Little Long Legs

This is a life story with the flavor of days gone by.

Amid the bustle of the last century, Xiuying grew up listening to the neighbors’ chatter. She never had many fine meals or traveled far, but her tireless legs had carried her over life’s hardships from an early age, and she learned the survival skills of an entire generation of ordinary people by heart. To make ends meet, she worked in a factory, ran a small business, and tended to her own little corner of the world. From morning till night, her legs carried her through wind and sun, and she never once complained of being tired.

Later, Xiuying married and moved into a ground-floor apartment in the county town, and life grew even more mundane and practical. Her husband worked hard away from home while their child gradually grew up. She became the backbone of the family, bustling about inside and out, laboring from top to bottom. With her hardworking hands and ceaseless footsteps, she kept the warmth in the home alive.

This is no legendary tale, just the true course of Xiuying slowly growing old with the passing years: there was hardship, exhaustion, and hurt, as well as those tender moments too subtle to put into words.