60: The Four Slates
The four slates came out at the small wooden table at the morning of the second day of the second moon of the new year.
Lao Wen had said, at the small fire of the previous evening: *lads. The big brother is at the small specific reading of the next radicals' tenth tomorrow. The lame brother and the smith's son and the boy will, by the small specific reading I am giving at this evening, begin tomorrow at the small specific reading of the household's first ten characters.*
The brothers had — at the small fire — looked up.
Wang Er had said, in the small low voice: *grandfather.*
"Yes, smith's son."
"I — at the third moon — said to the boy and the lame brother and the big brother that I would not, at this hut, learn the characters. The smith's son does not — by the small specific reading — need them."
Lao Wen had nodded.
He had said, in the small low voice with the small specific southern-Henan accent: *yes, smith's son. I have — by the small specific reading at the past two months at this small wooden table — heard you, and the lame brother, say so. I have considered. I have decided to ask the small specific consideration to be revised.*
He had paused.
"By the small specific reading at the cloth map yesterday at the noon — the household, in the next year, will begin to face the small specific accumulating bandit-route's accumulating becoming. The household, by the small specific reading at five years ahead, may need to move further into the upper country. The household, by the small specific reading at ten years ahead — when the country fails — may need to come down into the lower country at a small specific failure of a reign. The household will — by the small specific reading at any one of these — need every member of the small specific small five-man unit to be able to read at the small specific level of a peddler-mark and the small specific level of a small specific magistracy slip."
He had paused once more.
"That is — by the small specific reading at the next ten years — perhaps a hundred and twenty characters, smith's son. I am not asking the household to learn the small specific reading of the *Analects*. I am asking each of the four to learn the small specific shape of perhaps a hundred and twenty characters that, by the small specific way of the country, will be at the door of every one of the small specific things you may, in the next ten years, be at."
He had paused.
"It is — by the small specific honest measure — the small specific minimum the small specific small five-man unit's accumulating arithmetic requires."
The smith's son had thought.
He had thought slowly. He had thought in the small specific way of a smith's son who had — by his own small specific saying at the third moon — been at the small specific careful work of his own small specific quiet weight at the household for five months at the small flat place and a month and a half at the hut.
He had said, after the long beat: *yes, grandfather. I will — by the small specific reading — learn the hundred and twenty.*
The lame boy, at the small low pad with the bad foot up, had said: *and the lame brother also. By the small specific way the smith's son has agreed.*
The boy, at the small slab, had laughed once — small, in the small dry old laugh of a young Sogdian merchant's son who had been at his eight, his nine, his ten and his eleven year at his father's table at the small specific learning of the same small basic characters — and had said: *grandfather. The boy already has the basic ones. By the small specific reading, the boy can perhaps not learn at the small specific accumulating pace of the big brother — the boy has been at the merchant's-method, not the radical's-method — but the boy will, at the next two months, lay the small specific overlap of the radical method on top of his merchant's eighty. By the small specific reading, the boy will be — at the spring — at perhaps three hundred and fifty or four hundred.*
Lao Wen had nodded.
That had been the previous evening.
The four slates had come out at the morning of the second day.
Heizi watched.
He watched, by the small specific reading at his own small wooden table seat across from Lao Wen at his own small specific morning radicals-lesson, as Lao Wen — at the small wooden table opposite Wang Er and Tie-zhu and An Ashi — laid out the four small flat slates.
The slates were each perhaps the size of a small open palm. They were of the small flat grey rock the upper hills had at certain small specific seams in the western face of the bear-back. Lao Wen, at the small spring of his fourth winter at the hut by his small specific saying, had cut perhaps a dozen of them with the small bone awl and the small thin chisel from the same seam. He had kept them, in the small wooden chest at the foot of his cot, for some unfound year. The four — the unfound year was found.
He laid out, on the small wooden table beside the four slates, a small cup of small thin charcoal slivers of the kind he had been using with Heizi for the past two months.
He said in the small low voice: *lads. We will begin at the small specific reading of the household's ten basic characters. The first ten are the ten that any small specific peddler at any small specific door of any small specific upper-hills hamlet will, by the small specific reading at the next ten years, lay on a tree as a small specific peddler-mark. The smith's son knows them — by his small specific past — at the level of the small reading. He will not, in the small specific way of teaching the others, repeat his knowledge; he will only watch, and confirm, and at the small specific moments offer the small specific small saying he knows from his father's smithy."
He paused.
"The first character is *人*."
He laid the small wooden tablet on the small wooden table.
The smith's son, at his slate, took up the small charcoal and laid the character. He laid it slowly — in the small specific careful way of a smith's son who had not, in his life, written before this morning. The strokes were uneven. The proportions were wrong.
Lao Wen looked at it.
He nodded.
