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the village to deliver this good news to some of her friends.
    â€œThe widow said rice is abandoned in heaps and piles on the street for anyone to take, but it won’t last too long if everybody swarms there,” Chandol’s mother said. “Don’t you think we should hurry and take our share before it’s too late?”
    Ollye glanced over at the rice jar buried in a dark corner of the kitchen. The rice remaining in the jar was only one knuckle deep. What would she feed Mansik and her three-year-old daughter Nanhi during the long cold season?
    â€œMansik,” she called. “You go into the room and tie Nanhi to the door handle. I’ll put away the cooked rice so that we can have breakfast when we come back.”
    â€œCome back?” Mansik said.
    â€œWe are going to town. Hurry.”
    â€œI guess I’ll take my boy along with me, too,” said Chandol’s mother.
    The word that the miller’s wife and her widowed neighbor had brought rice from the granary got around among the Kumsan villagers. By the time Ollye, Chandol’s mother and the two boys went to the ferry, a small throng of villagers was waiting for the boat to come back from the island. The crowd increased as time passed and the boatman had to skip his breakfast because of the women constantly howling at him to hurry. More than twenty Kumsan women had brought rice home from town before breakfast, and by this time the news had reached Hyonam and Castle, too. The boatman was furious because nobody listened to him when he shouted that it was dangerous for them to rush into the boat all at the same time, that the boat would capsize and sink if anybody else came aboard, that he had to stop to take a breath for five minutes, just five minutes.
    Except for some young boys, however, very few male villagers joined this column of human ants making trips to the granary. Men were hesitant to go to town for two reasons. First, the farmers feared that they might encounter the Communist soldiers, who, it was rumored, recruited every man in sight under sixty to join the People’s Army to fight against the pursuing World Army. The Communists executed anyone resisting the conscription order on the spot. The other reason they were reluctant to go was that a proud man would not do certain things, such as begging or stealing, even if he starved to death. They knew the rice was abandoned on the street, but they did not want anybody to see them taking Communist rice. They stayed home and pretended that they did not notice their wives going to town.
    Women did not care about pride or dignity, because only men were supposed to possess these qualities. Women could not afford to starve to death on account of anything as absurd as honor.
    When Ollye, Chandol’s mother and the two boys reached Chunchon Railroad Station, the townspeople were swarming around the National Grange storehouse like bees collecting around peeled persimmons spread on a mattress to dry. More than half the rice was already gone. Mansik glanced at the column of people streaming back and forth along the road. Most of them were heading back to the town. The whole column looked like one big golden centipede moving away from the granary, only moving legs visible under the straw sacks, hemp bags or large vessels being carried on heads or backs. Some families were loading sacks on the small carts they had brought, and some women, for whom a rice sack was too heavy, charged into the turbulent granary with kitchen knives in their hands, stabbed open the bulging stomach of a straw sack, and let the white rice pour out of the opening into their baskets or bags. Inside the granary it was as noisy as a night pond alive with mating frogs in summer. Young and old women scooped and stuffed the rice into their pails and buckets, bamboo and wicker baskets, their legs sunk in grain up to their shins.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for? Fill your bag quickly!” shouted