Two years passed.

It happened that during neither of those years' Mid-autumn Festivals,when the moon should have been at its fullest,was there any moon to be seen.None of the exploits of young girls and boys singing love songs to each other all night under the moonlight,customary in this border town,could take place.Hence the two Mid-autumn Festivals had made only a very faint impression on Cuicui.But during the last two New Year's celebrations,she could see soldiers and villagers put on lion dances and processions of dragon lanterns on the parade grounds to welcome in the spring.The sound of the drums and gongs was exciting and raucous.At the end of the festival on the evening of the ffreenth of the first month,the garrison soldiers who had frolicked inside the lions and dragons traveled all over,bare-chested,brav- ing the fireworks.At the army encampment in town,at the residence of the head customs inspector,and in some of the

bigger establishments on River Street,everyone cut thin bam-

boos or hollowed out palm tree roots and stems,then mixed

saltpeter with sulfur,charcoal,and steel powder to make

thousand-pop frecrackers.Daring and fun-loving soldiers,

stripped to the waist,came waving their lanterns and beating

their drums as packs oflittle firecrackers dangling from poles

sent sparks down their backs and shoulders like rain show-

ers.The quickening beat of drums and gongs sent the crowd

into a frenzy.When the bursts of firecrackers were over,the

crowd fired rockets from great tubes anchored to the fet of

long benches,setting them off with fuses that extended into

an open field.First came a white light with a sizle.Slowly.

slowly,the sizzle changed into a great howl,like a frightening

clap of thunder and the roar of a tiger,as the white light shot

p two hundred feet into the air.Then it showered the whole

sky with multicolored sparks thick as droplets of rain.The

soldiers brandishing lanterns went around in circles,oblivi-

ous to the sparks.Cuicui witnessed this excitement with her

grandfather and it made an impression on her,but inexplica-

bly,it was not as sweet and beautiful as that left by the day of

the dragon boats two years before

Unable to forget that day,Cuicui had gone back to River

Street with her grandpa the year before and watched the

boats for some timc.Just when everything was going fine,

it suddenly began to rain,soaking everyone to the bone.To

escape the rain,grandfather and granddaughter,with the yel-

low dog,had gone up into Shunshun's stilt house,where they crowded into a corner.Someone passed by them carrying a stool;Cuicui recognized him as the man with the torch who had led her home.She said to her grandfather:

“Grandfather,that's the man who brought me home last year.Walking along the path with a torch like that,he was just like a highwayman!"

At first Grandpa said nothing,but when the man turned his head and approached,the ferryman grabbed him and said,grinning widely,

“Hey,there,you old highwayman,I asked you to stay for a drink but you wouldn't stay put Were you afraid of poison? Did you think I dared to slay a true-born Son of Heaven?”

When the man saw that it was the ferryman,and then caught sight of Cuicui,he grinned.“Cuicui,how you've grown!No.2 said a big fish might eat you if you stayed by the riverbank,but our river docsn't have any fish big cnough to swallow you now!”

Cuicui said not a word.She puckered her lips and smiled.

She heard this old highwayman speak No.2's name, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.From the conversation between her grandfather and the other elder,Cuicui gath- ered that No.2 was spending the Dragon Boat Festival two hundred miles downstrcam,at the Qinglang or Green Foam Rapids of the River Yuan.But this festival she got to see No.1 and also the famous Shunshun.The old ferryman praised a fat

duck that No.1 brought home after catching it on the river;

praised it twice,so Shunshun told him to give it to Cuicui.

And when he learned how hard up their houschold was-too

poor to wrap their own zongzi dumplings for the festival—he

gave them a big lot of the three-cornered treats

While that norable of the waterways conversed with her

giandfather,Cuicui pretended to be looking at the events in

the river,but really she was taking in every word.The other

man said that Cuicui had grown quite beautiful.He asked

her age,and whether she was promised to anyone.Her grand-

father gleefully bragged about her,but seemed reluctant to

broach the topic of her martiage prospects.He didn't breathe

a word about that

On the way home,Grandpa carried the white duck and

other goods,while Cuicui led the way with a torch.The two

made their way along the foot of the city wall,between the

wall and the river.Grandpa said:“Shunshun is a good man,

extremely generous.No.1 is like him.The whole family is

quite fine!”Cuicui asked,“Do you know everyone in the

family?”Grandpa didn't see what she was driving at.The

day had raised his spirits so much that he went ahead and

asked,smiling,“Cuicui,if No.1 wanted to take you as his

wife and sent over a matchmaker,would you agree?”Cuicui

replied,"Grandfather,youite crazy!Keep on like this and Tll

get angry!”

Grandpa said no more,but clearly he was still mulling

over this silly and inopportune idea.Cuicui,aggravated,ran up ahead,swinging the torch wildly from side to side.

“Don't be angry,Cuicui,I might fall into the river.This duck might get away!”

“Who wants that old duck?”

Realizing why she was angry,Grandpa began singing a shanty the oarsmen used to speed their rowing while they shot the rapids.His voice was rasping,but the words were clear as could be.Cuicui kepr going as she listened,then sud- denly stopped and asked:

“Grandfather,is that boat of yours going down the Green Foam Rapids?”

Grandpa didn't answer,he just kept on singing.Both of them recalled that Shunshun's No.2 was spending the holi- day on a boat at the Green Foam Rapids,but neither knew what the other was implying.Grandfather and granddaugh- ter walked home in silence.As they neared the ferry,the man tending the boat for them brought it to the bank to await their arrival.They crossed the stream to go home,then ate the zongzi.When it came time for the man to go back to town, Cuicui was quick to light a torch for him so he could see his way home.As he crossed over the hill,Cuicui and her grand- father watched him from the boat.She said,

“Grandfather;look,the highwayman has gone back into the hills!”

As he pulled the boat along the cable,his eyes trained on

the mistthat had suddenly come up from the stream,Grandpa

acted as if he'd seen something and softly sighed.He quietly

tugged the boat toward home on the opposite bank and let

Cuicui go ashore first,while he stayed by the boat.It was a

festival day.He knew that country folk would still be return-

ing home in the dark afrer seeing the dragon boats in town.