The buildings are not beautiful. With us, as elsewhere, doubtless, even the break of a gable in the straight, barn-like roof makes a difference in the estimate, and we have never had a margin for luxuries. But the walls are coloured a soft terra-cotta, the roofs are a dull red; while the porches (hidden by the palm trunks in the photograph) are a mass of greenery and bloom; and the garden at the moment of writing is rejoicing in over a hundred lilies, brilliant yellow and flame colour, each head with its many flowers rising separate and radiant in the sunshine. Then we have oleanders, crimson and pink and white, and little young hibiscus trees, crimson and rose and cream. The arches in the new nursery garden are covered with the lilac of morning-glory; and the Prayer-room in the middle of the garden is a mass of violet passion-flower, the pretty pink antigone, and starry jessamine. The very hedges at this season are out in yellow flower, and a trellis round the nursery kitchen is a delight of colour; so though our buildings are simple, we think the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places.

The first picture shows the old nursery, used now for the kindergarten. It opens off the courtyard shown in the second photo. This courtyard serves as an open-air room, a bright little place which is filled with merrier children than the sober photograph shows. Tamils old and young move when they laugh or even smile; in fact they wriggle. Being still, with them, meant being seriously subdued; and so, where time-exposures were required, we had to choose between solemn photos, or no photos at all.

Opening off the courtyard on the opposite side to the kindergarten is a room used as a store-room and Bible-class room combined. It was so very uncomfortable that last Christmas, as a surprise for the children, we divided the room into two halves with a curtain between. Their half is made pretty with pictures and texts, painted in blue on pale brown wood. The children call this part of the room the Tabernacle. The part beyond the curtain is the court of the Gentiles.

The Coming-Day Feasts are a feature of Dohnavur life. Now that there are so many feasts to celebrate, we find it more convenient to combine; and the photograph overleaf shows as much as it can of one such happy feast. The children who are being feted are distinguished from the others by having flowers in their hair. No Indian feast is complete without flowers. Jessamine is the favourite, but the prettiest wreaths are made of pink oleander; and sometimes a girl will surprise us with a new and lovely combination, as of brown flowering grasses and yellow Tecoma bells.



Opposite the kindergarten room is the first of the two new nurseries—the lively Parrot-house. This nursery, really the Taraha (Star, called after its English giver, whose name means "star") is the abode of the middle-aged babies, aged between two years and four. Most of these attend the kindergarten, and are very proud of the fact.

The Premalia nursery (Abode of Love), given by two friends in memory of a mother translated, lies beyond the Taraha. Here the tiny infants live, and we call it the Menagerie. This nursery, like the other, looks out on the glorious mountains. If beautiful things can make babies good, ours should be very good.

On the eastern side of the field we have lately built two small sick-rooms, used oftener as overflow nurseries. These little rooms have names meaning "peace" and "tranquillity"; and those of us who have lived in them with our babies, sick or well, find the names appropriate. In the foreground there is a garden, in the background the mountain; and to give purpose to it all, the foreground is full of life. A new nursery now being built is a welcome gift from Australia; and a new field with a noble tree, in whose shade a hundred children could play, is the gift of a friend who stayed with us for one bright week last year.

All this is a later development, unthought of when our artist friend was with us. We have often wished for him since the nurseries filled. When he was with us our choice of subject was very limited: now, wherever we look we see pictures, which to be properly caught ask for colour photography.

The story of these buildings is the story of the Ravens, so old and yet so new. When first the work began, we had only one mud-floored room for nursery, kitchen, bedroom, and everything else that was needed. We hardly knew ourselves whereunto things would grow, and feared to run before the Lord by even a prayer for buildings. And yet we could not go on as we were. The birds were soon too many for the nest, and we needed more nests. No one knew of our need; for visitors at that time were few at Dohnavur, and we told no one. But money began to come. We ventured on a single room without a verandah or even foundations—built of sun-dried bricks as inexpensively as possible. But it was a palace to us. While we were building it, more little children came. We felt we should need more room, but had not more money; so we told the builders to wait for a day while we gave ourselves to prayer about the matter. Was the work going to grow much more? We were fearful of making mistakes. Were we right to incur fresh responsibility?—for buildings need to be kept in condition, and the cheaper they are the more care they need. No one at home was responsible for us. No one had authorised this new work. It would not be fair to saddle those on whom the burden might eventually fall with responsibilities for which they were not responsible. And yet surely the work of saving these little children had been given to us to do? Someone was responsible. Surely, unless we were utterly wrong and had mistaken the Shepherd's Voice, surely He was responsible! He could not mean us to search for the lambs for whom only the wolves had been searching, and then leave them out in the open, found but unfolded, or packed so close in the little fold that they could not grow as little lambs should?

We rolled the burden off that day as to the ultimate responsibility, and we asked definitely for all that was needed to build another room.

Three days later a registered letter came from a bank in Madras. It contained an anonymous gift of one hundred rupees, and was marked, "For a new nursery." The date showed that it had been posted in Madras on the day of our waiting upon God for guidance as to His wishes. A few days later, the same amount, with the same direction as to its use, was sent to us from the same bank. The giver, as we knew long afterwards, was a fellow-missionary in Tinnevelly, whose order to send these sums to us was given before even we ourselves had fully understood the meaning of the leading. The second room was built on to the first, and the children called it the Room of Joy.



There are no secrets in India. The Hindu masons were amazed at what they at once recognised as the hand of the Lord upon the work, and they spread the story everywhere. Later, when they built the nursery where poor little Mala stood and mourned, they understood why they had to stop before the verandah was built. Only enough was in hand to build the bare room; but to their eyes, as to ours, a verandah was much needed, and they were content to wait till what was required for one came. In this land of blazing sunshine and drenching monsoon a house without a verandah is hardly habitable, and a small square room without one has a Manx-cat appearance.

The story of the rooms has been repeated in the story of the work ever since. "Do not thank us. It is only a belated tenth," wrote a fellow-missionary not long ago, as she sent a gift for the nurseries. Belated tenths have reached us sometimes when they have been like visible ravens flying straight from the blue above. All the long journeys in search of the children, all the expenses connected with their salvation, all that has been required to provide nurses and food (including the special nourishment without which the more delicate could not live at all), all that is now being needed for their education—all has come and is coming as the ravens came to Elijah. The work has been a revelation of how many hearts are sensitive and obedient to the touch of the Spirit; for sometimes help has reached us in such a way and in such form that we could not but stand and worship, awestruck by the token of the nearness of our God. There is many a spot marked in garden or in field or in the busy nursery or our own quiet room, where, with the open letter in our hand—the letter of relief from a pressure unknown even to the nearest fellow-worker—we have knelt in spirit with Jacob and said: "Surely the Lord is in this place!" and almost added, so dense are we in unilluminated moments, "and I knew it not."

Framed between red roofs and foliage, there are far blue glimpses of mountains shown in this lakeside photograph. We do not see the water from the compound. It lies on the other side of the boundary fields and hedges; but we see the mountains with perfect distinctness of outline, scarped with bare crags, which in the early morning are sometimes pink, and in the evening, purple. But the time to see the mountains in their glory is when the south-west monsoon is flinging its masses of cloud across to us. Then the mountains, waking from the lazy sleep of the long, hot months, catch the clouds on their pointed fangs, toss them back and harry them, wrap themselves up in robes of them, and go to sleep again.

The road that skirts the Red Lake leads through two ancient Hindu towns, from both of which we have children saved, in each case as by a miracle. In the first of these old towns there is a Temple surrounded by a mighty wall.

