Original Prose: Those who are high in mountains are all upright in stone.

Every mountain is high, and stones are upright.

Baiguotang Mountain is high, just like a whole stone. It is also a stone when entering the mountain, a stone when exiting the mountain, and a stone at the foot. All the stones can be seen from the perspective. Of course, trees grow and grass grows, which is only born in the folds of stones. The field is dark and thin, sandwiched between stones, and when the hoe is dug down, sparks fly. That shallow layer of soil, I think, was left by the wind and the rain.

Baiguotang has been working for a year, that is, around this soil, fiddling with this soil, ploughing, harrowing, digging and turning, planting seeds in spring and collecting more seeds in autumn. So there are corn, potato, soybean and vegetables, which are the crystallization of black soil and farming. Enter text enter text

Baiguotang people who live on the rocky mountain are destined to be the people who accompany the stone, dig food from the crevices of the stone and are harder than the stone. Their life is a stone story.

Baiguo drips good stones, which are stacked layer by layer. They are vivid like a bundle of thick paper books, otherwise they wouldn't be used to build houses. Stone is green, black, delicate and angular, pure stone is not mixed, quarrying produces less waste, and it is arranged at the mercy of people. When lifting stones, you can lift them layer by layer according to the needs of thickness and length. Making bricks is the thickness of bricks, and making tiles is the weight of tiles. The masonry wall is stone to the top, the waste is stone, the roof tip is stone, the threshold is stone, the doorpost is stone, the lintel of doors and windows is stone, and even the tiles on the roof are stone.

it's a stone slab house.

Stone slab houses do not need any mud to lap joints, and there is no cement and lime adhesion. Bricks and stones on the wall are irregular except for one smooth surface. Baiguo Tangren is a two-story house built by using flaky with different length and equality, which are connected with each other and stressed as a whole. Of course, the smooth side must face the face and the lining. From the face, the stone wall made is a painting, an impressionist stone engraving with seemingly irregular geometry. The lining wall is denser, tighter and smoother than the face wall. I think, isn't a wall that doesn't need mud to tick off seams a wall? But this kind of worry is unnecessary. Looking out from the room along the cracks in the wall, it is really not white, but the wind is still permeable. Pay attention to the doorsill stone, and the width, thickness and height of the stone determine the style; The orientation angle of the door determines feng shui; The words "Dragon and Phoenix are auspicious" and "Fu Lu Shou Xi" on the doorframe determine the customs. Stone drums are indispensable, and the intaglio or masculine auspicious stone patterns on the drum surface also indicate beauty and hope.

it's a unique skill to use slate as a cover tile. Li Laohan claimed to be a descendant of Li Chun (Zhao Zhouqiao is said to be Li Chunxiu). When I met him, he was about to change the slate tiles.

I was curious about the slate tile, and explained my purpose. He said, I don't tell him about ordinary people. Li Laohan's slate house has been a hundred years old, and some slate tiles are damaged, so some new slate is needed. He is 7 years old and still conservative. Lifting stone is a technical activity, and the key is to grasp the thickness of stone, the smoothness of stone surface and the size of slate. Steel drill, eight-pound hammer, strength and skill can make a satisfactory slate. See Li Laohan and his assistant, nail a steel bar in the stone, along a straight line, and then nail another steel bar at a certain distance. The depth of penetration is the thickness of the slate. When the steel bar keeps nailing, the tension of the pry will creak, otherwise the slate will break and one slate will break free. The thickness of the slate is even, with a finger thickness. The stone surface is smooth and level. The sizes are different, ranging from a small square table top to a large bucket and a small liter.

