When I was a child, I grew up in the countryside of Northeast China. When I was about to go to elementary school, I caught up with the educated youth who could return to the city. My mother was an educated youth who went to the countryside. After discussing with my father, she decided to give the job quota to my father. My father used to be a barefoot doctor in the village. After reporting, the quota was directly allocated to the medical system, so my father naturally became a doctor in the town health center. When our family moved there, the hospital gave us two bungalows as a transition. It happened that there was a dean who was parachuted in and didn’t have a house either. The hospital leaders decided to build two houses on a vacant lot in the backyard of the hospital and give them to our two families. At that time, there was no construction team. Neighbors came to help, and then they found carpenters and bricklayers who knew the technology to be responsible for the technical control and guidance of the main building. The house was built in a few months. Our two houses were built together. The load-bearing wall in the middle was one, and the beam was also a whole. Except for a half-person-high brick wall between the two houses, we were almost like a family.
The difference is that the road leading out of his house is next to the brick wall near my house, while my family built a warehouse at the same height as the brick wall to store wood and some sundries for winter heating. The roof of the warehouse is covered with tarpaulin, and it has a slope so that rainwater can flow away. Since the height is not high, not long after we moved in, the roof of the warehouse became the territory of a yellow dog raised by the neighbor. It lay on it to rest every day, and then it would bark alertly no matter which of the two families had strangers. Our two families have always lived like a family. When my family makes something delicious, we must send a plate over, and when the neighbor makes dumplings, they will also send a plate to our family. The little yellow dog is also familiar with both sides, so the two yards will go around at will.
In this way, after a few years, the little yellow dog grew up to be an old yellow dog, and continued to lie on the roof of the warehouse to watch over the two families every day, until one day when we came home from school, we strangely found that it was not on the roof, and it did not go around the two yards. At first, no one felt anything, but when it did not appear the next day, we began to worry, so the two families looked for it everywhere. Neighbors also helped to look for the dog, but after a few days, there was still no news, and everyone felt something was wrong. It happened that there were many dog thefts during that period.
After ten days or so, we sadly believed that the old yellow dog had been stolen and eaten.
About twenty days later, one morning, we got up and went to the yard to find in surprise that the old yellow dog was lying on the roof of the warehouse. Its fur was extremely dirty and tangled in some places. It also looked listless. The neighbor lady was so happy that she quickly started to give it a bath. However, the old yellow dog, which used to like playing in water, refused to do so this time. Upon closer inspection, we found blood on its legs. My father and the neighbor were both doctors and were very familiar with dealing with these things. They cut off the dirty fur, and after washing with alcohol, they found several obvious wounds. After comparing them, the neighbor grandfather concluded that the dog was pierced by a four-pronged fork. Considering that the old yellow dog had been missing for a month, the grandfather judged that the dog was stolen and raised somewhere else, and ran away before he could kill it. As a result, it was injured during the chase. The old yellow dog dragged its injured leg for an unknown distance before it found its home. When the neighbors heard about it, they all rushed over and sighed.
Later, the old yellow dog continued to guard the house as usual. It became a hero in the eyes of the children around us. Until I left home to attend junior high school in the county, it would welcome me happily every time I came back. When I was in the second year of junior high school, I came back one summer vacation and didn’t see the old yellow dog coming out to welcome me. My mother told me that the old yellow dog was old and injured. Not long ago, he died on the roof of my warehouse at night. I was sad for a long time. I had the idea of raising a dog several times later, but thinking of the old yellow dog, I gave up!
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