There are two large gates and one small side door in the wall; and, passing in through the small side door, one sees another wall almost as strong as the first, and realises something of the power that built it. The Temple is in the centre of the large enclosure. It is a single tower opening off the inner court. In the outer court a pillared hall is used as stable for the Temple elephant, and two camels lounge in the roughly kept garden in front. This Temple, with its double walls, its massive, splendidly-carved doors and expensive animal life, is somewhat of a surprise to the visitor, who hardly expects to see so much in a little old country town on the borders of the wilds. But Hinduism has not lost hold of this old remote India yet. There are some who think that the country town is the place to see it in strength.



It was early in August, three years ago, that we heard of a baby girl in that town, devoted from birth to the god. We set wheels in motion, and waited. A month passed and nothing was done. We could not go ourselves and attempt to persuade the mother to change the vow she had made, as any movement on our part would only have riveted the links that fettered the child to the god. We had to be quiet and wait. At last, one evening in September, a Hindu arrived in the town with whom our friends who were on the watch had intimate connection. He, too, knew about the child; and he knew a way unknown to our friends by which the mother might be influenced, and he consented to try. His arrival just at that juncture appeared to us, who were waiting in daily expectation of an answer of deliverance, as the evident beginning of that answer; thus our faith was quickened and we waited in keen hope. Two days later, after dark, there was a rush from the nursery to the bungalow. "The baby has come!" Another moment, and we were in the nursery. A woman—one of our friends—was standing with what looked like a parcel wrapped in a cloth hidden under her arm. Even then, though all was safe, she was trembling; and outside, two men, her relations, stood on guard. She opened the white cloth, and inside was the baby.

The men assured us that all was right. The mother had been convinced of the wrongness of dedicating the little babe, and would give us no trouble. But a day or two later, she came and demanded it back. She could not stand the derision of her friends, who told her she had sinned far more in giving her child to those who would break its caste than she ever could have done had she given it to the Temple. We pacified her with difficulty, and were thankful when the little thing was safe in the Neyoor nursery. For in those days, before we learned how best to protect our children, we were often glad to have some place even more out of reach than Dohnavur.

The second of these old towns is famous for its rock, and its Temple built into the rock. Looking down from above one can see inside the courtyard as into an open well. Connected with this Temple, some years ago, there was a beautiful young Temple woman, who had been given as a child—as all Temple women must be—to the service of the gods. She had no choice as regarded herself—probably the idea of choice never entered her mind—but for her babe she determined to choose; and yet she knew of no way of deliverance.

But there was a way of deliverance, and if it had only been for this one child's sake, and for the sake of the relief it must have been to that fear-haunted mother, we are glad with a gladness too deep for words that the nursery was here. For the mother heard of it. There were lions in the path. She quietly avoided them, and through others who were willing to help she sent her child to us. She herself would not come. She waited a mile or so from the bungalow till the matter was concluded, then returned to her home alone.

A week later she appeared suddenly at the bungalow. It was only to make sure the little one was safe and well, and in order to sign a paper saying she was wholly given to us. This done she disappeared again, refusing speech with anyone, and for months we heard nothing of her. Then cholera swept our countryside, and we heard she had taken it and died. We leave her to God her Creator, who alone knows all the story of her life: we only know enough to make us very silent. And through the quiet we hear as it were a voice that chants a fragment from an old hymn: "We believe that THOU shalt come to be our Judge."



CHAPTER XVIII

From the Temple of the Rock

ANOTHER little girl who came from that same Temple of the Rock has a story very different from the other, and far more typical.

It was on a blazing day in June, when the very air, tired of being hot, leaned heavily upon us, and we felt unequal to contest, that a cough outside my open door announced a visitor. "Come in!" Another cough, and I looked out and saw a shuffling form disappear round the corner of the house. I called again, and the figure turned. It was a man who had helped us before, but about whose bona-fides we had doubts; so we asked without much hopefulness what he had to tell us. He said he had reason to believe a certain Temple woman known to him had a child she meant to dedicate to the god of a Temple a day's journey distant. Then he paused. "Do you know where she is now?" "She is on her way to the Temple." "It would be well if she came here instead." "If that is the Animal's desire it may be possible to bring her." "Has she gone far? Could you overtake her?" "She is waiting outside your gate."

At such a moment it is wise to show no surprise and no anxiety. All the burning eagerness must be covered up with coolness. But in the hour that intervened before the woman "at the gate" could be persuaded to come further, we quieted ourselves in the Lord our God and held on for the little child.

At last the shuffling step and the sound of voices told us they had come—two women, the man, and a child. The child was a baby of something under two, a sad-looking little thing, with great, dark, pathetic eyes looking out from under limp brown curls. She was very pale and fragile; and when the woman who carried her set her down upon the floor and propped her against the wall, she leaned against it listlessly, with her little chin in her tiny hand, in a sorrowful, grown-up fashion. I longed to take her and nestle her comfortably; but, of course, took no notice of her. Any sign of pity or sympathy would have been misunderstood by the women. All through the interminable talk upon which her fate depended, that child sat wearily patient, making no demands upon anyone; only the little head drooped, and the mouth grew pitiful in its complete despondency.

The ways of the East are devious. The fact that the child had been brought to us did not indicate a decision to give her to us instead of to the Temple. The woman and the man who had persuaded them to come had much to say to one another, and there was much we had to explain. A child given to Temple service is not in all cases entirely cut off from her people. If the Temple woman's hold on her is sure, her relations are sometimes allowed to visit her; so far as friendly intercourse goes she is not lost to them. But with us things are different. For the child's own sake we have to refuse all intercourse whatever. Once given to us, she is lost to them as if they had never had her. We adopt the little one altogether or not at all.

It is a delicate thing to explain all this so clearly that there can be no misunderstanding about it, without so infuriating the relations that they will have nothing more to do with us. Naturally their view-point is entirely different from ours, and they cannot appreciate our reasons. At such a time we lean upon the Invisible, and count upon that supernatural help which alone is sufficient for us; we count also upon the prayers of those who know what it is to pray through all opposing forces, till the battle is won by faith which is the victory.

It was strange to watch the women as the talk went on. The woman within them had died, there was nothing of it left to which we could appeal; everything about them was perverted, unnatural. I looked at the insensitive faces and then at the sensitive face of the child, and entered deeper than ever into the mercifulness of God's denunciations of sin.

Once towards the close of what had been a time of some tension, the leader of the two women suddenly sprang up, snatched at the tired baby, and flung out of the room with her. She had been gradually hardening; and I had felt rather than seen the shutting down of the prison-house gates upon that little soul, and had, as a last resource, appealed to the sense, not wholly atrophied, the sense that recognises the supernatural. God is, I told them briefly; God takes cognisance of what we are and do: God will repay: some time, somewhere, God will punish sin. The arrow struck through to the mark. Startled, indignant, overwhelmed by the sweep of an awful conviction, with a passionate cry she rushed away; and we lived through one breathless moment, but the next saw the child dropped into our arms, safe at last.

Facts about any matter of importance are usually other than at first stated; but we have reason to believe that in this instance our shuffling friend spoke the truth. The women were really on their way to the Temple when he waylaid them. The wonder was that they allowed themselves to be persuaded by him to come to us. But if nothing happened except what we might naturally expect would happen in this work, we might as well give it up at once. If we did not expect our Jericho walls to fall down flat, it would be foolish indeed to continue marching round them.

