51: Three Days Inside

The storm took three days.

It rose, by the noon of the first day, to its full. The wind, at the noon, came in long heavy sweeps off the bear-back's western face above the grove, and the small thin pine roof of Lao Wen's hut, by the small specific reading of the small low ticking of bark settling under the wind's pressure, took the small accumulating weight of new snow in its slow patient way. By the second day, the wind had eased a little; the snow had not. The fall came down in small steady heavy layers through the day and into the long second night. By the dawn of the third day, the wind had dropped further; the fall had thinned to a small steady moderate rate; and by the noon of the third day, the storm had passed into its small specific tail.

Heizi did, in the three days, very little.

He slept, at the long first day, the deep specific sleep of a young man who had walked through a night and a half before walking up a slope into a storm. He did not, in the first day, wake more than three or four times — and those wakings were, by the small specific way of an exhausted young man's body, only the brief openings-and-closings of the eyes at small intervals before the body's small accumulating fatigue closed them again.

He slept on a small low pad of pine needles at the western wall of the hut.

The pad had been laid out by Lao Wen at the dusk of the first day — in the small specific careful way of a man who had laid out a small pad of pine needles for a guest perhaps two or three times in the past five years. The blanket, a coarse hempen one, had been folded at the head of the pad. Lao Wen had said, in the small low voice: *sleep, lad. The storm will be at its full by the noon. There is nothing for you to do at it. Sleep.* Heizi had — by the small accumulating tired weight in his chest — not argued.

He had slept.

He had woken, at the small thin grey of the first afternoon, briefly, with the small specific awareness that the wind's voice at the door had thickened in the past hour. He had laid still. He had listened. The wind was at the small heavy sweeps of a storm at its full. The hut was — by the small specific careful patient ticking of the small layered bark of the roof — holding. Lao Wen, at the small wooden stool by the small fire, was reading, by the small thin firelight, from a small bound book he had — at some moment of the morning Heizi had not seen — taken down from the small wooden corner-shelf above his cot.

The book was the first book Heizi had seen in his life.

He had — in his foster father's house, in the village's headman's house, in the magistracy's small papers at the riders' belts — seen small slips of bamboo and small folded papers. He had not seen a book.

He had laid still, watching, with the small specific quiet attention of a young man who had decided, in the small interval of his half-waking, that the watching was — for this afternoon — the only work he had.

Lao Wen, at the small wooden stool, did not, in the long afternoon, look up.

He read slowly. He turned the small thin pages of the bound book at perhaps the rate of one page every quarter hour. He held the book at the small specific angle of an old scholar at the small specific reading-distance of a long-practiced eye. He moved his lips — Heizi could see — only at certain small specific small phrases that the old scholar was, perhaps, committing back to memory or considering more carefully than the rest. The lips moved very small. They did not, by any reading at the western wall, allow Heizi to make out any word.

The reading went on through the afternoon.

By the dusk, Lao Wen set the book down. He marked the page with a small thin strip of pine bark. He stood — slowly — and went to the fire. He poured two small cups of hot water. He brought one to the small low pad at the western wall. He laid it on the small flat stone at the head of the pad.

Heizi sat up.

"Grandfather."

"Drink."

He drank.

"Eat."

The old scholar laid, on the small flat stone beside the cup of hot water, a small wooden bowl with a small portion of millet and a single small slice of a piece of dried meat Heizi had not, before this moment, seen. The dried meat was darker than dried hare. It was — by the small specific look — the dried venison of a small deer. Lao Wen had, at some moment of his quiet years at this hut, taken a deer.

Heizi ate.

He ate slowly. He did not, at the small low pad, ask any small specific questions about the deer or the book or the old scholar's quiet day. He ate. He drank. He set the small bowl down. He nodded to Lao Wen, and the old scholar nodded back, and Heizi laid back down on the pad and went again into the small specific deep sleep of a young man whose body needed perhaps one more day's worth of rest.

By the dawn of the second day, he was awake before the second cock.

He lay on the pad for a while, listening to the storm at the door.

The wind had eased; the fall was thicker.

Lao Wen, at his cot, was — by the small specific even breathing — not yet awake.

