The brick paving in the Li family's back courtyard had been swept spotless, and a large plastic sheet lay over it. Each day's picked cotton was emptied from its sacks and spread out on the sheet to dry in the sun.
The sheet was so long and wide that it covered almost half the courtyard. Now it was covered in white cotton, which looked quite pretty.
Du Chunfang sat leaning among the cotton, holding a winnowing basket as she picked out dirty leaves and other debris.
She was not alone. Several old ladies helped her, chatting as they worked.
Du Chunfang did not like going out, but the old ladies in the neighborhood liked coming to the Li family's home to chat with her.
At this time of year, apart from the cotton growers, most households had finished their farmwork and were waiting for winter. Most families in the Fourth Team had also hauled their coal home and were wrapping up work in the fields.
With little work to do, the old men and women liked gathering together. They did not go beneath the big elm tree at the village entrance; the things the younger wives discussed there did not interest the old ladies.
When the old ladies gathered, they liked recalling the past and comparing it with the present. The elderly back then really were different from those thirty or forty years later. They genuinely had faith in their current lives and felt grateful to the authorities, because they really had lived through that dog-eat-dog society.
"This cotton is lovely..." Old Lady Wang said as she picked out leaves. "The padding in my husband's cotton-padded jacket was put in years ago. That cotton's almost black now... That's it, our family's planting cotton next year too."
"I just don't know