hadow and sunlight that striped the bare board
floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level with
theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably into
the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a
quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper, the
other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the
window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the
fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant,
awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is, but the
creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the
kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts
of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them,
and mortals turned to stone!

Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen
gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A
shudder ran through the motionless room.

"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook,
and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor.

"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with
terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness."

Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and
hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of
the house and the planting of the tall black cypress trees around it, a
hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen
gods.

Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve.

"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into
the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us."

Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned. His
eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so
afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the
tighter.

"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith.
How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen
gods. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them."

Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster gods into her hands as
one would give a toy to a child.

"They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in
this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but pain