Chapter III: Part 3

"Father dear," she said, turning his head with a chubby hand on each side of his chin. "Father dear, I'm so glad you have come home. Now you must look right at me for I've something very 'portant to tell you. Father, a monkey"--her eyes got big and round, "a monkey jumped down from the tree---- Oh, father! What funny eyes you've got!" and she stopped her story with a little squeal to look at his eyes which he had made very round in imitation of her own when she had mentioned the monkey. Then not satisfied with just looking at such "funny" eyes, Marjory pulled them up at the corners to see how they would look that way. After a moment's critical survey, she shook her head and went on with her story. "The monkey jumped down from a tree. Ayah had just given me a piece of cake and---- Why, father, what a pretty necktie you've got! I never saw that one before." With pats and pulls she spent some time endeavouring to arrange the "pretty necktie" before going on with her story. "And,"--she began again with a lingering look at her last twist at the tie, "that monkey jumped down from the tree right at me and grabbed my cake and ran away."

She paused again and inspected her sleepy looking father. "I b'lieve," she said as her eye ran slowly up and down her father's white-clad figure, "I b'lieve I'd like monkeys better if they wore white. Do monkeys ride on railway trains? Did they keep you awake last night as they did mother? You look so sleepy, father dear, that I am sure they did."

Mr. Burbanks, somewhat awakened by the incongruous remarks of his daughter, laughed and said, "I've never met a monkey on a railway train yet. But weren't you afraid of the one you saw?"

"Oh, yes. I cried and ran to mother but I'm not afraid any more now for mother said you wouldn't let them hurt me." And Marjory cuddled down in his arms.

"See, there is one in that tree there now and I'm not afraid," she said after a moment and, raising her head from his arm, pointed towards a tree a little to the right, where was a large monkey jumping from bough to bough with a tiny baby monkey clinging fearlessly beneath her.

The father and the little girl watched the monkey and her baby with great interest until the ayah came and took Marjory in to bed.

Throughout dinner and the evening Mrs. Burbanks told of their troubles with the monkeys during her husband's absence and urged him to do something to drive them away.

But at the close of the evening all the satisfaction she received was this very masculine reply to all of her urgings: "You are simply nervous over them. I don't believe they will do any harm. In fact they seem to me to be rather interesting creatures. That one out there on the lawn this afternoon appeared perfectly harmless and playful. Besides they are sacred animals and we might make the Hindus very angry if we should touch them." And with a yawn Mr. Burbanks started for bed.

When Mrs. Burbanks saw that all of her conversation had not impressed her husband with the urgency of the situation, unusual woman that she was, she said no more, but wisely left the matter to time. Even when they were awakened at an early hour the next morning, she did not say a word, but listened with relish to the remarks which issued from the curtained bed beside her own.

Since Mr. Burbanks' departure his wife had paid no attention to his office, as her servants could be trusted to keep things clean and in order. Therefore, when he came to her a little later in the morning with complaints about the condition of his desk, she was extremely annoyed. His inkstand had been tipped over; his blotting-pad was torn; his pens were lying scattered about the room; and the books on the table were all in confusion. The servants declared that all had been in perfect order the night before. The ayah said that Marjory had not entered the room. So Mrs. Burbanks, after inspecting the strange confusion, was about to leave the room in perplexity when she chanced to glance at one of the high windows. Quickly, with a smile upon her lips and a twinkle in her eye, she motioned to her husband to come from the veranda where he had retired after finding the disorder in his study. His eyes followed hers to the window and there he saw a monkey watching them intently from the small window sill.

"Don't stare at him or he may spring at you," cautioned Mrs. Burbanks. "Monkeys are just the opposite to most animals. You cannot treat one or control him in the same way, for it angers him to have you look him in the eye. The servants all tell me that."

As they turned away, the bearer entered the room. To his wife's amusement, Mr. Burbanks addressed him fretfully. "Boy, can't you drive these monkeys away? They are beginning to be a nuisance."

"Me touch a monkey!" The usually obedient boy raised his hands in horror.

During the dialogue the monkey had scuttled away. So the high window was closed by the long bamboo pole, for--"The monkeys must be kept out even if the ventilation is interfered with," said the head of the house.

After breakfast the post brought a package of home letters and, although it was the middle of the morning, Mr. Burbanks took a while off, after his week of strenuous work, to listen to home news. He laid himself in a comfortable chair preparatory to listening to his wife's reading, for he always preferred to hear her comments and exclamations as she read aloud than to read the letters himself. Mrs. Burbanks seated herself at the table beside him and, although a young woman, put out her hand to take up the reading glasses which invariably lay by her sewing basket.

"Why, my glasses aren't here!" she exclaimed in a tone of annoyance.