Li Laohan is an old stonemason. He used to have a good business, building houses, picking up tiles, grinding, carving pictures and lettering, and he was skilled in everything, but now he is almost unemployed. Some stone houses have long been torn down and replaced by brick houses, and some slate tiles have long been replaced by machine tiles, grinders and mills have also been replaced by machines. But as a stonemason, Li Laohan is determined not to build a new house or replace it with a new tile. He said that the only stone house left by ancestors was this stone house, which was strong and not afraid of earthquakes. It was warm in winter and cool in summer. He picked up the tile, as he was when he was young, a big fork basket, and the slate he carried was high and heavy. He rolled it step by step along the ladder and climbed up the roof. Looking from the bottom up, in the sun, his shoulders and arms are glowing with black and red, his slate is glowing with green light, his body is as straight as a slate, and the slate is as high as the blue sky.

of course, covering slate tiles is also a technical job. It's a tile, but it's actually a stone piece. It has no groove and no arc. I asked why it doesn't leak. Li Laohan said that the cover tile was not clever, but it was built by lapping. He is devout, how to match the size, how to connect up and down, how to integrate yin and yang, how to behave, how to behave, and how to use taboo words. He is fully mastered and used freely. It seems that you can't learn without joining the teacher.

Walking into Li Laohan's stone house can't be said as entering the Stone Age, but it is true that there are many stone tools and their ingenuity is rare. The table is stone, the stove is stone, the stew pot is stone, the water tank is stone, the fire ridge is stone, the pig trough and dog basin are stone, and there are stone mills and nests. Of course, some stones are useless. A slate is used as a blackboard for writing and hung on the wall; A piece of stone was scattered on the edge of threshing ground, which made me feel sad.

I was walking on the earliest tractor road in Baiguotang, and it seemed that there was a "jingling" sound of road construction in my ear. The sound was cloudy for a while and pleasant for a while. It was the sound made by Baiguotang people chiseling stones with a steel chisel. The road is a stone road, and one side of the road is made of the cornerstone of the mountain, which is washed flat with a steel chisel; The other side of the road is paved with stones, and big stones are inlaid with small stones. The road goes uphill, downhill, left and right. There is no machinery when repairing the stone road, and it is all made by steel drill, eight pound hammer, shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-back. Fortunately, there are many masons in Baiguo. Walking on the stone road, I feel awe. That roadblock and footstone has become a stepping stone in the hard work of a generation of cypresses.

The roadside is terraced fields layer by layer, and the outside of the terraced fields is also made of stone, like a wall. Of course, the wall is used for retaining soil. The field with a knife and a knife is full of green corn.

There is a "jingling" knock on the roadside again, and the "stabbing" sound of the machine. An old man and a young man are doing work in a stone house by the roadside. Teenagers saw stones with electric disc saws, and irregular rubble went in, and uniform pieces of Shi Zhuan came out. The old man is hitting a monument, hammering and chipping, and the stone chips are splashing. The old man's surname is Gao. They are father and son, and the son inherits his father's business. However, Shi Zhuan, where teenagers play, is specially used for paving roads in the city. Shi Zhuan has become a hill, and cars are transported car by car. The old man only hits the tablet, engraves, knocks hammer by hammer, and engraves one by one. It seems that it must be hand-made to be worthy of the dead. It depends on the fact that the old stonemason's tradition can only be displayed in person. A sarcophagus with a high standard head caught my attention. The old man said it was for himself, and he also hit the stone edge of the grave and the engraved stone tablet. I heard that the old man was born on a slate after his mother had a sudden attack on farming, and his mother picked him up. So it was named Gao Shisheng.

I see, Baiguo drips people, and life is for the stone. Living is the fire emitted by the impact of the brazing stone, shining on the land of my hometown, and then returning to the stone after death. It is a sarcophagus and a stone grave, and a stone tablet is erected in front of the grave. The stone tablet is dignified, clean and clear.

About the author

Lao Peng from Yiling: Peng Dingxin, vice chairman of Yichang Federation of Trade Unions, member of Yichang Writers Association. Engaged in policy research, party affairs and administration for a long time. I like writing and photography, one flower, one leaf, one world, one picture, one article and one mood. There are often words and pictures in newspapers and online.