"Smith's son. The two strokes of *人* are — by the small specific old reading — the small specific two strokes of a man's two legs walking apart. The small specific upper meeting is the small specific point of the man's hips. The small specific lower spread is the small specific length of the legs. By the small specific reading — the small specific upper meeting in your laying is at the small specific upper third; it should be at the small specific upper sixth. The legs in your laying are — by the small specific reading — at perhaps equal length; one should be at the small specific slightly longer length to suggest the small specific walking-step."
He paused.
"Try again."
The smith's son took up the small charcoal. He laid the character a second time. The upper meeting was higher. The legs were of slightly different length.
Lao Wen nodded.
"Better. The third laying will be — by the small specific reading — better still. Lay it ten times in a small specific column at the side of the slate. By the tenth, the small specific shape will be in your hand."
The smith's son began.
Tie-zhu, at his slate, laid his own first *人*.
The lame boy's small specific careful hand — the hand that had, in the past five months, been at the small whittling knife and the small bone awl and the small thin chisel of a young apprentice — laid the character with a small specific accuracy Heizi had not — at his own first laying of the same character at the small slab in the second moon — quite achieved at the first laying.
Lao Wen looked at it.
He nodded.
He said: *lame brother. Your hand has been at small specific work for many years. The small specific shape comes to it more easily than to the smith's son. The first laying is — by the small specific reading — at the proportions of a small wooden joint. Lay the character ten times. By the tenth it will be — by the small specific reading — better still.*
The lame boy began.
An Ashi, at his slate, laid *人* in the small specific even strokes of a young man who had — at his ninth year at his father's table — laid it perhaps three hundred times. He laid it once. He set the slate aside.
Lao Wen smiled, very small.
He said: *boy. You will, at the small specific reading of the next nine, lay each one once. We will then move to the radical-overlay at the noon. By the dusk, you will be at the small specific reading of perhaps the first thirty under the radical method, where the merchant's eighty plus the radicals will, by the small specific reading at the spring, give you the four hundred I had counted yesterday.*
"Yes, grandfather."
That morning, at the small wooden table, the four young men laid the first ten characters of the household's basic reading.
The ten were the ten the household would, by the small specific reading at the next ten years, see at the small specific door of every small specific upper-hills place: *人 大 小 上 下 中 出 入 田 木.* *Person. Big. Small. Up. Down. Middle. Out. In. Field. Tree.*
By the noon, all three of the un-having-reads had each laid all ten characters at the small specific column of ten layings at the side of their slates. The smith's son's tenth *人* was — by the small specific reading at Lao Wen's eye — at the small specific shape of a young walker. The lame boy's tenth was — by the small specific reading — at the small specific shape of a young carpenter's joint. The boy's tenth was — by the small specific reading — at the small specific shape of any other ninth-year merchant's boy.
Lao Wen nodded at each.
He said: *good, lads. The first ten by the noon. By the dusk, the second ten. By the dusk of the second day, the third. By the dusk of the second week, the household will have laid the first hundred and twenty.*
Heizi, at his own small wooden table seat at the second moon's tenth radicals, watched.
He had — by the small specific reading at the morning — felt, for one beat at the slates' coming-out, a small thin private worry that the small specific accumulating gap between his own reading and the brothers' reading would, by the small specific accumulating accumulating, become a small specific accumulating distance that the household's small specific small five-man unit would not, by the small specific way the lame brother had been carefully arranging the small specific assignments, hold against.
He had filed the worry.
He had — by the small specific reading at the noon, with the slates in front of him at the brothers' four small specific careful layings — let the worry ease.
The brothers were — at the small specific morning of the slates' coming-out — not at any small specific gap with him. They were at the small specific *different* but not at the small specific *behind*. The smith's son was at the small specific reading of a smith's son who had been, by the small specific reading, given the small specific minimum the small specific small five-man unit's accumulating arithmetic required. The lame brother was at the small specific reading of an apprentice's hand. The boy was at the small specific reading of his own merchant's eighty plus the radical-overlay.
Heizi was at the small specific reading of the head — the small specific reading of the *Analects* and the *Daxue* and, by the small specific reading at the spring, perhaps a thousand characters.
The four were at the four small specific things their roles required.
The roles were now — by the small specific reading at the slates' coming-out — at the small specific four-fold work of a small five-man unit's small specific four-fold reading.
He filed it.
In the small lighter catalog of moments, beside the small specific morning of the cloth map and the small specific noon of the first deer and the small specific dusk of the slates' coming-out, he set: *the small specific morning of the second day of the second moon of the new year, when the four slates came out and the four brothers laid the first ten characters of the household's basic reading.*
The lighter catalog stood, at the slates' morning, at perhaps sixteen items.
The dark catalog stood at five names.
The slates went on.
By the dusk of the second day, the four had laid the second ten. By the dusk of the third day, the third ten. By the dusk of the second week, the household had laid the first hundred and twenty characters of a small basic reading.