A search followed but no glasses could be found. After a while, in despair, Mrs. Burbanks handed the letters to her husband and prepared to be herself the listener, a situation which neither really enjoyed. But scarcely had Mr. Burbanks reached the second page of the first letter when an exclamation of surprise from his wife stopped the reading and he found her looking with laughing eyes at a spot high up on the wall. There, hanging by the bows from the moulding, were the spectacles. With one voice the two exclaimed: "A monkey!"

The boy was called and the spectacles were soon rescued from the dangerous place where they had evidently been hung with great care, for they were uninjured.

Although this was but a trifling incident, Mr. Burbanks was disturbed by the impertinence of the "ugly beasts." But his wife made no comments on the encounters of the morning, going on with her work in silence, although she had to hang her head to hide her smiling lips at some of his muttered remarks when he returned from an attempt to clear up the papers on his office desk. One valuable document was badly blotted with ink and a letter of the greatest importance he had been able to read only after patching together the torn bits gathered from the rug.

Mr. Burbanks was plainly annoyed but his annoyance grew to fear in the early afternoon when, in passing by the dining-room door, he happened to look in. Marjory had slipped into her mother's chair and with a big napkin around her neck was about to eat a luscious guava which lay on the plate before her. Mr. Burbanks was just on the point of calling out something in play to his little daughter, when a quick motion on the wall behind her attracted his attention. Afraid to move or speak for fear of bringing greater danger to the child, the father watched in silence. An immense monkey slid down the wall and jumped into the chair beside the little girl, with his eye on the fruit before her. The child, frightened, shooed with her handkerchief at the beast, who, turning his eyes upon her, showed his teeth and snarled. The man held his breath; but the child, shoving the plate of fruit towards the animal quickly slipped from her chair and ran, unharmed, out of the room. In a second the monkey had seized the guava and was gone through the high window.

That was the last straw. No one could live in such danger! Mr. Burbanks went back to his study and called the boy, but he did not tell his wife what he had seen.

"Can you drive the monkeys away?" he asked the boy again.

"Me no touch monkeys. Me afraid. Monkeys belong gods," was the reply he received.

The gentleman could see that no help was to be had from his servants and he realized that he himself must move cautiously or he might bring the wrath of the Hindu city upon him. Therefore he thought the matter over carefully and decided that first of all after it had become dark he would fire off his pistol and perhaps frighten the monkeys away without harming them. So, as soon as night had come and all were in bed, he told his wife what he intended to do. She was overjoyed at his quick conversion to her views, for she did not know even then of Marjory's experience, as the child, soon forgetting it in her play, had not mentioned it to her mother.

Mr. Burbanks stepped out upon the roof and after a moment's pause fired his pistol into a clump of trees at a little distance from the bungalow. A sharp, shrill, almost human cry came from the tree and then all was still. Even the chokidar, already asleep, did not seem to have heard the shot.

"Well, I've killed one, I guess," Mr. Burbanks said as he came back into the room. "That is too bad! I hope the natives won't mind. But it is over now and we need not worry. If they do make a fuss we will just have to face the music, that's all. Probably it will drive the animals away effectually, if one of them is killed. I most sincerely hope so."

There was quiet throughout the night, although Mrs. Burbanks lay awake listening for trouble as women will. But in the early morning, just as she had at last fallen into a light sleep, they were both awakened by the usual noise of running and jumping on the roof. With an exclamation of great annoyance Mr. Burbanks sprang up and opened the shutters of the door. He stood there in silence for a minute before he spoke again and then he called his wife softly to come and look out. There, on the roof, stood a female monkey and before her lay a tiny, baby monkey, dead, with a hole in its breast. The mother patted it with her paw; she stroked it; then she ran around it and jumped up and down as if to attract its attention. Then she took it up and put its arms about her and started to spring away, evidently expecting it to cling beneath her as it had always done; but the little thing fell limply back upon the roof. Again and again the mother tried, with the infinite patience of a mother. But finally, with a cry of despair, she picked the baby up in her arms and, squatting down, rocked to and fro, moaning and moaning. The servant, bringing up the chota hazri, made a noise at the foot of the stairs. The monkey, with an almost human look of woe, glanced around at the sound and the Burbanks, watching from the shuttered door, saw the agonized expression on her face, as she sprang to her feet and with the dead baby still clasped tightly in her arms leaped away among the tree tops.

With tears in her eyes Mrs. Burbanks turned to her husband. "You won't shoot another, will you?"

"No, my dear, we'll move before I use the gun again. But it seemed to be a choice between her baby and mine and, of course, I am glad that it was hers," Mr. Burbanks replied. Then he told his wife of Marjory's experience.

But the Burbanks did not have to move, for the monkeys disappeared. Since her parents never told Marjory why they had gone, she watched for them for a long time and ate her cakes in haste lest "a naughty monkey might snatch 'em."

