56: The First Month

By the dusk of the first month at Lao Wen's hut, the household had — by the small specific accumulating arithmetic of Lao Wen's small daily shape — settled into the small specific work of five.

The bowstring was finished by the dusk of the seventh day. Heizi had — at the four evenings of the small specific work at the small wooden table beside Lao Wen — laid the small six-strand braid of horsehair, with the small specific four-strand tighter twist at the loop ends and the small specific fish-glue splice at the central join. Lao Wen had taught it slowly, in the small specific way of an old militia officer who had — in his own twenty-seventh year, at the watch above the Henan border — taught perhaps five young men the same small specific work.

The small bowstring, when finished, was — by the small specific tested set on the bow at the noon of the eighth day — at the small even tension of a bowstring whose maker had laid it at the small careful proportions an old officer's hand had set.

The bow drew clean.

Wang Er, by the small specific way of a smith's son's hands, had — in the same four evenings — learned the small specific stringing-and-unstringing for cold weather: the small careful fold of the bowstring at the lower limb in the small specific shape of a small loose loop, set against the small specific curve of the limb at the lower notch.

An Ashi, by the same four evenings at the small slab Lao Wen had set out for him at the eastern wall, had made eight arrows. The shafts were of the small thin straight birch the old scholar kept in a small folded bundle at the back of the hut. The fletching was of the small specific feathers Lao Wen had — at some autumn of the past five years — kept against an unfound need. The small bone tips, by the small specific care of An Ashi's hands at the small knife-shaping, were not perfect. They were sufficient. *Boy,* Lao Wen had said. *They will hold for a hare. They will, at perhaps the eighth or ninth shot, give. We will, in the next moon, make better. The first eight are good for the first eight shots.*

Tie-zhu, at the small low pad with the bad foot up — the foot, by Lao Wen's salve, had begun by the dusk of the fifth day to take the small re-cracking back into a small re-closing — had been at the small specific quiet watching of a young apprentice's eye on the work. He had not, in the four evenings, been given a task; the foot needed the resting.

By the noon of the eighth day, the foot was up.

Lao Wen — by the small specific reading at the morning fire — set out, against the eastern wall, the small wooden bench he had spoken of at the first night. The bench was perhaps four paces long, of the same kind of pine as the small wooden table. He laid, on the bench, a small folded set of joiner's tools — small specific tools Heizi had not, until this morning, seen at the hut: a small bone awl, a small thin chisel, a small flat smoothing-stone, a small carpenter's plane the size of a man's palm.

He said to Tie-zhu: *lame brother. The bench is yours. The tools are mine, of fifteen years ago when I made the small wooden box of the radical-tablets. They have not, in five years, been used. The lame brother will, by the small specific reading of his hands' small specific work, find them — perhaps — useful.*

The lame boy looked at the bench. He looked at the tools.

The small still face — by the small specific change of the corners of the eyes — took on the small private narrow smile.

He said in the small low voice: *thank you, grandfather.*

That noon, Lao Wen took the bow and the eight new arrows out into the small clear ground in front of the hut. He laid, at the rock face perhaps fifteen paces away, a small flat target of pine bark with a small specific charcoal-mark at its center. He gestured to Heizi.

Heizi took the bow.

He drew it once, slowly, to test the small specific tension. The string held. He nocked the first arrow. He drew. He aimed at the charcoal-mark.

He loosed.

The arrow flew. It hit the pine-bark target — by Lao Wen's reading at six paces — perhaps a hand's-breadth above the charcoal-mark.

Lao Wen nodded.

"Lad. The bow is good. The bowstring is good. The arrow is — by the small specific reading — slightly heavier at the tip than the small specific small thin shaft can carry. The shooter is — by the small specific reading at fifteen paces — at the small specific eye of a young man who has not held a bow before but who has been watching the country at long distance for nine months on a road. The shot is, lad, a shot a young man at his first hour with a bow does well to land in the upper third of a target."

He paused.

"Take the next seven. Slowly. Adjust at each."