Heizi rose, very quietly, on the small specific bare feet of a young man who had been at his foster father's kang and at the lean-to's pine-needle floor and now at this small low pad of an old scholar's hut, and went to the small fire. He banked the small live coal. He laid two small fresh splits of pine — the same kind of fresh splits Lao Wen had laid on the morning before — on the coal. The fire took.

He drew, from the small clay pot of water Lao Wen kept at the side of the fire, a small portion. He poured it into the small clay pot at the small fire-stones. He set the pot on the small flat stones to heat.

He stood at the small fire.

He did not — by the small specific protocol of the old scholar's hut, that Lao Wen had been silently teaching him from the moment of the first hot water on the small wooden table — wake the old scholar.

He waited at the small fire.

By the second cock, the small clay pot had begun to give back a small steady wisp of steam.

Lao Wen, at the cot, opened his eyes.

He sat up — slowly, with the small specific work of an old back unfolding from a small low cot — and looked across the hut at the small fire, where Heizi stood with the small clay pot of warming water.

The old scholar nodded, once.

He said, in the small low voice with the small specific southern-Henan accent: *lad. Good.*

It was — by the small specific reading of the small low voice — the first small specific approval Lao Wen had, in two days, given.

It was for the small specific work of waking before the second cock and laying the morning's small fire and warming the morning's water without waking the old man on the cot.

Heizi filed it.

By the noon of the second day, the small wooden table inside the hut had become — by the small steady patient hands of two people at a small specific quiet — the small careful space of two men whose small specific work of the morning had been laid in a small specific even rhythm. Heizi cleared the small wooden bowls after the small portions of the noon. Lao Wen, at the small wooden stool, sat with his small bound book again. Heizi banked the small fire down to a small low coal. Lao Wen, after a quarter hour at the book, set the book down and looked up.

"Lad."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"You know — by the small specific work of the boy at your camp — perhaps eighty characters."

"Yes."

"Show me."

The old scholar reached, from the small low shelf at the eastern wall, a small flat slate and a small thin piece of fresh charcoal. He laid them on the small wooden table.

"Lay out the eighty. We will see what you have."

Heizi paused.

He had not — at the small slab of the lean-to with An Ashi at the dim firelight — laid out *the* eighty in any single sitting. He had, in the past month, laid them out by small ten-character groups, by small root-groups, by small specific evenings of the boy's careful teaching. He had not asked himself, in any one moment, *can I lay out all eighty.*

He thought.

He thought slowly.

He laid out the small flat slate at his side. He took the small thin piece of charcoal in his right hand. He began.

He began with the small ten of the *one* group: *人, 大, 小, 父, 母, 子, 女, 兄, 弟, 上.* The first nine were Old Zhang's old basic set; the tenth was the *上* he had read at the small flat stone at the dim grey this morning.

He laid them out one at a time, slowly, with the small specific care of a young man whose hand had not — by the small specific accumulating practice of writing on pine bark for one month — been a graceful hand at the strokes.

He laid out the small ten of the *field* group: *田, 米, 禾, 木, 火, 土, 水, 石, 山, 田.* He paused at the second *田* — he had, by the small specific accumulating eye, repeated it. He brushed it out with the side of the charcoal and replaced it with *草*, *grass*, which An Ashi had taught him at the third evening of the second week.

He went on.

He laid out the small ten of the counting: *一二三四五六七八九十.*

He laid out the small ten of the directions: *上下左右東西南北中外.*

He laid out the small ten of the days/months/elements: *日月星金木水火土天地.*

He laid out the small ten of the body and the relations: *目耳口手足心身命名情.*

He laid out the small ten of the actions: *行走立坐見聞思學知問.*

He laid out the small ten of the small specific things he had learned from An Ashi's stories: *車馬絲絹米麥油酒鹽糖.*

He paused.

He had — by the small slow careful laying — perhaps eighty.

He counted them.

Seventy-nine.

He thought.

He had — by some small specific lapse at the laying of the elements row — left out a character.

He could not, for one beat, remember which.

He thought.

He remembered.

He laid out, at the bottom of the slate, the eightieth: *無.*

He sat back.

Lao Wen looked at the slate for a long beat.

