A Single Shard Read Online Free PDF Page A

the water completely to get rid of as much grime as he possibly could. It would never do to appear for his first working meal dressed in mud.
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    Min glanced briefly at the clay-filled cart. "You were long enough in returning," he said with a sniff. "I will not be able to do any more work until after my midday meal."
    He walked into the house, having said nothing about Tree-ear's food. But Tree-ear barely had time to wonder before Min's wife appeared in the doorway. She held out a parcel tied up in cloth.
    Tree-ear trotted to the door, resisting the impulse to snatch the parcel from her. He bowed his head and held out his hands, palms up and together, as was proper when accepting something.
    Min's wife placed the cloth package in his hands. "Eat well, work well," she said.
    A hot lump rose in Tree-ear's throat. He raised his head and saw in her eyes that she heard his thanks even though he could not speak the words.
    Tree-ear sat on a stone under the paulownia tree and untied the corners of the cloth. It held a gourd bowl filled with rice, whose whiteness was accented by a few dark shreds of savory dried fish and a little pile of
kimchee
— pickled cabbage vivid with seasonings of red pepper, green onions, and garlic. A pair of chopsticks was laid neatly across the top of the bowl.
    Tree-ear picked up the chopsticks and stared for a moment. Of one thing he was certain: The feast-day banquets in the palace of the King could never better the modest meal before him, for he had earned it.
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    Tree-ear carted another load of clay for Min that afternoon, then returned to the bridge where Crane-man had stewed some wild mushrooms for their supper. Tree-ear spoke eagerly about his work that day. It was not until Crane-man rose to gather the supper bowls that Tree-ear noticed something was missing.
    The crutch. Sure enough, after handing Tree-ear the bowls to wash, Crane-man sat down with his knife and a sturdy straight branch and began to whittle a new crutch. Tree-ear wiped out the bowls, stacked them neatly on their rock shelf, and finally asked, "What happened to the old one?"
    Crane-man paused in his work, then waved his knife impatiently. "Stupidity happened," he answered. "There was a run of flounder today."
    That was all he said, but Tree-ear heard much more. Although Ch'ulp'o was on the sea, it was a potters' village, not a fishing village. The men and boys seldom took time from their work to fish. Still, they all knew the useful skill of fishing, and the women and girls often gathered shellfish at low tide.
    A run of flounder meant that a school of the tasty fish had come into shore far closer than usual; the waves even tossed fish right up on the beach. Such news sent many scrambling for their bamboo poles. But one had to be among the first to run from the village down to the shore. The flounder found their way back out to sea soon enough, and the fish flopping about on the sand were scooped up only by the quickest.
    It had always been Tree-ear who skipped out to the beach at the first word of a flounder run, and he had never returned without a fat fish or two for a rare feast. Now he knew without asking that Crane-man had hobbled down to the beach and lurched about on the sand, so treacherous to his crutch, only to come away empty-handed.
    Crane-man shaved another curl of wood, then held the crutch up to his eye, squinting to check that its lines were true. "I was angry about not getting any fish," he said as he returned to his whittling, "so I struck my crutch against a rock. It broke, of course."
    A little pile of shavings had grown at Crane-man's feet. Tree-ear crouched and stirred the pile with his finger, too ashamed to look up. In his mind he saw Crane-man making his slow, painful way back from the beach, with only a broken crutch to help him. And no fish for his trouble. How was it that in enjoying his noontime meal Tree-ear had forgotten his friend? He should have saved some of the food for Crane-man. If it