One day a short time after their disappearance Marjory received a present from her father of a little black dog. When she playfully asked him why he had bought her the dog, expecting that he would say because she had been such a good girl, he said, "Because monkeys are afraid of dogs."

"Why, how funny!" she exclaimed. "You bought me a mongoose because snakes are afraid of mongooses and now I have a dog because monkeys are afraid of dogs. What pet will you buy me next, father dear?"

"I will have to live in India a little longer before I can answer that question, my daughter." And, wondering what unexpected danger would next assail his child in this strange land, he swung her up on his shoulder and, as it was sunset, carried her tenderly into the house to her waiting ayah, followed by the dog--a tiny, but sufficient guard against the encroachments of the tribe of Haunamon.

VII

In Ways Mysterious

I

The bare audience room of old Boyle Avenue Church was almost empty; only a few of those who had been present at the afternoon service still lingered, one little knot by the door, another near the altar rail. This is not the church where the real Europeans meet to worship God, you know, nor is it even one of the worshipping places of the semi-European population of Bombay. It is the oldest building of our mission property and belongs to our native church. It is, therefore, all the church home to-day that three separate congregations can boast, our Marathi, Gujarati, and Hindustani congregations.

It is a big, barn-like building situated in a thickly populated part of the city which, just now, is largely occupied by Parsis. But although it is old and bare and far away from most of our native converts, they travel the long distances from their various quarters and attend its services faithfully.

I tell you my heart glowed that afternoon as I sat upon the platform and saw that room filled to overflowing. Not only were the wooden benches crowded, but people sat in the aisles and stood around the walls. Our Sunday afternoon congregation is usually just the Marathis only, and does not occupy more than a third of the room, but this day it was a union service of all our people to be conducted in two languages only, as the Marathi and Hindustani languages are near enough alike to be intelligible to both. And why was this great meeting held? That was what thrilled me I suppose and broke me all up so that when it came my turn to speak, I really just couldn't and stood there like a big baby and cried. But the folk were kind to me and joined me in my tears and when all I could falter was, "Good-bye, God bless you all!" they just fell upon their knees and such prayers went up for my speedy restoration to health and return to India that by the time we rose from our knees I felt better already.

They did not ask me to say anything more from the platform, but at the close of the service men, women, and children gathered about me for a last personal word. You see my health had failed because of the climate of Northwest India and because of the burdens that each of our missionaries has to bear (this isn't complaint, but just fact) and so I had been ordered home. That part wasn't bad, for the prospects of seeing home again, that meant America, looked pretty good to me! Think of seeing a snow-bank after the one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade in which I had scorched for years! Think of drinking cool, unboiled water right from the tap, and all you wanted of it! Think of being able to eat fresh, uncooked vegetables without fear of cholera! Think of being able to do all those things which are so delectable at home but so foolhardy in India! The going home part was all right but the part that wasn't all right---- It's hard to talk about that part. The doctors said that I probably could never go back to India! Never go back to India again! Never go back to the people and work I loved! I tell you it took all the manhood I had to meet that blow with a smiling face and turn the other cheek.

But I started to tell you, not about myself at all, but about Shama Bhana. As I sat on the platform that afternoon I singled out his face among those of the men standing by the windows at the right nearest the altar. Shama Bhana is a Brahmin and when I have said that I have told you that he is a man of proud, distinguished appearance and with an intellectual capacity of the highest order that India boasts. I have neglected to say that Shama Bhana is a rich Brahmin.

I had known this man for several years and we were good friends. I had talked religion with him by the hour and I felt that he believed in Christ and in our faith. But I had never been able to bring him one inch, as it seemed to me, towards forsaking his old faith and accepting ours publicly. As I saw his face there that afternoon and knew that he had come to say good-bye to me, perhaps forever, I longed to hear him confess Christ before I left India. I longed to know that he had thrown his wonderful powers upon the side of our warfare in that country where his influence would be so great.

The meeting came to an end at last and the crowd that had gathered to say good-bye to the sahib and to wish him "Godspeed" had done so and were gone to their homes, all but two little companies of people still gathered in the church, as I have said before.

In all my farewells I kept my eye on Shama Bhana and I noticed that he was still in the little group by the door. Finally I managed to separate myself from the company near the altar rail and started towards the door. Shama Bhana did not come to meet me but I saw him step a little aside from the others as if giving me a chance to speak to him privately. I availed myself of the opportunity at once.

I went directly to him, holding out my hand, and, Brahmin though he was, he took it, his eyes full of tears.

"Sahib, it breaks our hearts to have you go," he said simply.

"Shama Bhana," I replied, "it breaks my heart to go without having heard you confess the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour."

He looked at me without a start or quiver just as if he had been expecting me to say that very thing. "Shama Bhana," I went on, looking straight into his face and into his eyes, which steadily returned my look, "Shama Bhana, you do believe in Jesus Christ, do you not?"