It was a relief when the women left the compound, after signing a paper committing the child to us. There is defilement in the mere thought of evil, but such close contact with it is a thing by itself. The sense of contamination lasted for days; and yet would that we could go through it every day if the result might be the same! For the child woke up to a new life, and became what a child should be. At first it was very pitiful. She would sit hour after hour as she had sat through that first hour, with her chin in hand, her eyes cast down, and the little mouth pathetic. We found that, in accordance with a custom prevailing in the coterie of Temple women belonging to the Temple of the Rock, she had been lent by her mother to another woman when she was an infant, the other lending her baby in exchange. This exchange had worked sadly; for the little one had asked for something which had not been given her, and her two years had left her starved of love and experienced in loneliness. But when she came to us everything changed; for love and happiness took her hands and led her back to baby ways, and taught her how to laugh and play: and now there is nothing left to remind us of those two first years but a certain droop of the little mouth when she feels for the moment desolate, or wants some extra petting.



CHAPTER XIX

Yosepu



NO description of the compound would be complete without mention of Yosepu, friend of the babies.

This photograph shows the Indian equivalent of pumps and water-pipes. We have neither; so all the water required for a family of about a hundred has to be drawn from the well and carried to the kitchens and nurseries. The elder girls, who would otherwise help with the work, according to South Indian custom, are already fully employed with the babies. So at present the men do it all. They also buy the grain and other food-stuffs, look after the cows and vegetable garden—a necessity for those who dwell far from markets—and in all other possible masculine ways are of service to the family.

Chief of these men is Yosepu, whose seamed and wrinkled and most expressive face I wish we had photographed, instead of this not very interesting string of solemnities.

Yosepu is not like a man, he is more like a dear dog. He has the ways of our dog-friends, their patience and fidelity, their gratefulness for pats.

He came to us in a wrecked condition, thin and weak and rather queer. He had been beaten by his Hindu brother for becoming a Christian, and it had been too much for him. The first time we saw him, a few minutes after his arrival, he was standing leaning against a post with folded hands and upturned eyes and a general expression of resignation which went to our hearts. We found afterwards he was not feeling resigned so much as hungry, and he was better after food.

For a week he slept, ate, and meditated. Sometimes he would hover round us, if such a verb is admissible for his seriousness of gait. He would wait till we noticed him, then sigh and extend his hand. He wanted us to feel his pulse—both pulses. This ceremony always refreshed him, and he would return to his corner of the verandah and meditate till his next meal came.

Sometimes, however, more attention was required. He would linger after his pulses were felt, and we knew he was not satisfied. One day a happy thought struck us. The Tamil loves scent. The very babies sniff our hands if we happen to be using scented soap, and tell each other rapturously what they think about that "chope." Scent is the one thing they cannot resist. A tin of sweets on our table may be untouched for days, few babies being wicked enough to venture upon it in our absence; but a bottle of scent is irresistible, and scented "chope" on our washing-stands has a way of growing thin. The baby will emerge from our bathrooms rubbing suspiciously clean hands, and in her innocence will invite us to smell them. Then we know why our "chope" disappears. So now that Yosepu needed something to lift him over the trials of life, we remembered the gift of a good Scottish friend, and tried the effect of eau-de-Cologne. It worked most wonderfully. Yosepu held out his two hands joined close lest a single drop should spill, and then he stood and sniffed. It would have made a perfect advertisement—the big brown man with his hands folded over his nose, and an expression of absolute bliss upon every visible feature. Now, when Yosepu is down-hearted, we always try eau-de-Cologne.

His first move towards being of use was when some of our children had small-pox and were put up in a half-finished room which was being built. "It has walls and it has a roof, therefore it is suitable," was Yosepu's opinion; and he offered to nurse the children. One evening we heard a terrible noise; it was like three cracked violins gone mad, all playing different tunes at the same time. It was only Yosepu singing hymns to the children. "For spiritual instruction is a thing to be desired, and there is nothing so edifying as music."

After this he announced his intention of becoming a water-carrier. "Water is a pure thing and a necessity. The young children demand much water if their bodies are to be"—here followed Scriptural quotations meant in deepest reverence. "I will be responsible for the baths of all the babes." And from that time Yosepu has been responsible. Solemnly from dawn to dusk, with breathing spaces for meals and meditation, he stalks across from nurseries to well and from well to nurseries. He is a man of few smiles; but he is the cause of many, and we all feel grateful to Yosepu for his goodness to us. Often on melancholy days he comes and comforts us.

It was so one anxious day before we went to the hills, when we were trying to plan for the safety of our family. We can only take a limited number of converts with us, and no babies; the difficulty is then which to take, which to hide, and which to leave in the nurseries. We were in the midst of this perplexity when Yosepu arrived. He stood in silence, and then sighed, as his cheerful custom is. We made the usual inquiries as to his health, physical and spiritual. Both soul and body (his invariable order, never body and soul) were well, he said; his pulse did not need to be felt to-day: no, there was something weightier upon his mind. There are times when it is like extracting a tooth to get a straight answer from Yosepu, for he resents directness in speech; he thinks it barbarous. At last it came. "Aiyo! Aiyo!" (Alas! Alas!) "My sun has set; but who am I, that I should complain or assault the decrees of Providence? But Amma! remember the word of truth: 'Then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'" And he slowly unwound his wisp of a turban, held it in his folded hands, and shook down his lanky, jet-black locks with a pathos that was almost sublime.



It took time to pierce to the meaning of it: the children were being scattered—the reason must be that we felt the bath-water carrying too much for his powers through the hot weeks. It was not so! He was strong to draw and to bear. The babies should never be deprived of their baths! But to-day as he went to the well he had heard what broke his heart; and he laid his hand upon the injured organ, and sighed with a sigh that assured us his lungs at least were sound. "Tingalu is to go away! The apple of my eye! that golden child who smiles upon me, and says, 'Oh, elder brother, good morning!' You are not going to leave her with me! Therefore spake I the word of truth concerning my grey hairs." Then quoting the text again, he turned and walked away.

Once the beloved Tingalu was slightly indisposed. She has not often the privilege of being ill, and so, when the opportunity offers, she does the invalid thoroughly; it would be a pity, Tingalu thinks, to be anything but correct. But Yosepu was much concerned. He appeared in the early morning with his usual cough and sigh. "Amma! Tingalu is ill!" "She will soon be better, Yosepu; she is having medicine." "What sort of medicine, Amma?" and Yosepu mentioned the kind he thought suitable. "That is exactly what she has had; you will see her playing about to-morrow." "But no smile is on her face to-day; I fear for the babe." (Tingalu never smiles when ill. Invalids should not smile.) Yosepu suggested another medicine to supplement the first, and departed.

Next morning he came again, anxious and cast down in countenance. I had to keep him waiting; and when I came out, he was standing beside my verandah steps, head on one side, eyes shut, hands folded as if in prayer. "Well, Yosepu, what is it?" "Amma! the light of your eyes revives me!" "Well, tell me the trouble." "All yesterday I saw you not; it was a starless night to me!" This is merely the preface. "But, Yosepu, what is wrong?" "Tingalu, that golden child with a voice like a bird, she lies on her mat. I am concerned about the babe," (Tingalu, turned four, is as hardy as a gipsy), "I fear for her delicate interior. Those ignorant children" (the convert nurses would have been pleased if they had heard him) "know nothing at all. It may be they will feed her with curry and rice this morning. That would be dangerous. Amma! Let her have bread and milk, and I will pay for it!"