He nodded.

"Lad."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"You have eighty. The boy at your camp has been a careful teacher. The strokes are — by the small honest measure — the strokes of a young apprentice's first month at the brush. They will improve."

He paused.

"Lad. You laid them in eight rows. You laid them by groups. The boy's small specific method is — by the small specific reading I am giving now — a Sogdian merchant's method. It is a good method for the small first hundred. It is — by the small specific reading of the eighty — not a method that will, by the second hundred, hold. The second hundred will require a different method. The second hundred, by the small specific old way of the Han classics, is taught by the small specific arrangement of the radicals. There are two hundred and fourteen radicals. You will, by the small specific accumulating learning of the radicals, be able to read — by the third year — perhaps two thousand and five hundred characters."

He paused.

"I will, while you are at this hut, be teaching you. The boy's method has held you to eighty. From eighty, the radicals."

Heizi nodded.

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"And — and lad."

"Yes."

"The boy's method is — by the small specific reading — the method his father had been teaching him. The boy is — by what you said at the small wooden table at the morning of the first day — sixteen. He has, by my small specific reading, perhaps two thousand and eight hundred. He has — by the small specific look of the strokes you have laid — taught you carefully. You will, when we go together to your camp, take the boy's method and the radical method into your head together. The two will, by the small specific way of a young head's accumulating knowledge, hold."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"Now — clear the slate. We will, this evening, lay out a small first ten of the radicals. Go to the small fire. Bank it. There is a small specific work of the small fire's banking that I will show you. By the dusk we will eat. By the night you will sleep again. The storm will pass at the noon of the third day. We will, on the dawn of the fourth day, set out for your camp."

Heizi looked at him.

"We?"

"We. I will go with you. The brothers — by the small specific way I have been reading three small folded papers and the small specific report of one young head of household — are at the lean-to fifteen *li* north. I will not, lad, ask a young man who has walked an eight-day trip and walked through a storm to walk fifteen *li* north alone, in fresh hand-deep snow, on the dawn of the fourth day. I will go with you. The hut will hold without us for the four days the trip will take; I have done it before."

He paused.

"And — and lad. There is the small specific other thing. The brothers will not, by the small specific reading I have at this small wooden table, come up to my hut without seeing me come down to them. They are — by your saying — three young men who have been at your camp for nine months under your hand. They have not, in those nine months, met me. They have only — by the small specific way of three small folded papers and a small thin column of smoke — known of me. The reading-aloud of *up* on a small piece of pine bark will not — by the small specific reading of three brothers who have been holding a household at a long low ridge for nine months — be sufficient to bring them up here on the small specific *say-so* of a young head of household who has been gone for ten days. I must go down. The lame brother will see me and decide. The lame brother — by your small specific saying of the past two days — is the household's small medical eye and operator. The decision will be his."

Heizi looked at him.

He had not — until this moment, at the small wooden table — quite understood that the lame brother had become, in the past three months, the household's *operator* in a way Lao Wen had — by the small specific reading of three small folded papers and a young man's eight-day silence at a small wooden table — already inferred.

He nodded.

"Yes, Lao Wen."

That afternoon, Lao Wen took down from the small wooden corner-shelf a small wooden box. He laid it on the small wooden table. He opened it.

Inside the box were perhaps thirty small wooden tablets. Each tablet was perhaps the size of a man's palm. On each tablet, in clear ink, was a single character — laid in the careful even strokes of an old calligrapher's hand. The tablets had been — by the small specific look of the small fading at the edges — at the small wooden box for many years.

Lao Wen took out the first ten. He laid them face-up on the small wooden table.

The ten characters were: *一, 丨, 丶, 丿, 乙, 亅, 二, 亠, 人, 儿.*

"Lad."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"These are the first ten of the two hundred and fourteen radicals. We will, this evening and tomorrow, lay them in your head. The radicals are not, in themselves, all characters of the daily writing — the first six, by the small specific reading, are not characters at all but small graphic units. The radicals are the small specific shape-elements out of which the larger characters are built."

He paused.