"Sahib, no longer will I refuse to answer that question to you, since you are going away from us, perhaps forever. Sahib, I believe in Jesus Christ. There is nothing in Hinduism or Brahminism that can compare with His life and character. There is nothing that can compare with His teachings. I believe in God, the Father, and in Jesus Christ, the Son; and I love them, as you, Sahib, have taught me to do."

My heart swelled with joy and gratitude.

"Then will you confess your faith and your love?" I asked him, hoping that I might see him baptized before I sailed for I coveted him for the work in Bombay.

His face clouded. "That, Sahib, I cannot do. I have confessed to you, knowing that you will not tell what I have told you here in India. But I cannot acknowledge my faith to any one else."

Could it be that I had put too great confidence in this man's courage and strength? I was disappointed but I could scarcely credit my own disappointment and I probed deeper.

"Is it that you fear to lose your material possessions, Shama Bhana, that you fail to claim the spiritual ones?" I asked him.

He drew himself up and looked at me in righteous scorn. "Yes, if I should confess my belief in Christ, I would lose my wealth, and it is great; but what would I care for that! I am young. I am strong. I could earn my way and my family would not starve. No, Sahib, it is not the fear of the loss of money that hinders me." But as he saw the troubled look upon my face, he added, "I will tell all, Sahib, and then you yourself shall judge if I could act otherwise.

"Sahib, I have a mother. You have never seen her for you cannot enter our homes as your wives can, but the memsahib has met her. That mother knows that I have talked long and earnestly with you. She knows that I have read much of the doctrine. She knows, too, that I no longer make offerings to the idols, and she fears that my heart inclines to this new creed. Sahib, my mother a short time ago took me out into our courtyard and pointed to the well that is in the middle of the square. She said to me, 'Shama Bhana, my son, the day you become a Christian, that day I will throw myself down that well.' And, Sahib, she would do it!"

And I knew that she would. I could say nothing. I could only look at him with love and sympathy in my heart.

"And, Sahib, that is not all," he continued. "I have a beautiful wife and a son, as fair as your own, Sahib. I love my wife. I love my son. But, Sahib, the day I confess Christ publicly these two, whom I love more than life, will be taken from me and I shall never see them again.

"Sahib, would Jesus Christ wish me to cause the suicide of my mother and the separation from me forever of my wife and child? It is these two things and these only that keep me from public confession and baptism."

I could answer nothing. I could only hold his hand and say, "Pray, Shama Bhana; Christ alone can tell you your duty. And He will make it plain to you, if you leave it all to Him. I will pray for you too as long as I live or, if it may please God to permit it, until I see you again here in Bombay."

With the hand-clasp of brothers we parted: he, a Christian in heart but a Brahmin by profession, went home to his wife and boy and the old mother, strong in her faith; and I came to the homeland. I haven't told you his real name nor can I and keep faith with him, for, although Bombay is thousands of miles away, words when once spoken may travel far. But I have told you a true story. May I add a happy conclusion to at least one part of the theme? I am going back to India! Thank God! My health has been restored. When I reach Bombay shall I find Shama Bhana still a Brahmin or a confessed follower of Christ? That is the question that is on my heart.

II

Well, well, well! To think that I should actually have you with me here in Bombay! Why, I can hardly believe it is real! Don't I look well and strong? That doctor at home almost worked miracles for me with his medicines. My, but it's good to be back in the harness again! The pull has to be long and steady and sometimes the straps rub or the collar galls or the load drags heavily, but it's great work. I am keeping well, too, and I'm happier than three years ago I thought I would ever be again in this world.

What, man, you've only one day to give me in Bombay? And then you've got to race on or that business venture will fall through! Oh, these globe-encircling Americans who try to see the world and its sight as do birds on the wing! Why, this is only an aggravation, Dick! I'd almost rather you wouldn't have come at all than to give me just one day.

No, you aren't going back either! You know that I didn't really mean what I said, for just the sight of your face has done me a world of good already and before the day is over I will show you some sights which I dare say will do your heart good. But in the meantime, I warn you, I shall talk every minute of the time to make up for all the days that I can't have you.

Let me see--we'll go first to visit our day-schools and call upon our preachers; then we'll drop into Boyle Avenue Church for a prayer-meeting; then we'll go to see Shama Bhana; and this evening I'll take you to a street service. It all sounds prosaic, perhaps, because I've used hackneyed American terms, but for a man who has been but one day in India there won't be anything prosaic about it.

Do you remember, Dick, what I told you men back home last year about Shama Bhana, the man we're going to see this afternoon?

It will be quite a long story to tell you how it came out but I will, for we've got quite a little car ride ahead of us to reach Parel where we are going first to see such a school as you never laid eyes on before, half-naked children in a palm-leaf hut. But let me tell you, those children know more Scripture than your boy and girl do, I am sure.

