. So she ended up teaching them a dozen or so characters a day. The two of them managed to remember all, it was the second brother who was less apt.
She could see that the second brother was not very enthusiastic about learning to write, his aim was merely to be literate.
Of course, traditional characters were used in this era which were simple for her to teach.
She taught them exclusively in traditional characters. If she taught them in simplified characters, they wouldn't be recognized in the future and thus would be futile.
She certainly wasn't going to waste her efforts.
In the past two or three months, she had finished teaching the "Thousand Character Classic", and even a few chapters from "The Analects" that she had bought.
The second brother had forgotten most of what she taught, and only practiced a bit before going to bed every night. The third and fourth brothers, however, practiced and reviewed till midnight. Their progress was astonishing, and they could even write decent brush strokes.
As for the characters the second brother wrote, they were still crude. They just looked like characters, without any artistic quality.