"The boy at your camp — by the small specific Sogdian-merchant method — taught you the small old characters of the daily writing as if each one were a single word to be memorized. The Han scholar's old method is to teach the radicals first, and then, by the small specific way the larger characters are built out of them, to teach the larger characters by their construction. By the second method, lad, a young man who learns the two hundred and fourteen radicals can, by the small specific reading of any larger character he has not seen before, often guess its meaning by the small specific shape of its parts. He cannot always be right. He will, however, by the small specific accumulating method, gain perhaps three or four hundred characters a year, against the boy's hundred and fifty."

Heizi looked at the ten tablets.

He nodded.

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"This evening — the first ten. Tomorrow, the second ten. By the morning of the fourth day, when we set out, you will have thirty. We will continue at the camp."

That evening, by the small thin firelight, Heizi laid the first ten in his head.

He laid them in the small accumulating careful way he had — by the past month — been learning from An Ashi. He repeated each one aloud, three times, with the small specific stroke-order Lao Wen had laid for him. He wrote each one, three times, on the small flat slate. He listened, three times, to Lao Wen's small specific brief explanation of where each radical would, in the larger characters, sit.

By the dusk of the second day, he had ten.

By the dusk of the third day, twenty.

The storm, by the noon of the third day, had passed into its small thin tail. By the dusk, the small fall had stopped. The wind had dropped to the small steady cool of an upper-hills evening after a true winter storm. The small clay-pot chimney at the back of the southern wall had — by the dusk — begun, in Lao Wen's small specific quiet way of releasing it, to give off a small thin wisp of smoke into the small clear cold of the evening above the grove.

The hut was — by the small specific reading at the dusk — visible from the lower country again.

Lao Wen, at the small wooden stool, said: *lad.*

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"In the morning. Before the second cock. We will go."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"You will carry your bundle. I will carry mine. The walking will be slow — fresh hand-deep snow on the upper paths; we will be perhaps two days to your camp at the slow pace of an old man and a young man on a small specific careful winter walk. We will then be one day at your camp for the lame brother to decide. We will then be perhaps three days back to this hut, with the four of you and what you can carry from the lean-to."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"And lad."

"Yes."

"The lean-to."

"Yes."

"You will not, by the small specific arithmetic of the next four months and the small specific arithmetic of an old man's hut at this country, take all four of you into this hut and abandon the lean-to. The lean-to — by the small specific reading of the lame brother's three months of joinery — is a small specific upper-hills shelter that, by the small specific way of the country, is worth keeping. We will, in the spring, set the lean-to up for the next walker who needs it. The country will, perhaps, not have one for a season. It may have one in the year after. The lean-to is, lad — by the small specific way of the country's small old shelter-keeping — yours to leave for the country."

He paused.

"You and the brothers will, by the small specific way of the household's accumulating coming-together at this hut, leave the lean-to as the small specific gift to whoever comes up the ridge in the next year of the road."

Heizi nodded.

He filed it.

He thought, briefly, of the small carved horse with the small charcoal eye and the small dark ribbon, in his inner pocket against his ribs, that the lame brother had laid at the door of the camp ten mornings ago.

He understood, at the small fire, that the small instruction *bring it back* was — by the small specific way Lao Wen had just laid the next four days — about to be honored. The carved horse was about to be brought back to the hand that had carved it.

He went to sleep early.

In the morning, before the second cock, he and Lao Wen rose. They banked the small fire in the small specific careful way Lao Wen had taught him. They packed two small bundles. They wrapped their small wadded coats and their second-layer coats and laid the small folded blankets at the cot, at the western wall, at the small wooden table in the small specific careful arrangement of an old man's hut going briefly empty. Lao Wen drew, on a small piece of pine bark in clear ink, a single character — *出* — *out* — and laid it at the door of the hut, weighted by a small flat pebble, in the small specific way of an old scholar who left a small specific mark for any small specific creature that came into the small clear ground around the hut while he was away.

He closed the hempen flap.

He took up his small bundle.

He looked at Heizi.

"Lad."

"Yes, Lao Wen."

"North."

"North."

They set off down the small old herder's path through the new hand-deep snow, in the small clear cold of the dawn after the storm, with the bear-back's western face above them and the small flat hollow at their feet and the long low ridge of the upper hills running away into the small bright morning to the north.