Well, about Shama Bhana. You know I told you that before I left for home he had confessed to me privately that he believed in Christ but he could not be baptized because his mother threatened to commit suicide on the day he should become a Christian and because on that same day his wife and child would be taken from him forever. All I could do was to tell him to continue in prayer and that God would lead him.

About six months after I had left Bombay, very suddenly Shama Bhana's mother died. That very day, before the funeral rites had been performed, Shama Bhana appeared at Deal's door and asked for baptism. Of course Deal did not know much about the case, as his work is largely with the Marathis; so he had to go all over the situation with the Brahmin and make proof of his belief and sincerity.

His belief seemed genuine and when it came to a proof of his sincerity, Shama Bhana told his story. "Now my mother is dead," he concluded. "I could not come before, for it would have been murder and that is forbidden in the Bible. She died but an hour ago and I came at once."

"Will you lose your property now?" asked Deal.

"Oh, yes. I will not have an anna above what I now carry in my purse. But that is no hardship."

"Will they turn you out of the household at once?" Deal went on, needlessly probing deeper into the fresh wounds in the man's heart, but poor Deal did not seem to understand.

"That is practically done already, Sahib," the Brahmin answered. "As soon as I heard that my mother was dead this morning, I kissed my wife and baby good-bye while they still slept and came to you, for I know that when I return they will be withheld from my sight and I shall never see them more." Shama Bhana was overcome for a moment, Deal said, and then he went on quietly. "Christ says that whoever will not leave wife and child for His sake is not worthy of Him. I could not bring them with me for you know the way the Hindu oftentimes takes vengeance; for a few days all would have gone well; then suddenly they would have sickened and died a mysterious death. Sahib, I love them too well to bring death to them and so I left them. Indeed, I have left all for Christ, Sahib. Will you not baptize me?"

Deal baptized him at once and then asked what he could do to help him.

Shama Bhana replied, "Nothing, thank you kindly, Sahib. I will find work at once. I will not starve. Yes, Sahib, there is something you can do for me. Pray! Pray that some day I may get my wife and child back again."

Then Shama Bhana went away. He was a rich man, the son of great possessions, as I have told you. The news of his baptism spread fast and the fury of his father was unrestrained. Shama Bhana was declared to be dead and his effigy was burned with his mother's body on the funeral pyre. His wife was proclaimed a widow and treated as such; her head was shaved and her jewels and beautiful garments were taken from her.

But Shama Bhana's Brahmin training stood him in good stead, for he went on his way apparently unmoved by all the indignities that were being heaped upon him and his. He is a remarkably bright man and so without much difficulty, for he procured it the very day of his baptism, he got a fair position as clerk in a big English office in the city. His family later did everything they could to get him ousted, by fair means and foul, but he had proved his worth before they began their work against him and so he was kept.

That was the situation I found when I returned from America. At my request Shama Bhana came to live with me, but we saw little of each other, for every moment when he was not in the office he was out preaching or teaching and with power. But in the brief intervals that I did see him I knew that his heart was sore. I had left my own family in America, you know, and he would look at their picture upon my dresser. "Your wife is a Christian," he would say. "And you will probably see them again in a couple of years. But my wife is a Hindu widow!" Then he would turn at once into his own room and I knew he had gone to his knees in prayer. I would pray, too, both for him and his and for my own. Though his case was, of course, immeasurably harder than mine, still I thought I was pretty badly off with thousands of miles of ocean rolling between my family and me and with no definite knowledge as to when we would see each other again, for the kiddies must be educated, you know.

Well, what if I am blowing my nose violently! Man, they aren't here yet and what's more, they aren't coming for another year.

Well,--then came the pestilence; not the plague or the cholera or any of those Asiatic diseases which you folk over there hear so much about and really know so little of; but the plain smallpox with which you are at least so familiar that you run away as soon as you hear the word pronounced. The smallpox is usually with us here, more or less, all the time; but somehow this season it was here in tenfold fury. It swept over the city, but was worst in the section where Shama Bhana's family lived. Several of our native church workers had tried in vain to get entrance into his house since the trouble had happened, but now they walked right in and took possession unhindered, for the father himself and every member of the family were down with the disease and the servants had all fled. Shama Bhana's wife, whom they found in a dark chamber in the servants' quarters, had the worst form of the disease because of the hunger and ill treatment she had suffered since she had become a mock-widow. Shama Bhana who had given up his place at the office as soon as he heard of the situation came at once to his wife's side, for there was no one to object. And as day after day our faithful Hindustani preacher and his wife worked over that household, they preached Christ as they worked whenever a mind was free enough from pain to receive the message.

