A Small Farmer Girl 's Story of Making a Fortune by Farming

21

As soon as winter comes, farmers become completely idle.

　　Because there were two pregnant women in the family, the Shen family heated the kang early.

　　The men were chopping wood in the yard, while the women were sitting cross-legged on the kang, sewing shoe soles.

　　Having received twenty taels of silver, Mrs. Wu thought that the whole family had not made new clothes for many years, and the clothes they wore had been patched for who knows how many years. Finally, she made up her mind and gritted her teeth to buy some cloth from the town.

　　The scraps of cloth left over after cutting the clothes are all glued together layer by layer with glue and then made into thousand-layer soles.

　　Perhaps it was because winter had arrived and the wind outside was freezing, Shen Yao didn't like going out much and hadn't been to the Si family for quite some time.

　　The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were sewing shoe soles and chatting about family matters. Shen Yao sat next to Xu, holding her chin, listening attentively.

　　A few people were just chatting about whether to make some rice candy for the New Year when they heard someone outside calling out Mrs. Wu.

　　Shen Yao found the voice familiar. After thinking for a moment, he realized that it was the village head's wife, Fifth Grandma.

　　"Third sister-in-law, happy news, great news!" Fifth grandmother congratulated loudly before she even reached the kang.

　　"What kind of joy is this?"

　　Grandma Wu took off her shoes and got on the kang, smiling with her eyebrows curved: "Someone has taken a fancy to your third child!"

　　Upon hearing this, Mrs. Wu was so shocked that she was almost speechless.

　　In the past, the family was poor and the third child was picky, so there was no marriage. This became a source of worry for her and the old man.

　　Originally, she planned to wait until spring and ask a matchmaker to look for a man. Now that she had 20 taels of silver, if the other party asked for a dowry of 5 or 8 taels, she would make up her mind to accept it.

　　Unexpectedly, before she even went to ask the matchmaker, the girl's family sent someone to come to her door.

　　Could it be for the twenty taels of silver?

　　"Which...which one?"

　　Grandma Wu clapped her hands and said with a smile, "You have seen her too. She is the little daughter of Zhang the butcher in town!"

　　"Ah?" Not only Mrs. Wu, but even Xu's sisters-in-law were shocked.

　　If it was a girl from another farmer's family, her wicked parents might have set their sights on the older bachelor Shen Lao San for the high bride price. But Zhang the butcher's family would not marry their daughter off to the countryside to suffer for a few taels of silver.

　　Mrs. Wu had indeed seen Zhang the Butcher's daughter twice. She had fair skin, but she lived a life of luxury, so she was a little fat.

　　And she heard that the Zhang family doted on their youngest daughter very much.

　　"Why do they... fall for the third child? We don't even have a decent house, and we have a lot of work to do in the fields. Besides, considering their family's financial situation, this betrothal gift..."

　　"Third sister-in-law, I won't hide it from you! Butcher Zhang didn't want to do this originally. It was his little girl who begged him, so Butcher Zhang found my old man and asked me to ask about it."