Yosepu came a few days ago with a request for a doll. "Who for?" "For myself." "But are you going to play with it?" Yosepu acknowledged he was, and he wished it to have genuine hair, a pink silk frock, and eyes that would open and shut. We had not anything so elaborate to give him, and he had to be contented with a black china head and painted eyes; but he was pleased, and took it away carefully rolled up in his turban, which serves conveniently for head-gear, towel, scarf, and duster. When and where he plays with the doll no one knows, but he assures us he does; and we have mentally reserved the first pink silk, with eyes that will open and shut, that a benevolent public sends to us, for Yosepu. . . . The words were hardly written when a shadow fell across the paper, and the unconscious subject of this chapter remarked as I looked up: "1 Corinthians vii. 31." "Do you want anything, Yosepu?" "Amma! 1 Corinthians vii. 31." "Well, Yosepu?" "As it is written in that chapter, and that verse: 'The fashion of this world passeth away.' Amma, if within the next two months a visitor comes to Dohnavur carrying a picture-catching box, I desire that you arrange for the catching of my picture. This, Amma, is my desire."

The Western mind is very dense; and for a moment I could not see the connection between the text and the photograph. Yosepu is never impatient. He squatted down beside me, dropped his turban round his neck, held his left foot with his left hand, and emphasised his explanation with his right.

"Amma, the wise know that life is uncertain. I am a frail mortal. You, who are as mother and as father to this unworthy worm, would feel an emptiness within you if I were to depart." "But, Yosepu, I hope you are not going to depart." This was exactly what Yosepu had anticipated. He smiled, then he sighed. "Amma! did I not say it before? 1 Corinthians vii. 31: 'The fashion of this world passeth away.' Therefore I said, Let me have my picture caught, so that when I depart you may hang it on your wall and still remember me."

Yosepu's latest freak has been to take a holiday. "My internal arrangements are disturbed; composure of mind will only be obtained by a month's respite from secularities." Yosepu had once announced his intention of offering himself to the National Missionary Society, and we thought he now referred to becoming an ascetic for a month and wandering round the country, begging-bowl in hand; for he solemnly declared as he stroked his bony frame: "The Lord will provide." But his intention was a real holiday. He would go and see the brother who had beaten him, and forgive him. We suggested the brother might beat him again. He smiled at our want of faith, and went for his holiday. A month was the time agreed upon, but within three days he was back. He could not stay away, he explained, with a shame-faced air of affection. "Within me pulled the strings of love; pulled, yea, pulled till I returned." Faithful, quaint, and wholly original Yosepu! He calls himself our servant, but we think of him as our friend.



CHAPTER XX

The Menagerie

Fate which foresaw How frivolous a baby man would be—



THE event of the week, from a Tamil point of view, is the midday Sunday service; so we take care of the nurseries during that hour, and send all grown-up life to church. In the Premalia nursery the babies range from a few days old to eighteen months, and sometimes two years. There is a baby for every mood, as one beloved of the babies says; and the babies seem to know it. We have a lively time there on Sundays; for by noon the morning sleep is over, and nineteen or twenty babies are waking up one after the other or all together. And most of them want something, and want it at once.

These babies are of various dispositions and colour—nut-brown, biscuit, and buff; and there are two who, taken together, suggest chocolate-cream. Chocolate is a dear child, very good-tempered and easy to manage. Cream is a scamp. We see in her another Chellalu, and watch with mingled feelings her vigorous development.

Chocolate has another name. It is Beetle. This does not sound appreciative, but Beetle is beloved. The name was discovered by her affectionate Piria Sittie, who came upon her one morning lying on her back in the swinging cot, kicking her four limbs in the air in the agitated manner of that insect unexpectedly upset. But no beetle ever smiled as ours does.

Cream, whose real name is Nundinie, oftener called Dimples, because she dimples so when she laughs, is a baby of character. She early discovered her way to the bungalow, and scorning assistance or superintendence found her way over as soon as she could walk. Afternoon tea is never a sombre meal, for the middle-aged babies attend it in relays of four or five; and Dimples and her special chum, Lulla, like to arrive in good time for the full enjoyment of the function. Dimples sits down properly in a high chair close beside her Attai, who, according to her view of matters, was created to help her to sugar. Lulla, so as to be even nearer that exhaustless delight, insists upon her Attai's knee; and tapping her face with her very small fingers, immediately points to the sugar bowl.

These preliminaries over, Dimples sets herself to pay for her seat. She smiles upon her Attai first, then upon all the company. If the Iyer is present, she notices him kindly: there is nothing in all nature so patronising as a baby. If in the mood, she will imitate her friends like her predecessor Scamp No. 1; or folding her fat arms will regard us all with a quizzical expression more comical than play. Her latest invention is drill. She stands straight up in her chair, and goes through certain actions intended to represent as much as she knows of that interesting exercise. We are kept anxious lest she should overbalance; but she is a wary babe, and always suddenly sits down when she gets to the edge of a tumble. Sometimes, however, when these diversions are in progress, we have wished that the family could see how very much more entertaining she is in her own nursery. There, from the beginning of the day till the sad moment when it ends, she seems to be engaged in entertaining somebody. Sometimes it is one of the Accals, those good elder sisters to whom the babies owe so much. Dimples thinks she looks tired. Tired people must be cheered, so Dimples devotes herself to her. Sometimes it is another baby who is dull. Dull babies are anomalies. Dimples feels responsible till the dull baby revives. Or it is just her own happy little self who is being entertained. If ever a baby enjoyed a game for its own sweet sake, it is Dimples.

But one thing she does not enjoy, and that is being put to bed at night. Our babies are anointed with oil, according to the custom of the East, before being put to sleep; but the moment Dimples sees the oil-bottle in her nurse's hand, she knows her fate is sealed and protests with all her might. Once she contrived to seize the bottle, pull out the cork, and spill the oil before she was discovered. She seemed to argue that as she was invariably oiled before being put to bed, the best way to avoid ever being put to bed would be to get rid of the oil. Another evening she succeeded in diverting her nurse into a long search for the cork, thereby delaying the fatal last moment; it was finally found in her mouth. When, in spite of all efforts to wriggle out of reach, she is captured, anointed, and put in her hammock, Dimples knows she must not get out; but her wails are so lamentable that it is difficult to restrain ourselves from throwing discipline to the winds, and if by any chance we do, her smiles are simply ravishing. But we hear about it afterwards.

If Dimples is asleep when we take charge of the nursery, we find things fairly quiet and almost flat. But she usually wakens early, and always in a good temper. It is instructive to see the way she scrambles out of her hammock before she is quite awake, and her sleepy stagger across the room is often interrupted by a tumble. Dimples does not mind tumbles. If her curly head has been rather badly knocked, she looks reproachfully at the floor, rubs her head, and gets up again. By the time she reaches us she is wide awake and most engaging.

In C. F. Holder's Life of Agassiz we are told that the great scientist "could not bear with superficial study: a man should give his whole life to the object he had undertaken to investigate. He felt that desultory, isolated, spasmodic working avails nothing, but curses with narrowness and mediocrity." This is exactly the view of one of our babies, already introduced, the little wise Lulla, who always knows her own mind and sticks to her intentions, unbeguiled by any blandishments.

This baby is a tiny thing, with a round, small head, covered with soft, small curls; and this head is very full of thoughts. Her face, which she rarely shows to a stranger, is like a doll in its delicate daintiness; but the mouth is very resolute, and the eyes very grave. Her hands and feet are sea-shell things of a pretty pinky brown, and her ways are the ways of a sea-anemone in a pool among the rocks.