Three of the sons died, but the rest of the family soon began to show signs of recovery. The old father, since his case had been the lightest, as he had been vaccinated once years before in an English hospital, recovered first. As he, in his weakness, lay and watched the loving ministrations of the two Christians and listened to their words, his heart seemed to be touched.

"Why do you do all this for me?" he asked one day. "Are you immune?"

The preacher's wife stood nearest him and she replied, "I have had the disease but my husband never has. We are doing it for Christ's sake, you know."

Later he called the preacher to him. "Where is Shama Bhana?" he whispered. "Has he had it yet?"

The preacher replied, "He is here just now with his wife who is very ill. The night that you were the worst he spent at your side. He has not had the awful disease yet. Shall I call him to you?"

The preacher wondered how his words would be received and feared that a violent rage would bring back the old man's fever. But he only smiled faintly and to the question shook his head and said, "It is the wrath of Shama Bhana's God."

He steadfastly refused to see his son and yet he did not seem to be angry nor did he order him from the home. In a few days when his strength had returned nearly in full measure, he called the preacher to him again and asked him to walk with him through the house. So, leaning on the patient preacher's arm, he went from room to room. In every room with his feeble hands he tore down every sign of Hinduism. The gods he took himself from their shelves and ordered them to be thrown into the well. When all the rooms except the servants' quarters had been thus cleared he turned to the amazed pastor and said:

"Now call my son Shama Bhana and let me be baptized in his presence, for now I believe as he has taught me and from now on we will stand as Christians together and our household shall be a Christian household."

But when the preacher went to summon Shama Bhana and to tell him the good news, he found that young man on the floor beside his wife's cot burning with a high fever and showing every symptom of the dread disease. So the baptismal service was postponed while they worked to save Shama Bhana's life. Two days later the pastor himself came down. But as soon as I learned that the old man had been converted I went at once to Shama Bhana. Before very long we had there a household of well people, and such a happy household! Words cannot describe it.

And so together since that time Shama Bhana, his father, and not of less importance, his wife, have faced the Hinduism of Bombay in a small but solid phalanx for Christ. The influence of the conversion of that rich, strong Brahmin family has been marvellous, as you can imagine, and is increasing every day.

We will go there this afternoon and see them all. Even Shama Bhana's wife will greet you, for there is no purdah in that home now and she will meet you as modestly, graciously, and courteously as any lady in America. God's ways are wonderful, aren't they? But the most wonderful thing about it all in my mind is that He always lets us poor, insignificant men help in bringing His ways to pass. Had our simple, faithful Hindustani pastor and his wife not been willing to risk their lives for their love for Christ, probably Shama Bhana's father would still be a Brahmin, his wife, most likely, dead, and Shama Bhana himself still an outcast.

These are the romances of our work and they serve to throw out against the dark background of Hindustani life and social customs the capacity of our Hindu cousins for an appreciative interpretation of the Oriental Christ and their willingness to share His life of heroic sacrifice on behalf of others. The humblest of them frequently rises to acts of great courage and chivalry.

Well, here we are! You didn't just expect to see grass huts under palm trees as a suburb of the great city of Bombay, did you? And there are the children gathered around the door of the schoolhouse waiting for us. Aren't they beauties? Hadn't you better take a picture of them to show to your boy at home? Their dress isn't exactly American in style, that is true; but it is comfortable, if it is rather exaggerated in abbreviation.

Salaam, boys! Salaam! Salaam!

VIII

The Way to Happiness

With a shrill whistle and a clanging of her engine bell, the train for Calcutta pulled into the station at M----. "Coolie, coolie!" with a decided accent on the second syllable, came the well-known call as scantily-clothed men, falling in beside the train, ran from the end of the platform to the station entrance, with hands upon the first and second-class carriage doors, lest other coolies might get the jobs of carrying the heavy trunks and earn the anna or two anna bits that they might have had.

With a cloth about the loins for decency's sake and a turban on the head as a pad for heavy boxes, otherwise naked, the brown coolie took possession of the upper class compartments and in a minute or so scores of them were filing away through the station with heads laden with trunks, boxes, hat-boxes, rolls of bedding, lunch-baskets, baskets of fruit, and every conceivable sort of parcel that an Anglo-Indian or a tourist carries with him in the compartment of an Indian train; for, although luggage vans are run on these trains, the charge for excess luggage is so great that people crowd as much under the seats, on the seats, and over the seats as possible. As an individual rarely travels with less than ten parcels the platform swarmed with carriers.

While the first and second class passengers in topis and linen suits were thus being taken out of their carriages and a fresh lot, also in topis and linen, were being put in, in no undue haste, for all Indian trains stop fifteen minutes everywhere; while that end of the platform, therefore, was in comparative calm, the other end where the third-class carriages stood was in an uproar.

