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The Peanut
Xu Dishan
At the back of our house there was half a mu of unused land. “It’s a pity to let it lie idle like that,” Mother said. “Since you all enjoy eating peanuts, let us open it up and make it a peanut garden.” At that my brother, sister and I were all delighted and so were the young housemaids. And then some went to buy seeds, some began to dig up the ground and others watered it and, in a couple of months, we had a harvest!
“Let us have a party tonight to celebrate,” Mother suggested, “and ask Dad to join us for a taste of our fresh peanuts. What do you say?” We all agreed, of course. Mother cooked the peanuts in a variety of styles and told us to go to the thatched pavilion in the garden for the celebration.
The weather was not very good that night but, to our great delight, Father came all the same.
“Do you like peanuts?” Father asked.
“Yes!” We all answered eagerly.
“But who can tell me what the peanut is good for?”
“It is very delicious to eat,” my sister took the lead.
“It is good for making oil,” my brother followed.
“It is inexpensive,” I said. “Almost everyone can afford it and everyone enjoys eating it. I think this is what is good for.”
“Peanut is good for many things,” Father said, “but there is one thing that is particularly good about it. Unlike apples, peaches and pomegranates that display their fruits up in the air, attracting you with their beautiful colors, peanut buries its fruit in the earth. It does not show itself until you dig it out when it is ripe and, unless you dig it out, you can’t tell it bears fruit or not just by its frail stem quivering above ground.”
“That’s true,” we all said and Mother nodded her assent, too. “So you should try to be like the peanut,” Father went on, “because it is useful, though not great or attractive.”
“Do you mean,” I asked, “we should learn to be useful but not seek to be great or attractive?”
“Yes,” Father said. “This is what I expect of you.”
We stayed up late that night, eating all the peanuts Mother had cooked for us. But father’s words remained vivid in my memory till this day.
（劉世聰 譯）