Lulla, because of her anemone ways, is sometimes unkindly called "Huffs." She does not understand that there are days when those who love her most have little time to give to her. Lulla naturally argues that where there is a will there is a way, and desultory, isolated, spasmodic affection is worth little; so next time her friend appears, she explains all this to her by means of a single gesture: she draws her tentacles in.

But it is when Lulla has undertaken to investigate a tin of sweets that she most suggests Agassiz. The tin has a lid which fits tightly, and Lulla's fingers are very small and not very strong. The tin, moreover, is on the window-sill just out of reach, though she stands on tip-toe and stretches a little eager hand as far as it will go. Then it is you see persistence. Lulla finds another baby, leads her to the window and points up to the tin. The other baby tries. They both try together; if this fails, Lulla finds a taller one, and at last successful, sits down with the tin held tightly in both hands, and turns it over and shakes it. This process seems to inspire fresh hope and energy; for she sets to work round the lid, which is one of the fitting-in sort, and carefully presses and pulls. Naturally this does nothing, and she shakes the tin again. The joyful sound of rattling sweets stimulates to fresh attempts upon the lid. She tugs and pulls, and thumps the refractory thing on the floor. By this time the other babies, attracted by the hopeful rattle, have gathered round and are watching operations; some offer to help, but all such offers are declined. This oyster is Lulla's. She has undertaken to force it. Agassiz and his fishes are on her side. She will not give it up. But she is not getting on; and she sits still for a moment, knitting her brow, and frowning a little puzzled frown at the refractory tin.

Suddenly her forehead smooths, the anxious brown eyes smile, Lulla has thought a new good thought. The babies struggle up and offer to help Lulla up, but she shakes her head. She seems to feel if she herself unaided, of her own free will, hands her problem over to her Ammal or her Sittie, only so she may achieve her purpose without loss of self-respect.

Lulla's beloved nurse is a motherly woman, older than most of our workers. Her name is Annamai. When the nurses return from church, each makes straight for her baby; and the babies always respond with a cordial and pretty affection. But Lulla welcoming Annamai is something more than pretty. The big white-robed figure no sooner appears in the garden than the tiny Lulla is all a-quiver with excitement. But it is a quiet excitement; and if you take any notice, the tentacles suddenly draw in, and the little face is as wax. If no one seems to notice, then Lulla lets herself go. She all but dances in her eagerness, while Annamai is slowly sailing up the walk; and when she reaches the verandah, Lulla can wait no longer; one spring and she is in her arms, nestling, cuddling, burying her curls in her neck; then looking up confidentially, little Lulla begins to talk; everything we have done and said is being whispered into Annamai's ear. It does not matter that Lulla cannot yet speak any language known to men; she can make Annamai understand, and that is all she cares. Once we remember watching her, as she took the remnant of a sweet we had given her, out of her mouth and poked it into Annamai's. Could love do more?

Dimples and Lulla are quite inseparable. Lulla is to Dimples what Tara is to Evu. She immensely admires her vigorous little junior, and tries to copy her whenever possible. One delicious game seems to have been suggested by the arches in the garden. Dimples and Lulla stand on all fours close together. Then they lean over till their heads touch the ground, and look through the arch. If you are on the babies' level (that is on the floor), you will enjoy this game.

Another Sunday morning entertainment is kissing. Dimples advances upon Lulla. Lulla falls upon Dimples. Then Dimples hugs Lulla, nearly chokes her, almost certainly overturns her. The two roll over and over like kittens. Dimples seizes Lulla by her curls and vehemently kisses face, neck, and anything else she can get at; and then backs off, propelling herself on two feet and one hand, in which position she looks like a puppy on three paws. Lulla smooths her ruffled curls and person generally, regards Dimples with gravity, and, if in an affectionate humour herself, leads the attack upon Dimples, and the programme is repeated.

But the joy of the hour is to spin in the hammocks. These contrivances being hung from the roof swing freely, and the special excitement is to hold on with both hands, and run round so that the hammock twists into a knot and spins when released, with the baby inside it, in a giddy waltz till the coil untwists itself. This looks dangerous, and when the game was first invented we rather demurred. But we are wiser now, and we let them spin. Lulla especially enjoys this madness. It is startling to see the tiny thing whirl like a reckless young teetotum. But if you weakly interfere, Lulla thinks you want to learn the art, and goes at it with even madder zest, till her very curls are dizzy.

Dimples and Lulla in disgrace are a piteous spectacle. Dimples opens her mouth till it is almost square, and the most plaintive wail proceeds from it for about a minute and a half. Then she stops, looks sadly on the world, surprised and hurt at its unkindness to her, and then suddenly she discovers something interesting to do; and hastily rubbing her knuckles into her eyes to clear them as quickly as maybe of tears, she scrambles on to her feet, and forgets her injuries. Once she had been very naughty, and had to be smacked. It is never easy to smack Dimples, and fortunately she seldom requires it; but hard things have to be done, so that morning the fat little hands, to their surprise, knew the feel of chastening pats. "She daren't laugh, and she wouldn't cry"; this description, her Piria Sittie's, is the best I can offer of that baby's attitude. The thing could not possibly be a joke, but if meant otherwise, it was an indignity far past tears.

Lulla is quite different. She drops on the floor, if admonished, as if her limbs had suddenly become paralysed, and takes absolutely no notice of the offending disciplinarian. She simply ignores her, and gazes mutely beyond her. The offence is not one for explanation, and if invited to repent, her aloofness of demeanour is perfectly withering. But take her up in your arms, and she buries her curls in your neck, and coos her apologies (or is it forgiveness?) in your ear, and loves you all the better for the momentary breach.

Our babies are often parables. Lulla stands for the Single Eye. How often we have watched her and learned the lesson from her! She sees someone to whom she wants to go at what must seem to her an immense distance. And the distance is filled with obstacles, some of them quite enormous. But Lulla never stops to consider possibilities. Difficulties are simply things to be climbed over. She looks at the goal and makes straight for it. Her only care is to reach it. Sometimes at afternoon tea, when she is sitting on someone's lap, facing an empty, uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal: that is Lulla.

We have a custom at Dohnavur which perplexes the sober-minded. We call most of our possessions by names other than their own. These names are entirely private. We have to keep to this rule of privacy, otherwise we get shocks. "O Lord, look upon our beloved Puppy, and make her tooth come through; and bless Alice (in Wonderland), whose inside has gone wrong," was the petition offered in all seriousness, which finally moved us to prudence. We do not feel responsible for these names, for they come of themselves, and we see them when they come. That is all we have to do with them. Besides the Beetle and the Sea-anemone we have a dear Cockatoo, who screws her nose and her whole face up into a delightful pucker when she either laughs or cries, and then suddenly unscrews it in the middle of either emotion and looks entirely demure. This is the little Vimala, who, under God, owes her life to her Piria Sittie's splendid nursing. This baby has always got a private little secret of joy hidden away somewhere inside. We surprise her sometimes, sitting alone on the floor talking to herself about it; and then she tells us bits of it—as much as she thinks we can understand. But most of it is still hidden away, her own private little secret. And there is an Owlet, a Coney, a Froglet, and a Cheshire Cat, a Teddy-bear, a Spider, a Ratlet, and a Rosebud. We are aware that this list is rather mixed; but to be too critical would end in being nothing, so we are a Menagerie.