Railroad travel is cheaper nowhere in the world than in India. The traveller can ride in a compartment for twelve persons by day, six by night, on leather cushions, with toilet conveniences including even a shower bath at close hand, for the matter of one cent a mile; or he can pay about two cents a mile and ride on cushions a little softer, with a trifle more floor space for stacking his bird-cages and bandboxes and with furnishings a little glossier--first class; or he can have a ride for almost nothing, if he will be content to herd with the natives in a coach with wooden seats, a coach that accommodates from twenty to fifty, the number depending on the packing.

Since the fare is so small and since the Hindu religion, as also the Mohammedan, teaches the efficacy of pilgrimages, the people now make their pilgrimages, as far as possible and wherever possible, by train. Their religions have thus so accustomed the natives to the trains that they seem to be always travelling. The richer ones may go first or second class. But the majority of them go third and, since the first person in gets the best seat in these third-class cars while others crowd in as long as there is an inch to spare, there is a mad scramble for first, second, third, fourth, and fifth place at the third-class carriage doors.

So it was as the Calcutta train pulled into M----. Men with bundles and women with babies, more bundles, water jars, and bags of food swarmed into the third-class coaches. In a remarkably short time, however, the people who had wanted to get off were gone with their bundles, trailing women, and dangling children, and the lot going towards Calcutta had stowed away inside the carriages, on top of each other or anywhere that they could, their bundles, their clinging women, and their crying children; and still there were several minutes before time for the train to pull out. Then the through passengers, since, as the newcomers were settled, their own seats were secure, could get out upon the platform. A bearded Mohammedan with flowing robes and turbaned head, spreading a mat on the platform beside the car and slipping out of his shoes, knelt three times and said his prayers towards Mecca, unmindful of the crowd around him. At the hydrant a good Hindu carefully washed out his mouth preparatory to partaking of his noonday meal; while men of all castes walked up and down beside the cars, resting their cramped limbs. From the car windows many a braceleted arm reached out a brass water jar to be filled by the Mohammedan water-carrier. And at other windows Hindu women waited for the Hindu water-carrier to fill their jars so that they might have water for the journey.

The sweetmeat venders were unusually busy, for it was just about noon and Indian sweets are to native Indians really a staple article of diet instead of a confection as in other countries. They are made of wholesome food stuffs; sometimes they are shaped like pretzels; sometimes, rolled into balls; sometimes, chopped into flakes. But all kinds are well liked and the boy, passing along the trainside with the flat basket of sweets upon his head, just in range of the carriage windows, was kept busy dealing out his wares until he had a light load left and a hand full of coppers. The baskets of the pretty green pan were also many packages lighter when the gong on the platform sounded.

At the sound of the gong the through passengers scrambled back into their places; all but the Mohammedan faithful, who, having deliberately slipped his feet back into his shoes, carefully folded up his prayer mat, and with no loss of dignity climbed slowly into his compartment.

The guard raised his hand.

The train started.

But in the ladies' compartment of the third class the confusion continued after the start, for three naked babies were climbing over their mothers and crying; an old woman was rummaging over her treasures which had been tied up in a white cloth and raising a wild lamentation because she had lost an anna; and two young beauties in gay saris, with jangling bracelets, clanking anklets, and flashing necklaces, were chewing pan very vigorously and chattering in shrill voices, displaying as they did so mouths most beautifully reddened with the pan juice and teeth most artistically blackened by the same delicacy.

But after a short time the babies, either satisfied with their natural diet or at least appeased with cold chapatis or bits of sweets handed out by tired mothers, became quiet. The old woman, exhausted by her unavailing search and grief, was reduced to a quiet mumbling and a hopeless picking at her bundle. And the two young women became less noisy in a close comparing of jewels. There was enough of calm, therefore, so that the travellers could get a glimpse of each other and see what sort of company each was in.

It was a motley crowd and one that broke many of the laws of caste. It showed plainly how much the railroad is doing to rid India of that curse. In one corner sat a Brahmin woman, distinguishable by the refined features of her class rather than the caste mark upon her forehead, but too poor for the greater privacy of a second compartment. Next to her, a proximity which would have broken her caste at one time, sat a Chumar woman. Next was a lady with the white head-cloth and one-coloured sari of the Parsi. And beside the Parsi was a tiny high caste girl, most bejewelled and bedecked, wearing the necklace which showed that although she was but eight or nine years old she was married. Evidently the child-wife was taking the journey with her mother-in-law, for the woman next beyond her, apparently of the same caste, would occasionally jerk the little girl into her seat and scold her roundly when she ventured to lean over to look out of the window.

When the train approached a way-station, the blinds were drawn quickly lest a man should look upon the women within, for, although none of them were keeping purdah strictly, still most of these women were careful in public not to subject themselves unduly to the glances of men.

