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

51

Before I could even taste the ground steamed meat powder, the rice in the fields had already turned yellow, and it was time to harvest.

　　Old man Shen got up early and sharpened all five or six sickles carefully. Then he went to his great grandfather's house. His great grandfather's family had few workers. Together with his great grandfather and grandmother and a few grandchildren, they could only make up a labor force of five people.

　　Old Shen felt sorry for his grandfather's age, so he wanted him to harvest the rice two days later. After the Shen family's seven acres of rice were harvested, he would take his sons to help his grandfather.

　　Just like during the spring plowing and rice planting, Shen Yao was left at home to help with housework and take care of his younger brothers and sisters.

But Shen Changsheng and Shen Pingnian didn't need her to take care of them. They disappeared after breakfast and no one knew whose children they went to look for or where they went.

　　Shen Yao was too lazy to care about them. He broke off a thin branch from the tree and started drawing on the ground in the yard.

　　"Yaoyao, what is this drawing?" Mrs. Wu passed by with a quilt in her arms, looking at the strange patterns on the ground, not understanding what they were.

　　"Grandma, I'm just drawing!" The pattern on the sand was not very clear, but if people from later generations looked at it, they might be able to make out a rough idea. The pattern drawn on the ground was a rice thresher.

　　As an agricultural major, Shen Yao knew that before harvesters became popular, many remote mountain villages used foot-operated rice threshers.

　　It was a pity that she didn't know much about mechanization. She had seen a real rice thresher and knew its operating principle, but it was still difficult for her to draw a complete sketch based on her little memory.

　　Shen Yao didn't know if she could make a rice thresher based on the principles in her memory. Therefore, before she was 100% sure, she didn't dare to mention the rice thresher to the Shen family, lest she make people happy for nothing.

　　The slender branches were drawn on the ground again and again. After finishing, he seemed to feel that something was wrong, so he used the sole of his shoe to smooth the drawing on the ground and outline the pattern again.

　　This process was repeated for several days, until all the rice for this year was threshed and stored in the warehouse, but Shen Yao's rice thresher was still not made.

　　The drum of the rice thresher can be made, as can the iron teeth inlaid on the outside of the drum and used for threshing. Even bearings and gears can be made by an experienced blacksmith. Shen Yao could not find a replacement material for the leather strip that connects the drum to the pedal.

　　"Why!"

　　"What's wrong with Yaoyao? Why are you sighing again?" Xu was folding clothes and looked at her daughter with heartache.

　　In fact, she was a mother, but she couldn't understand her daughter's thoughts at all. She couldn't understand why a little girl of only six or seven years old had so many worries and sighed all the time. If you ask her the reason, she would not say, or just make a random excuse.

　　Xu looked distressed.

　　At this age, it was the right time for her to play. Although the Shen family had many fields, they had enough labor, so Shen Yao didn't need to help. Neither Mrs. Wu nor Mrs. Xu ever restricted her. They even suggested that she go play with other children from time to time, but she just refused to go. She stayed at home writing and drawing every day, just like the little grandson of the Si family.