The Rosebud is like her name, small and sweet. When she wants to kiss her friends, which is whenever she sees them, her mouth is like the pink point of a moss-rose bud just coming through the moss. George Macdonald, perfect interpreter of babies, must have had our Preethie's double in his mind when he wrote:—

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss? Three angels gave me at once a kiss. How did you come to us, you dear? God thought of you, and so I am here.

The Owlet is twin to that quaint little bird, so its name flew to her and stayed. This babe has round eyes with long curling lashes. When she is good, these round eyes beam, and every one forgets that anything so fascinating can ever be other than good. When she is naughty the case is exactly reversed. This baby's proper name is Lullitha, which means Playfulness, and illustrates a side of her character undiscovered by the visitor who only sees the Owlet sitting on her perch with serious, watchful, unblinking eyes, regarding the intruder. But most babies are complex characters, and are not known in an hour.

The Teddy-bear is a fine child with perfect lungs, a benevolent smile, and an appetite. Her ruling passion at present is devotion to her food. She feels unjustly treated because we do not see our way to feed her lavishly at her own five meal-times and also at the meal-times of all the other babies in the nursery.

On Sunday morning, when we are in charge, we hear her views upon this subject expressed in a manner wholly her own. She has just drained her own bottle, and is indignantly explaining that it is not nearly enough, when another bottle arrives for another baby, and this is too much for Teddy's equanimity. We all know how hard it is to keep up under the shock of adversity. Teddy does not attempt to keep up; she invariably topples over. But the way she does this is instructive. She sits stiff and straight for one brief moment, her milky mouth wide open, her hands outstretched in despairing appeal; then she clasps her head with her hands in a tragic fashion, absurd in a very fat infant, sways backwards and forwards two or three times till the desperate rock ends suddenly, as the poor Teddy-bear overbalances and bursts with a mighty burst. But the storm is too furious to last, and she soon subsides with a gusty sob and a short snort.

Poor little injured Teddy-bear! If it were not for her splendid health we might believe her oft-repeated tale of private starvation. "They only feed me when you are here to see! Other times they give me nothing at all!" She tells us this frequently in her own particular language, but the sturdy limbs belie it. This babe in matters of affection and mischief is as strenuous and original as she is about the one supreme affair pertaining to her elastic receptacle—to quote a Tamil friend's polite reference to the cavity within us—and many more edifying scenes might have been shown from her eventful life. But undoubtedly the predominating note at the present hour is her insatiable hunger, and when her name is mentioned in the nursery there is a smile and a new tale about her amazing appetite.



CHAPTER XXI

More Animals



IN full contrast to Teddy-bear is that floppy child, the Coney. In Hart's Animals of the Bible, there is a picture of this baby, only the fore-paws should be raised in piteous appeal to be taken up. The Coney is really a pretty child with pathetic eyes and a grateful smile; but she was long in learning to walk, and felt aggrieved when we remonstrated. Her feet, she considered, were created to be ornamental rather than useful, and no amount of coaxing backed up with massage could persuade her otherwise. So she was left behind in the march; and when her contemporaries departed for the middle-aged babies' nursery, she stayed behind with the infants. And the infants had no pity. They regarded her as a sort of hassock, large and soft and good to jump on. More than once we have come into the nursery and found the big, meek child of three kneeling resignedly under a window upon which an adventurous eighteen-months wished to climb; and often we have found her prostrate and patient under the dancing feet of Dimples.

However, the Coney can walk now. This triumph was effected with the help of an Indianised go-cart, which did what all our persuasions had entirely failed to do. But the process was not pleasant. The poor Coney would stand mournfully holding the handle of her instrument of torture, longing with a yearning unspeakable to sit down and give it up for ever. Someone would pass, and hope would rise in her heart. She would be carried now, carried out of sight of that detested go-cart. But no, the callous-hearted only urged her to proceed. She would howl then with a howl that told of bitter disappointment. Sometimes she would sit down flat and regard the thing with a blighting glance, the hatred of a gentle nature roused to unwonted vehemence. Always her wails accompanied the rumbling of its wheels.

"The Conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks." One day in deep depression of spirits the Coney arrived at the kindergarten. She sat down before the threshold, which is three inches high, and climbed carefully over it. She found herself in a new world, where babies were doing wonderful things and enjoying all they did. The Coney decided to join a class, and was offered beads to thread. Life with beautiful beads to thread became worth living, and it may be in the course of time that the tortoise will overtake the hare. In any case we find much cheer in the conclusion of the verse, for if our Coney builds in the Rock her being rather feeble will not matter very much.

Those who possess that friend of our youth, Alice, as illustrated by Sir John Tenniel, may find the photograph twice reproduced of our fat Cheshire Cat. This baby is remarkable for two things: she smiles and she vanishes. The time to see the vanishing conducted with more celerity than Alice ever saw it, is when the babies' warning call is sounded across the verandah and a visitor appears in the too near horizon. This baby then vanishes round the nearest corner. There is nothing left of her, not even a smile. In fact, the chief contrast between her and the cat among the foliage is that with our Cat the smile goes first.

Sunday morning, to return to the beginning, is full of possible misadventure. Sometimes the babies seem to agree among themselves that it would be well to be good. Then their admiring Sittie and Ammal have nothing to do but enjoy them. But sometimes it is otherwise. First one baby pulls her sister's hair, and the other retaliates, till the two get entangled in each other's curls. Piria Sittie flies to the rescue, disentangles the combatants and persuades them to make friends. Meanwhile three restless spirits in bodies to match have crept out through the open door (it is too hot if we shut the doors), and we find them comfortably ensconced in forbidden places. The Beetle is a quiet child. She retires to a corner and looks devout. Presently a sound as of scraping draws our attention to her. "Beetle! Open your mouth!" Beetle opens her mouth. It is packed with whitewash off the wall. Then a scared cry rings through the nursery, and all the babies, imagining awful things imminent, tumble one on top of the other in a wild rush into refuge. It is only a large grasshopper which has startled the Cheshire Cat, whose great eyes are always on the look-out for possible causes of panic. The grasshopper is banished to the garden and the Cheshire Cat smiles all over her face. Peace restored, Dimples and the Owlet remember a dead lizard they found in a corner of the verandah, and set off to recover it. These two walk exactly like mechanical toys; and as they strut along hand in hand, or one after the other, they look like something wound up and going, in a Christmas shop window. Presently they return with the lizard. Its tail is loose, and they sit down to pull it off. This is not a nice game, and something else is suggested. Dimple's mouth grows suddenly square; she wants that lizard's tail.

Then a dear little child called Muff (because she ought to be called Huff if the name had not been already appropriated), who has been solemnly munching a watch, decides it is time to demand more individual attention. She objects to the presence of another baby on her Sittie's lap. Why should two babies share one lap? The thing is self-evidently wrong. One lap, one baby, should be the rule in all properly conducted nurseries. Muff broods over this in silence, then slides off the crowded lap and sits down disconsolate, alone. Tears come, big sad tears, as Muff meditates; and it takes time to explain matters and comfort, without giving in to the one-lap-one-baby theory.



We have several helpful babies. Dimples has been discovered paying required attentions to things smaller than herself; and the Wax Doll pats the Rosebud if she thinks it will reassure her, when (as rarely happens) that pet of the family is left stranded on a mat. But Puck is the most inventive. It was one happy Sunday morning that we came upon her feeding the Ratlet on her own account. The Ratlet was making ungrateful remarks; and we hurried across to her and saw that Puck, under the impression doubtless that any hole would do, was pouring the milk in a steady stream down the poor infant's nose. Puck smiled up peacefully. She was sure we would be pleased with her. But the Ratlet continued eloquent for very many minutes.