As the blinds were lifted after the train left the first small station, the light disclosed, huddled into a far corner seat, a young woman wrapped in the coarsest of white garments, with scarcely an ornament upon her body and no caste mark upon her forehead. Her face was shaded by the sari which she had drawn close over her head, but out of the shadow peered a pair of sad, wistful eyes. Her face was thin and her hands, which clasped tightly upon her lap a carefully wrapped bundle, were thin and rough as if with toil. Her eyes were anxiously examining the faces in the carriage. At every unusual noise or sudden jolt, they would look frightened and she would clasp still more closely the bundle in her lap. It was a bundle about eighteen inches long, tied and double knotted most carefully in a piece of coarse but clean white cloth. The girl's white sari was also as clean as most Indian white clothes ever look, washed in dirty water and dried on the ground as they are. She was evidently on some important journey and, as evidently, for the first time on a train. The bundle which she carried would not have been noticeable among such a myriad of bundles as the carriage held, had she not guarded it so closely, and, when any one changed a seat or passed by her, shielded it with her arms.

After comparative peace had reigned a little while, the frightened look left the young woman's eyes and, untying one corner of the bundle, which opening showed still another wrapping within, she drew out a cold chapati and ate it slowly as if to make it last a long time. As she ate, her eyes met those of a sociable looking, old, gray-haired woman, evidently of low caste, who, sitting opposite between two high caste women, was apparently longing to talk to some one. As their eyes met, the older woman leaned across the aisle and said to the young girl in Hindustani:

"Where are you going?"

The girl looked alarmed, as the question was addressed her, but answered timidly, "To Benares. Are you going there?"

"No, but I am going almost as far as that. You see I have been ayah to master's little boy and they moved away and now they have sent for me to come and I am going to be his ayah again." The old woman's face beamed as she chattered. "I might have gone long ago when they went, for they always called me a fine ayah and always praised me to all of their guests, but when they moved away to Allahabad I did not want to leave my family. But my boy went off to the city and--and--my little girl died; so now I am glad to go." Her eyes had filled with tears as she said that her little girl had died and at the words the young woman involuntarily clutched at the bundle in her lap.

Just then the Brahmin woman in the corner opposite got up to arrange her dress and moved about in the aisle so that the conversation was interrupted. And the two women got no further chance to talk until the train pulled into a station and some of the passengers getting out gave the old lady an opportunity to slip into the seat beside the girl.

"Where are you from?" she asked, resuming the conversation at once.

"From C----," the girl answered.

"Are you a sweeper?" the old lady continued her catechism. "Do you work at it?" she went on without waiting for an answer. "There is lots of money in that work, isn't there? I never had to work at it, you know."

The young girl looked at her frankly. "I don't think so. I got two annas a day."

"Oh, my! I get ten rupees a month!"

The girl opened her eyes in surprise. "And what do you do?" she questioned in return.

"I am an ayah, I told you. All I have to do is to take care of the little boy. He is a dear, good boy. I dress him in the morning and give him his breakfast and watch him at play. I get his tiffin and then put him to sleep. After he wakes up I dress him all up fine and take him out in the compound in the carriage and usually his mother walks with us a little and then I give him an early supper and put him to bed and sit in the room with him until his mother comes up-stairs. Wouldn't you like to do that? It just isn't work at all and yet I get ten rupees a month for it."

"Oh, I would like to! But I'd never get a chance to do that," the girl said sadly.

"Were you ever in a sahib's house?" the old woman ambled on, seeing that the girl was really interested and impressed. "It is a great, big place, as big as that station almost," and the old woman pointed out to a station at which they were just stopping.

"My husband used to go to one sometimes," said the girl, and, clutching at her bundle, her face grew sad again.

"You are a widow?" asked the other, although she must have known from the girl's dress that she was.

"Yes, my husband has been dead two years." She paused a moment and then as if she could restrain herself no longer, as if the flood of her speech had been loosened, she went on rapidly in a low but intense tone. "Yes, for two years he has been dead. He was not sick long. I was but a girl. I did not know very much about it except that he was sick and that they made offerings to the gods and did all they could to cure him. But one day my mother-in-law came to me and called me terrible names and told me that if my husband died I would be to blame and that awful things would happen to me. She frightened me terribly and told me that I must not let him die. So I crept away to the temple. I had no offering to make except as I stole a handful of rice in the bazaar and took that. I prayed and prayed. At one temple the priests said that they would cure him for ten rupees but I had no money and I was afraid to go and tell my mother-in-law. A priest at another shrine said that a little Ganges water might help my husband and, as I turned away in despair, for I did not know where the Ganges was, I heard him say to a man standing there, 'When I die I am going to the Ganges and die there so that my bones may be thrown into the river and Mother Gunga may hold them upon her bosom; then shall I be forever happy.' But I had done all I could by my prayers and so I crept back home to find my husband--dead.--But I remembered what the priest had said.