The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim

down the main road! Can we go, please? Can we watch?”
    It took only a moment for her to decide. “Quickly! Get the flags. Call the servants!” Mother tied the baby onto her back and hurried down the street with Cook, Kira, Byungjo and me behind her unrolling our flags. We turned the corner and saw Joong sprinting toward us, all the spaces between his teeth visible in his big smile. He bowed to Mother and directed us to the next street. A parade passed through the intersection— a throng twenty times the size of a full church congregation. Men, women, boys and girls raised their arms in unison and shouted, “Man-se! Ten thousand years! Long live Korea’s independence!” We waved our flags, our arms raised high like flagpoles, and hurried to greet the crowd. Cook and Kira lifted their skirts to dash up the street. Soon we saw Father in the midst of the marchers, his old-fashioned sleeves flapping with each salute of Man-se! his face youthful and joyous as he kept chorus with the others. Mother untied the baby and lifted him high above her head, and Father saw them and waved vigorously.
    “Please, can I follow?” I asked. I felt flushed with everything lookinglively and bustling and full of energy—the mass of people with their forward pulsing march, the froth of white sleeves and skirts brilliant in the sunlight, like a tidal wave whose force would sweep aside all ills. “Look, there’s Sooyung from church, and look! His sister too! May I, please?”
    “No, what would your father think? Come now— Man-se!” The baby cried at the thunder of the crowd every time Mother hoisted him in unison with each Man-se! and the servants shouted and raised their arms. We marched alongside until the street narrowed, then watched the marchers turn the corner a few blocks ahead, waves of song and rallying cries fading, then swelling through cross alleys, then diminishing to echo in the wind. Road dust swirled in a sudden surprising silence. Mother wiped the baby’s face with bunting. “I’ll remember this momentous day for you, little son, so you’ll know what wonders you saw.”
    “Where are they going?” I waved my flag at the empty street.
    “Father will tell us about it when he returns. Oh! It’s a historic day for Korea!”
    I was too eager for Father’s return to sit and study in my stuffy room. I asked Cook how I could help prepare the celebration meal, and she sent me to gather fiddlehead ferns by the north wall.
    In the cool shade of tall pines, shafts of sun warmed the patch of neck between my braids, my hair absorbing the heat like a woolen scarf. I tied the front of my skirt to prevent it from dragging on the ground and stooped to pinch tender shoots, collecting them neatly in a basket, and carefully harvesting every other fern to reserve a crop for the following year. The ferns smelled dark and loamy. I roamed beyond the woods to the meadow by the brook where we did laundry in the summer, and found wild leeks and new dandelion greens. I plucked them and savored their green sharp smell on my fingertips, my cheeks sucking in as I anticipated the tangy salad Cook would make.
    When I returned to the house, the fruit trees in the courtyard cast long clawlike shadows at my feet. “Look what I found!” The basket thudded on the kitchen table.
    “Where have you been?” said Cook, her tone unnaturally sharp. “Your mother’s looking for you. Quick! Wash hands and go.”
    “Is Father back yet?”
    “Go on!”
    I dipped my hands in the washbowl and rushed to the women’s quarters, dripping water, my worried steps shaking the walls.
    “Najin-ah!” Mother called from her room. I helped untie the baby from her back, and he started to cry. Mother pointed to a pile of clothes, brown and yellow with road dirt. “Take the baby and give those to Kira to wash right away. She’s to lay them out in Joong’s room to dry. Ask Cook to bring more hot water and clean rags to Father’s room.”
    “What