Heizi took the next seven. He adjusted. By the third shot, the arrow was within two finger's-breadth of the charcoal-mark. By the fifth, within one. By the eighth — the arrow An Ashi had been most careful with — the arrow took the charcoal-mark dead center.

Lao Wen looked at the small target.

He nodded.

He said, in the small low voice: *lad. By the small specific reading of an old officer's eye — the small specific eye is there. The body has been on a road for nine months and has the small specific carriage of a young man at the small specific recovery from a winter's portion-cut. The body will, in the next two moons at the small daily teaching, gain the small specific shooter's posture. The eye does not need teaching. The eye is — by the small specific reading at the eighth shot — what we needed at this small clear ground.*

He paused.

"You will, lads, in the next moons, walk the bow with me at the small specific eye-training of a young shooter. The lame brother will, by the small specific reading of his small specific eye, mark the small specific deer-runs at the small specific terraces of the bear-back's western face. We will, by the small specific careful work of two months, be at the small specific shooting of a small deer."

The brothers nodded.

The snare-line, by the dusk of the tenth day, was laid. An Ashi and Wang Er had, at the small specific careful work of three days, set ten snares at the small specific places the lame boy — by the small specific reading from the small low pad with the small folded scrap of pine bark in his hands — had drawn. The eight arms of horsehair, twisted into small four-strand cord with a small fold at each loop. By the dusk of the eleventh day, the line had taken its first hare. By the dusk of the fifteenth, the line had taken eleven.

The household, by the small specific arithmetic at An Ashi's small slab, was — by the small careful reading at the third week — at the small specific accumulating advance against the spring-shortfall.

The boy, on the morning of the third week, said to Heizi in the small low voice: *big brother. By the small specific reading at this morning, the household is — for the first time on the road — ahead of the small specific spring. Three weeks ahead, by the boy's small specific arithmetic. Not behind.*

Heizi looked at him.

He nodded.

He filed it.

In the small lighter catalog of moments, beside the small wooden bowl that had waited three months and the small new fifth blanket and the small old bow's first arrow at the eighth shot, he set: *the small specific morning of the third week at the hut, when An Ashi looked up from the small slab and said the household was ahead of the spring.*

The reading lessons, in the same first month, had advanced.

By the dusk of the eighteenth day, Heizi had — by the small specific accumulating work of Lao Wen's small wooden tablets at the small wooden table at the long evenings — fifty of the two hundred and fourteen radicals.

Lao Wen had, in the small specific even pace, laid one new radical per evening for the first ten evenings; two per evening for the next ten; three per evening for the third ten. By the dusk of the eighteenth day, Heizi had fifty.

The small specific other work — the small specific reading of larger characters by the small specific way of the radicals — had begun on the seventh evening. Lao Wen had taken from the small wooden corner-shelf the small bound book he had been reading at the long afternoons. He had laid the book, open, on the small wooden table.

He had said: *lad. This book is the* Analects *of Kongzi. It is — by the small specific reading of an old scholar — the first of the small old books. We will, in the next four moons, read the first five chapters.*

Heizi had looked at the small bound book.

He had not — until that evening — seen a book opened.

Lao Wen had pointed to the first character on the first page.

The character was *子*.

*Master.*

It was — by the small accumulating reading at An-Ashi's eighty — one of the characters Heizi had.

Lao Wen had pointed to the second.

*曰.*

*Says.*

Heizi had — by the small specific reading of the small radical *曰* he had laid in his head four evenings ago — read it.

Lao Wen had pointed to the third.

The third was a character Heizi had not seen.

It had — by the small specific look — the *言* radical at the left and a small simple element at the right.

Heizi had not yet known the *言* radical.

He had, however, by the small specific reading of the small four strokes, made a small specific guess.

He had said: *Lao Wen. I do not know it. The left-hand part is the* 言 *radical, which is one of the radicals. The* 言 *radical has — by the small specific reading I have at my fifty so far — to do with speaking and with the small specific work of the mouth. The right-hand part is a small simple element. The character is — by the small specific guess — a kind of* speaking.

Lao Wen had nodded, slowly.

