54: The Fifth Blanket
The first morning at the hut began at the second cock with the small specific careful work of four young men learning the small specific shape of a kitchen they had not been at before.
Heizi laid the small fire's morning kindling. He banked the night's small live coal. He drew water from the small clay pot Lao Wen kept stoppered with a small fresh-cut wooden stopper at the back of the hut against the small specific freezing of any pot left at the front overnight. He poured the small portion of cold water into the smaller of Lao Wen's two clay pots. He set the smaller pot at the small fire-stones.
Wang Er, by the small specific reading at the dim grey of the dawn, slipped out the hempen flap into the small clear cold of the morning to gather wood from the small kindling pile at the back of the hut. Lao Wen had said, last night at the dusk, that the kindling pile was at perhaps fifteen days of two-fire-a-day burning. The smith's son, Lao Wen had said, was not at the kindling pile to gather a day's worth — the household had now five mouths, and the small daily work of a smith's son at a winter hut was to bring up, every two days, fresh wood from the slope down to the lower edge of the grove, where Lao Wen had — in the past five years — laid his small specific small accumulating cuts of dead pine.
Wang Er had nodded. He had not, in the dim grey, said any small specific thing.
He had, when he came back at the second hour of the dawn watch with a small armload of fresh kindling, laid it at the small kindling pile in the small same careful even way he had laid the small wooden splits at the lean-to's back for nine months.
An Ashi, in the small interior of the hut at the dim grey of the dawn, had taken out from his coat the small folded scrap of pine bark and the small thin sliver of charcoal. He had laid them on the small wooden table. He had — by the small specific quiet of a Sogdian merchant's son at a new kitchen — sat down across the small table from where Lao Wen, on his small wooden stool, was sitting at his own small specific morning observation of the household.
The boy looked at Lao Wen.
Lao Wen looked at him.
The boy said, in the small low voice he had been speaking in: *grandfather. The household has come up from the lean-to with — by the small specific accumulating count I made yesterday — about three weeks of millet, four weeks at small portion; six pieces of dried hare; a small jar of pickled fern shoots, perhaps a third full; a small folded square of dried bean curd, perhaps four pieces; a small grey portion of the salt of our boiling at the brackish spring, perhaps three weeks; the two new sacks of millet from Lu Wen-han's trade, perhaps six weeks at small portion; the small jar of salt-pork, perhaps two weeks at small portion. By my arithmetic — that is, with what the household carried up — about eleven weeks at small portion for four. We have — at this morning — five."
He paused.
"Grandfather. By the small specific reading of an old scholar's hut, what — what is the small specific count of the hut's stores?"
Lao Wen looked at him.
He nodded.
He stood up — slowly — and went, at the small specific careful pace, to the small wooden chest at the foot of his cot. He opened it. He took out, slowly, several small things and laid them on the small wooden table.
A single small clay jar of millet. By the small specific look — perhaps four weeks at small portion for one.
A single small folded cloth of dried persimmon — *yes, lads, persimmons; the country at the third moon below the bear-back grows persimmons in the small fold of the bear-back's southern face; I have had, for the past four years, a small accumulating handful at the autumn from a small specific old tree* — perhaps two dozen pieces.
A single small clay jar of dried wild greens.
A single small jar of plain salt — perhaps a moon at small portion for one.
A single small folded length of the dried inner bark of a particular tree, *the small specific tree at the eastern foot of the bear-back, that I have eaten in the lean years, lads; it is bitter but the body takes it; perhaps two weeks of supplement.*
A single small folded handful of dried mushrooms — *the small grey ones I gather from the upper terrace at the autumn, perhaps two weeks at the small specific addition to a soup.*
A single small folded length of dried jerky from a deer — *the deer I took at the autumn three years ago, lad; this is the small last of it; I have been keeping it for an unfound year.*
He laid them, slowly, on the small wooden table.
He sat back on the small wooden stool.
"Boy."
"Yes, grandfather."
"By the small specific count of an old scholar's hut at the third week of the ninth moon, my own stores were at perhaps nine weeks of small-portion eating for one. By the small specific accumulating count of your stores plus mine and the small specific household of five — we are, at this morning, at perhaps ten weeks of small-portion eating for five."
He paused.
"That is — that is short of the spring by perhaps three weeks."
He paused again.