Sometimes (but this is an old story now) our difficulties were increased by the Spider's habit of whimpering, which had a depressing effect upon the family. This poor baby was a weak little bag of bones when first she came to us. The bag was made of shrivelled skin of a dusty brown colour. Her hair was the colour of her skin, and hung about her head like tattered shreds of a spider's web. She sat in a bunch and never smiled. Something about her suggested a spider. Her Tamil name is Chrysanthemum, which by the change of one letter becomes Spider. So we called her Spider.

At first we were not anxious about her; for such little children pick up quickly if they are healthy to begin with, as we believed she was. But she did not respond to the good food and care, and only grew thinner and more miserable as the weeks passed, till she looked like the first picture in a series of advertisements of some marvellous patent food, and we wondered if she would ever grow like the fat and flourishing last baby of the series. For two months this state of things continued; she grew more wizened every day; and the uncanny spider-limbs and attitude gave her the air of not being a human baby at all, but a terrible little specimen which ought not to be on view but should be hidden safely away in some private medical place—on a shelf in a bottle of spirits of wine.

We are asked sometimes if such tiny things can suffer other than physically. We have reason to think they can. As all else failed, we took a little girl from school for whom the Spider had an affection, and let her love her all day long; and almost at once there was a change in the sad little face of the Spider. She had been cared for by an old grandfather after her mother's death, and it seemed as if she had fretted for him and needed someone all to herself to make up for what she was missing.

This little girl, the Cod-fish by name, was devoted to the Spider. She nestled her and played with her—or attempted to, I should say, for at first the Spider almost resented any attempts to play. "She doesn't know how to smile!" said the Cod-fish disconsolately after a week's petting and loving had resulted only in fewer whimpers, but not as yet in smiles. A few days later she came to us, and announced with much emotion: "She has smiled three times!" Next day the record rose to seven; after that we left off counting.

The Spider is fat and bonnie now. Her skin is a clear and creamy brown, and her hair has lost its dustiness; but she still likes to sit crumpled up, and a small alcove in the kitchen is her favourite haven when tired of the world. Seen unexpectedly in there, bunched in a tight knot, her dark, keen little eyes peering out of the light-coloured little face, she still suggests a spider. But it is a cheerful Spider, which makes all the difference.



CHAPTER XXII

The Parrot House



THE time to see the Taraha nursery at its best is between late evening and early morning, and again about noon. It is perfectly peaceful then. Thirty mats are spread upon the floor. Thirty babies are strewn upon the mats. All the thirty are asleep. A sleeping baby is good. Thirty babies all good at once is something we cannot promise at any other hour.

Shading your lantern, and walking carefully so as not to tread on more scattered limbs than may be, you wander round the nursery and meditate upon the beautiful ways of childhood. There is something so touching in sleeping innocence, and you are touched. Here two chubby babies are lying locked in each other's arms. You have to look twice before you see which limbs belong to which. There another is hugging a doll minus its head. Next to her a baby sleeps pillowed on another, and the other does not mind. In the middle of the floor, far from her mat, a sturdy three-year-old sprawls content. You pick her up gently and lay her on her mat. With an expression of determined resolution the baby rolls off again; and if you attempt another remove, an ominous pucker of the forehead warns you to desist. You wonder if the babies are quite as good as they seem. One of the dear, fat, devoted little pair you noticed at first, stirs, disentangles herself from her neighbour, and gives her a slight kick. There is a smothered, sleepy howl, and the kick is returned. "Water!" wails the first fat baby. "Water!" wails the second. You get water, give it, pat both fat babies till they go to sleep, and then cautiously retire. It would be a pity if all the babies were to waken thirsty and kick each other. At the door you turn and look back. Graceful babies, clumsy babies, babies who lie extended like young pokers, babies curled like kittens. All sorts of babies, good, bad, and middling, but all blessedly asleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep! Thy father guards his sheep, Thy mother shakes the dreamland-tree Down fall the little dreams for thee, Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sleep, baby, sleep! Our Saviour loves His sheep. He is the Lamb of God on high, Who for our sakes came down to die. Sleep, baby, sleep!

The pretty German lullaby rises unbidden, and is pushed away by the quick, sad thoughts that will not listen to it. For under all the laughter and nursery frolic and happiness, we cannot but remember why these little ones are here. Round about the compound in a great triangle there are three Temple towers. They are out of sight though near us, but we cannot forget they are there. They stand for that which deprives these children of their birthright. Oh for the day when those Temple towers will fall and the reign of righteousness begin! There was a time when it seemed impossible to desire that the fire should be allowed to touch the stately and beautiful things of the world. Now there is something that satisfies as nothing else could in the vision of that purifying fire; and the promise that stands out like a light in the darkness is that which tells that the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom, all things that offend.

In the tiny babies' nursery many a crooning Indian lullaby is sung to the babies in their swinging white cradles; but in the Taraha nursery we sing sweet old hymns, in Tamil and English, and then all sensible people are supposed to go to sleep. But one evening after the singing, two little tots settled down for a talk. Said one lying comfortably on her back with her two hands clasped behind her head: "Who takes care of us at night when we all go to sleep?" Said the other in a mixture of Tamil and English: "Jesus-tender-Shepherd takes care of us—Jesus-loves-me-this-I-know." The first baby rolled over upon her small sister with a crow of derision. "It is not! It is Accal! I woke one night and saw her!" The other baby insisted she was making a mistake. "Accal sleeps, all people sleep; they lie down like us and go to sleep. Only Jesus stays awake, and never, never goes to sleep." "Never, never?" questioned the first, and was quiet for a minute considering the matter; then with a sceptical little laugh, "Did you ever wake up and see Him?"

If the babies were always in a state of calm repose, the Taraha's pet name, Parrot-house, would be inappropriate: but for nearly ten hours of the day they are awake and talkative. Talk, however, is a mild word by which to describe their powers of conversation. Sometimes we wonder if they never tire of chattering, and then we remember they have only lately learned to talk. They have not had time to tire.



Once we listened, hoping that the trailing clouds of glory so recently departed had left some trace of illumination in this their first expression in earth's language of their feelings and emotions. But we found them very mundane. Most of the conversation concerned their "saman," a comprehensive Indian word used by people with limited vocabularies to express all manner of things to play with. Their "saman" was various. Dolls, of course, and the remnants of dolls; tins and the lids thereof; bits of everything which could break; corks, stones, seeds, half cocoa-nut shells; rags of many ages and colours; scraped down morsels of brick; withered flowers and leaves; sticks of all sorts and sizes; English Christmas cards, sometimes with much domestic information on the back; unauthorised sundries from the kindergarten—delivered up with a smile intended to assure you that they were only being kept for Sittie; and puchies. Puchies are insects. We have one baby who collects puchies. "Look!" she said, one morning before prayers, "Deah little five puchies!" and she opened her hand and five red and black beetles crawled slowly out, to the delight of the devout, who scrambled up from their orderly rows with shrieks of appreciation.

But if the babies' conversation was unenlightening, their chosen avocations are not uninteresting. They are always busy about something, and, from their point of view, something important. There are, of course, some among the thirty who are unimaginative and unenterprising. These sit in the sand and play. Others have more to do. Life to them is full of the unknown. The unknown is full of possibilities. The great thing is to experiment. Nothing is too insignificant to explore, and all five senses are useful to the thoroughly competent baby.