He had said: *the character is* 學. *Xué. It means* to learn, to study. *By the small specific accumulating reading of the radicals, the character is the* 言 *radical at the left and the* 子 *at the right beside the small specific element of teaching at the upper part. The construction is — by the small specific old reading — to learn is to receive speaking from a master, as a child. You guessed it as a kind of speaking. You did not have the small teaching element yet. By the eighth radical of the next ten, you will. The guess was — by the small specific honest measure — a useful guess.*

Heizi had nodded.

That had been the first character he had read by the small specific guess of the radical method, beyond his An-Ashi-given eighty.

By the dusk of the eighteenth day, he had read perhaps thirty more by the same small specific guessing. He could not always be right; he was right perhaps two times in three. The wrong ones were small specific patterns he had not yet learned. The right ones were coming faster.

By the noon of the twenty-second day, Lao Wen — at the small wooden table after the noon meal — said to Heizi: *lad. By the small specific reading at the third week, you are at perhaps a hundred and fifty characters. The radical method has — by the small specific way I had been counting — added perhaps forty new beyond your boy's eighty in the past three weeks. We are at the pace of perhaps four hundred new characters per moon. By the spring you will be at perhaps a thousand. By the second winter, two thousand. By the third winter you will be at the small specific reading of any ordinary book of the Han classics. By the fifth, of any ordinary memorial of the magistracy. By the seventh, of an old scholar's small specific writing.*

He paused.

"Lad. The pace is — by the small specific reading — faster than I had laid for myself in my own ninth and tenth and eleventh winters. You are, by the small specific accumulating reading of an old scholar's eye, learning faster than I did at fifteen."

Heizi looked at him.

"Lao Wen —"

"Hush, lad. I am telling you so that you know. I am not making any further claim. The pace is the pace. The other things — the carriage of a head of household, the reading of country, the way of a young officer at a small scout — have their own paces. They are different. The reading is fast. By the seven winters, lad. We will see."

Heizi nodded.

He filed it.

That afternoon, at the small wooden table after Lao Wen had set the bound book down to bank the small fire, Heizi opened the small finished indigo pouch from his sister.

He had not — in the past month at the hut — opened it.

He took out, slowly, the small folded square of pale yellow silk with the small embroidered character *生*.

He laid it on the small wooden table.

He looked at it.

The small four-stroke shape was — by the small specific accumulating reading of the past month — a character he had now read perhaps a hundred times in the small bound book and at the small wooden tablets and at his own writing on the small slab.

He had — by the small specific reading at this afternoon — a small specific other thing he had not had at the second moon at the small flat hollow at the foot of the bear-back.

He had the small specific knowledge that the character had been — by the small specific work of his sister at the back room of his foster father's house at the morning of her last afternoon — laid into the small finished indigo pouch in the small careful even strokes of a young woman who had been, by some unhurried accident of her own small specific keeping, taught the character at some specific moment of her small short life.

She had known what she was stitching.

He took out the small thin charcoal sliver from his coat. He laid, on the small slab, the small character *生* in his own hand.

He laid it slowly.

The strokes were the small even strokes of an apprentice's first hundred laying. They were not Mei-er's stitches. They were the small specific even strokes of her foster brother, at the small accumulating reading of an old scholar's hut at the third week of an upper-hills winter, laying in his own hand the small specific instruction she had laid in stitched silk.

He looked at the laying.

He bowed once, very small, to the small slab.

He folded the small square of pale yellow silk back into the small finished indigo pouch. He put the pouch back in the inner pocket of his shirt against his ribs.

He filed.

In the small lighter catalog of moments, he set: *the small specific afternoon at the small slab, when he wrote 生 in his own hand for the first time.*

Outside the hut, in the small clear cold of the late afternoon, the small thin column of smoke at the small clay-pot chimney rose in its small steady patient way. The small house's full count was — at this afternoon — at one month of holding.

That evening at the small wooden table, Lao Wen set out the next ten radicals.

The fifty-first was *力*.

*Strength.*

Heizi laid it three times in his hand.

He filed it.

The lessons went on.