But Cheng returned to his mother's home in Taoyuan for summer and winter vacations. "When I went back to the countryside," he says, "I'd do just about every kind of farmwork save ox-riding--seeding the fields, transplanting the plants to the paddies, and even making fertilizer from the stocks and fertilizing the soil with it by stamping it into the ground."
由於舅舅膝下無子，在外祖母親自出面斡旋下，鄭清文過繼給舅舅，但寒暑假還是常回桃園生母家，「每次回鄉下，除了駛牛的工作，幾乎所有的農事都做過；播田、刈稻外，還拗稻子、踩稻頭。」