The smith's son's hand, by the second week, had — by the small specific accumulating reading at the small slates — gained the small specific even strokes of a smith's son who had been at the small specific work of any first-year apprentice's brush. He could lay each of the hundred and twenty characters cleanly. He could read each — by the small specific quiet test Lao Wen ran at the small specific noon of the second week — without the small specific error.
The lame boy's hand, by the same week, had — by the small specific accumulating reading at his own slate — gained a small specific even strokes that were at the small specific accuracy of an apprentice's small joint. The lame boy could read each. The lame boy had also — by the small specific quiet of the past week — laid out, on the small wooden bench against the eastern wall, a small specific carved set of the hundred and twenty characters in small wooden tablets of his own making. They were each perhaps half the size of Lao Wen's small wooden tablets. They were carved by the lame boy at the small evenings, at the small specific work of his own small specific carpenter's hand.
Lao Wen had — at the dusk of the eighth day, when the lame boy had laid the first set of ten on the small wooden table for the brothers to see — looked at the small wooden tablets for a long beat.
He had said: *lame brother. The small wooden tablets are — by the small specific reading at the small specific fitting of each character into the small wooden surface — the small specific accumulating careful work of an apprentice's hand at a teaching tool that is, by the small specific reading I am giving, the small specific kind of teaching tool an old scholar would, by the small specific way of the country's old apprenticeship-line, have wished his own small specific apprentice to make for him.*
He had paused.
"Lame brother. I will — by the small specific reading — keep these. They will be, at this hut, the small specific second set of teaching tablets. They will be at this hut for any small specific other young man who, in some unfound year, comes up the path to a hut whose old man no longer lives in it."
He had paused once more.
"They are — by the small specific old running of the country's small old ledger — the small specific small piece of work the lame brother is leaving the country, against the spring, in the small specific way the lean-to was left at the small flat place behind the long low ridge."
The lame boy, at the small slab at the eastern wall, had nodded.
The small still face — by the small specific reading at the corners of the eyes — had taken on the small narrow private smile.
The boy, at his slate, had — by the small specific reading at the second week — overlaid the radical method on his merchant's eighty and had reached perhaps two hundred and twenty characters. He was — by the small specific reading at the second week's noon — at the small specific accumulating pace Lao Wen had estimated at the third moon. By the spring, he would be at four hundred. By the second winter, perhaps a thousand.
He was — by the small specific reading — at the small specific accumulating quartermaster-and-second-skill role with the small specific accumulating second-language of the country.
Heizi, at his own small specific accumulating reading, had — by the same dusk of the second week — added the next twenty radicals and was at a hundred and seventy of the two hundred and fourteen. He was at perhaps three hundred and fifty characters total.
The household's small specific reading was — by the small specific accumulating reading at the dusk of the second week of the second moon of the new year — at the small specific shape Lao Wen had laid for it at the small wooden table at the morning of the slates' coming-out.
The work, by the small unhurried way of the household, went on.
That evening at the small fire, after the small slates had been put away for the night and the small wooden tablets had been laid back in the small wooden box, Lao Wen sat at the small wooden stool and said in the small low voice:
"Lads. Tomorrow."
"Yes, grandfather."
"By the small specific reading at the small first thaw at the noon today, the lower edges of the brush are — by the small specific reading of the lame brother at the dusk — at the small first specific drip of the first thaw. The small specific salt-trip will, by the small specific reading at the next two days, be possible. The boy and the smith's son and I will, at the dawn of the third day, walk to the small specific other brackish spring. We will be, by the small specific reading of an old man's small specific careful pace, perhaps four days at the trip. The big brother will, in the four days, hold the hut with the lame brother. The household — at the small specific reading — will hold."
The brothers nodded.
"Yes, grandfather."
That night, Heizi at his watch sat at the small banked fire ring inside the south face.
The country, by the small specific reading at the night, had at the noon today taken — by the lame brother's small specific careful eye — the small first drip of the first thaw at the lower edges of the brush. The drip was a small thin trickle. The small specific accumulating drop in the small specific cold of the upper-hills' deep winter had begun.
Heizi listened to the shape of the silence.
The shape was — by the small specific reading at this watch — the shape of an upper-hills hut at the small specific first day after the slates had come out, in the small specific accumulating turn of the year.
He filed it.
He sat his watch through.
In the morning, he laid the morning's fire and the morning's water before the second cock, and Lao Wen at the cot — by the small specific small steady breath of the past two months — woke at the second cock and laid one hand once on the top of Heizi's head, in the small old-man's gesture that had become, by the small specific accumulating reading of the past two months, the small specific morning protocol of the hut.
The day's work began.
In two days, at the dawn, the salt-trip would begin.
The household — by the small specific accumulating reading at this morning — was at the small specific accumulating shape Lao Wen had laid.
The work went on.