"It is — by the small specific accumulating arithmetic — exactly the small specific shortfall the household had been at before the small fever. The trade with Lu Wen-han closed half the gap at three weeks, and the addition of the fifth body — myself — has reopened it to three. That is, lads, the small specific honest reading."
The boy nodded.
He did not — at the small wooden table — show any small specific dismay. He took out the small thin charcoal sliver and began, slowly, on the small folded scrap of pine bark, to update the small specific arithmetic.
After a quarter hour at the small specific work, he set the bark down.
"Grandfather. The eastern-face line at the small flat place — by the small specific reading at the morning of departure — was holding at six hares a week. We have, at this hut, no snare-line yet. The grove and the bear-back's small terraces have, by the small specific reading at the path coming up yesterday afternoon, perhaps four small specific places I would lay snares. The smith's son's hempen four-strand cord that we left at the lean-to is — by the small specific accident of leaving it for the next walker — no longer ours. We will, by the small specific way of a new line, need new cord."
Lao Wen nodded.
"There is — at the small wooden corner-shelf, in the small jar at the second shelf — perhaps two arms of finer hempen cord I have been keeping against an unfound need. There is also, at the same shelf, a small spool of horsehair of perhaps twelve arms that a peddler — eight years ago, at the spring of his last visit — gave me in trade for an old book. The horsehair is — by the small specific reading of the upper-hills snares — the better material for a hare's run; it is thinner than your hempen four-strand."
The boy looked at him.
"Grandfather. Twelve arms of horsehair is enough for perhaps thirty snares."
"Yes."
"The hut's small specific quartermaster — myself, by what the big brother has been saying about my role — would lay, at the small specific reading of the grove's terrain, perhaps eight to ten snares on the new line. Twelve arms for ten snares is — by the small specific reading — generous."
"Yes."
"Grandfather. We will, by the small specific arithmetic, lay the new line in the next four days. The smith's son and I will go out tomorrow at the second cock. The lame brother — when the foot is up, perhaps in three days — will come with us to mark the small specific terrain readings. By the dusk of the fourth day, the new line will hold. By the small specific reading I am giving now, the new line should yield perhaps ten hares a week at the start, dropping to six by the second moon of winter. That should — by the small specific accumulating arithmetic — close the three-week gap, plus."
Lao Wen looked at him.
He nodded — once, slowly.
He said: *boy. You will, by the small specific way of a Sogdian merchant's son at a quartermaster's small accumulating work, do this. I have — by the small specific reading of the past five years at this hut — been laying perhaps three snares at a time on a small thin line. I have not, in five years, run a household. The boy is — at this small wooden table at the morning of the first day — the household's small specific quartermaster. You will, in the next four months, at this hut, run the stores.*
He paused.
He said, in the small low voice: *lad — the big brother — you have, by the small specific arrangement of the past three months at the small flat place, given the boy this work. I am — at this small wooden table — confirming it. The boy is, at the hut, the household's quartermaster. The smith's son is the household's hands. The lame brother is the household's medical eye and operator. The big brother is — by the small specific reading I have been giving since the *四 人* paper at the foot of the path — the household's head and the head's apprentice, who will, in the next four months at this small wooden table, study the small specific work of a head.*
He paused once more.
"That is the small specific arrangement of the household at this hut."
Heizi nodded.
The brothers nodded — each by the small specific reading of his own name in the small specific arrangement.
That afternoon, Lao Wen — by the small specific reading of his own daily shape — sat at the small wooden table with the small bound book open at his small careful even reading-distance. He read for a quarter hour. He set the book down. He looked at Tie-zhu, who was at the small low pad at the western wall with the bad foot up on a small folded pad of pine needles.
"Lame brother."
"Yes, grandfather."
"The salve."
"Yes, grandfather."
"Show me the foot."
Tie-zhu unbound the foot. He held it out. The skin was — by the small specific accumulating reading at the past two days of walking in the new snow — red along the inner ridge again, with a small thin re-cracking at the place where, in the third moon, the small specific crack had first been. The salve from the eastern-pine hermit's small clay bottle had — by the small specific reading at the small fire of the morning — held the foot through five months but was, at this winter, no longer enough to keep the small specific re-cracking from showing.
Lao Wen looked at the foot.
He stood up — slowly — and went to the small wooden corner-shelf. He took down, from the third shelf, a small clay bottle.
He uncapped it.
He sniffed the small clay bottle's small interior smell. He nodded.
