As soon as the boy saw the girl beside the stream, he realized that she must be the great-granddaughter of Master Yun. She had her hands in the water and was splashing it about. Probably she had never seen a stream like that in Seoul.

She had been playing with the water in the same manner for several days now, on the way home from school. Until the previous day she had played at the edge of the stream, but today she is right in the middle of the stepping-stones.

The boy sat down on the bank. He decided to wait until she got out of the way.

As it happened, someone came along and she made way.

The next day, he arrived at the stream a little later. This time he found her washing her face, sitting there in the middle of the stepping-stones. In contrast to her pink jumper with its sleeves rolled up, the nape of her neck was very white.

After washing her face for a while, she stares intently into the water. She must be looking at her reflection. She makes a sudden grab at the water. Perhaps some baby fish were swimming by.

There is no knowing if the girl is aware or not of the boy sitting on the bank as she goes on making nimble grabs at the water. But each time to no effect. She simply keeps grabbing at the water as if for the sheer fun of it. It looks as though she will only get out of the way if there’s someone crossing the stream, as on the previous day.

Then she plucks something from the water. It was a white pebble. After that, she stands up and goes skipping lightly across the stepping-stones.

Once across, she turns round : " Hey, you."

The white pebble came flying over.

The boy found himself standing up.

Shaking her bobbed hair, she goes running off. She took the path between the reed beds. Then there was nothing but pale reed heads shining bright in the clear autumn sunlight.

The girl would soon reappear on the far side of the reeds. Then he began to think she was taking a long time. Still she did not appear. He stood on tiptoe. And he began to think she was taking an extremely long time.

Far away on the other side of the patch of reeds, a bunch of reeds was moving. The girl was hugging the reeds.  Now she was walking slowly. The exceptionally bright sunshine shone on the girl’s reed-like hair. It was as if a reed, not the girl, was walking across the fields.

The boy remains standing there until that reed can no longer be seen. Suddenly he looked down at the pebble she had thrown at him. The moisture had dried. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.