He brought it. He sat down at the small low pad's edge — slowly, with the small careful unfolding — and laid the small clay bottle in his palm.
"Lame brother. This is — by my small specific recipe — a salve I have been making at this hut for the past nineteen winters. It is the small specific salve my father's mother taught me at the small specific care of the small old joints of a body. It has — by the small specific reading of the past nineteen winters — held my own knees and my own bad hip through small specific re-crackings of the same kind your foot has."
He paused.
"It will, perhaps, hold the foot. It will not, by the small specific reading, hold it differently from the eastern-pine hermit's salve; both salves are made at the same small old method. But the small specific accumulating proportions of the small specific local upper-hills herbs my own salve uses are slightly different from his. The lame brother will — by the small specific reading at the next two weeks — see whether my own works better or worse on the small specific weak place of his foot."
He laid a small careful drop of the small salve at the small specific re-cracking on the inner ridge.
Tie-zhu — by the small specific reading of the small still face — did not flinch.
He nodded.
He said, in the small low voice: *thank you, grandfather.*
That evening, by the small thin firelight, Lao Wen took out from the small wooden chest at the foot of his cot a small folded length of old hempen cloth. The cloth was — by the small specific look — the cloth Heizi had heard mention of at the first night: the small folded length Lao Wen had been telling himself, for five years, he would in some unfound year sew into a fifth blanket.
The unfound year was found.
Lao Wen sat at the small wooden table with a small bone needle and a small spool of dark thread.
He sewed.
He sewed slowly, by the small specific careful even pace of an old scholar's hands at a small specific work the old scholar had not — until this evening — done in many years. The seam, by the small accumulating reading of the small even stitches, was the small even seam of a man whose mother had taught him to sew in some specific year of his eighth or ninth winter, and who had, by the small specific accumulating discipline of an old scholar at fifty-five, kept the small specific motion in his hands.
The brothers, at the small fire, watched.
By the second hour of the late evening, the small folded length had become a small wadded blanket of perhaps the size of a small specific blanket for a single sleeper.
Lao Wen folded it. He laid it on the small low pad at the western wall, beside Tie-zhu's place.
He said, in the small low voice: *lame brother. You will sleep tonight under the new fifth blanket. The foot needs — by the small specific reading at the salve — additional warmth at the lower body for the next four nights. The smith's son will, on those four nights, be at the small low pad without his second blanket; the lame brother will have two; the big brother and the boy keep their one each.*
He paused.
"And the smith's son. You will, on those four nights, be the warmest of us by your own small specific weight. The slow honest body of a smith's son holds heat better than the small thin body of a lame apprentice. The lame brother needs the second blanket for the foot. You will manage."
The smith's son nodded.
"Yes, grandfather."
That night, the brothers slept on the small low pad at the western wall in the small specific arrangement Lao Wen had laid. Tie-zhu, in the small new wadded blanket, slept the small specific deep first sleep of a young man whose foot had — at the salve's small specific small different proportions — felt the small specific warm relief of an old man's small careful recipe at the inner ridge.
Heizi, at the western wall, watched — for a long beat at the second hour of the watch — the small new fifth blanket on the lame boy's lower body.
He filed it.
In the small lighter catalog of moments — beside the lame boy's first storm smile, the seventh-moon broth at the boy's first waking, Lu Wen-han's hand on his head, the *上* in clear ink at the foot of the path, the small wooden bowl that had waited three months — he set: *the small new fifth blanket sewn at the small wooden table by an old scholar at the third evening of the small house's full count.*
He listened.
The shape of the silence at this hut, on this night, was the shape of a small old hut at the grove of twelve pines, with five young breaths inside it, holding against the small specific cold of the upper hills' winter, with the small thin column of smoke at the small clay-pot chimney rising, by the small specific banked fire, in its small steady patient way into the small clear cold above the grove.
It was — by the small specific reading at this watch — a shape Heizi had not yet, in his life, listened to.
He listened.
The owls of the upper hills called twice.
He sat his watch through.
In the morning, before the second cock, Lao Wen rose.
He came to the small fire — slowly, with the small careful unfolding — and laid one hand on the top of Heizi's head once, in the small old-man's gesture, and said in the small low voice: *lad. You laid the morning fire. Good.*
He went to the small wooden table.
He set out, on the small wooden table, the next ten radical-tablets from the small wooden box.
The lessons had begun.