They knew, of course, all the flowers, and the discovery of anything fresh was always followed by a scene which suggested a colony of small and active ants hauling some large object to their nest; for the nearest grown-up person was invariably hailed, and pulled, and pushed, and hurried along till the "new flower" was reached. Then, if the object was incautious enough to stoop down to examine it, the ants, ant-wise, would envelope it, climbing, swarming all over it, till there was nothing to be seen but ants.



They knew the habits of caterpillars, and especially they had knowledge about the wonderful silver chrysalis which pins itself to the pointed leaves of the oleander. They knew what was packed up inside, and some with wide-open eyes had watched the miracle slowly evolving as the butterfly unpacked itself, and sunned its crumpled velvet wings, till the crumples smoothed, and the wings dried, and the butterfly fluttered away. They knew, too, the less approachable ways of the wild bees, and where they hive, and what happens if they are disturbed; and they knew the private feelings of calves, and which likes to be treated as a brother and which resents such liberties. Crows they knew intimately, and squirrels a little; for infants fallen from their nests have often been taken care of, much against their foolish wills, until old enough to look after themselves. Their namesakes, the parrots, they knew very well; and the dainty little sunbirds that flash from flower to flower like little living jewels in the sunlight; and the clever tailor-bird, which sews its own nest, knotting its thread like a grown-up human being; and the wise leaf-insect that can hardly be found till it moves; and the great, green, frisky grasshopper that seems to invite a chase.

We found they knew, alas, too much about the misuse of everything growing in the field! The tamarind fruit makes condiment, but eaten raw it gives fever; and the babies think we are wrong here, and they are fond of forgetting our rules. Many kinds of grasses are very good to eat; and here again we are mistaken, for we know not the flavour of grasses. Seeds may be useful to plant; but those who think their use ends there, are short-sighted and ignorant people. Upon these and other matters the babies feel we have much to learn.



One weird joy has been theirs, and they never will forget it. For one whole blissful afternoon they followed the snake-charmer about at a respectful distance; and they cannot understand why we are not anxious they should dance as he danced, and pipe as he piped, round the hopeful holes they discover in the red mud walls.

Other things they had learned to do, not wholly innocent. They must have made friends with the masons who built their new nursery, and persuaded them to do their work in a sympathetic spirit; for they knew the weak points hidden from our eyes, and how pleasant it is to scoop mortar out of cracks between the bricks of the floor. They had learned how most of their toys were made, and how a doll could be most easily dissected, and the particular taste of its inside. They knew, too, the lusciousness of divers sorts of sand—this last, however, being a mixture of crime and disease, and treated as such, is not a popular sin. Finally, to our lasting disgrace, they had learned, after a series of thoughtful experiments, how best to obey a command and yet elude its intention; thus on a wet day, when they were commanded not to go out, their Sittie found them lying full length in a long row on the edge of the verandah, their heads protruding so as to catch the lovely drip from the roof. And all these things they had carefully learned in spite of a certain amount of supervision; and, being entirely unsuspicious, they will take you into their confidence and let you share the forbidden fruit, if you are so inclined.

But, after all, perfection of goodness would make us more anxious than even these enormities; we should fear our babies were growing too good—a fear not pressing at present. The Parrot-house only overwhelms when the birds begin to sing. Then indeed all who can, flee far away, for the babies once started are difficult to stop. They are sure you like it as much as they do, and are anxious to oblige you when you visit their world. So they sing with the greatest earnestness, and as they invariably hang on to every available part of you, and punctuate their melodies with kisses and embraces, escape is not always practicable.

The Taraha nursery was our first substantial building. It is built upon foundations raised well off the ground, and has a wide verandah. When first it was opened and the children were invited to take possession, they did so most completely. One quaint little person of barely three, called Kohila, whose small, repressed face in the photograph gives no hint of character, used to stalk up and down the verandah with an air of proprietorship which left no doubt in any mind as to her opinion on the subject. Another (sharing the swinging cot with Kohila in the photo) sat on the top step and smiled encouragingly to visitors. It was nice to be smiled at, but there was something very condescending in the smile. Another stood guard over the plants, which grew in pots much bigger than herself all the way down the verandah. If any presumed to touch them, she would dart out upon them with an indignant chirrup. For days after the great event—the opening of the Taraha—small parties waited on visitors, formed in procession before and behind, and escorted them round, explaining all mysteries, and insisting upon due admiration. Everything had to be interviewed, from teaspoons to pots of fern. This concluded, the guests were politely dismissed, and departed, let us hope, properly penetrated with a sense of the kindness of the babies.

There have always been some who object to visitors. One of these showed her objection, not by crying and running away, as undignified babies do, but by sitting exactly where she was when she first caught sight of the intruder, and staring straight into space with a very stony stare. A sensitive visitor could hardly have had the temerity to pass her, but normal visitors are not sensitive. Sometimes they attempted to make friends. This was too much. One fat arm would be slowly raised till it covered the baby's eyes, and in this position she would sit like a small petrifaction, till the horror had withdrawn.



This baby, Preetha by name, has in most matters a way of her own. One of her little peculiarities is a strong preference for solo music as compared with concert. She listens attentively to others' performances, then disappears. If followed, she will be found alone in a corner, with her face to the wall and her back to the world; and if she thinks herself unobserved, you will be regaled with a solo. This experience is interesting to the musical. It is never twice alike. Sometimes it is a succession of sounds, like a tune that has lost its way; sometimes, a recognisable version of the chorus lately learned. At other times she delivers her soul in a series of short groans and grunts, beating time with her podgy hands. If she perceives through the back of her head that someone is looking or listening, she stops at once; and no persuasions can ever produce that special rehearsal again. Of late this baby, being now nearly three, has awakened to a sense of life's responsibilities, and she evidently wishes to prepare to meet them suitably. Yesterday evening she came to me with an exceedingly serious face, pointed in the direction of the kindergarten room, and then tapping herself, remarked: "Amma! I kindergarten." No more was said; but we know we shall soon see her solemnly waddling into the schoolroom, and we wonder what will happen. Will she continue to insist upon a corner to herself?



CHAPTER XXIII

The Bear Garden



"THE fruit of the lotus—a capsule—ripens below the surface of the water. When the seeds are ripe and leave the berry, a small bubble of air attached to them brings them to the surface, and the seeds are carried wherever the wind and waves take them until the bubble bursts; when the seed, being heavier than water, sinks to the bottom, and then begins to grow to form a new plant, which may be at some distance from the parent one. In this simple way the lotus plant is enabled to spread." So says our botany book; and the thought of the lotus seed in its little air-boat floating away over the water to be sown, perhaps, far from the parent plant, is full of suggestion, and leads us straight to the Bear-garden.

A lotus-pool, a bear-garden—the connection is not obvious. Alice in her wanderings never wandered into bewilderment more profound than such a mixture of ideas. But this is the way we get to it: We have called these little children Lotus-buds—for such they are in their youngness and innocence; and the underlying thought runs deeper, as those who have read the first chapter know—but the Lotus-buds must grow into flowers and must be sown as living seeds, perhaps far away from the happy place they knew when they were buds. The little air-boat will come for them. The breath of the Spirit that bloweth where it listeth will carry them where it will, and we want them to be ready to be sown wherever the pools of the world are barren of lotus flowers. And this brings us straight to the newest of our beginnings in Dohnavur—the Kindergarten.

An ideal kindergarten is a place where the teachers train the scholars, and we hope to have that in time; at present the case is opposite, and that is why it has its name, the name that conflicts with the lotus-pool—the Bear-garden.

In this peaceful room Classes B, C, and D have taken their young teachers in hand—Rukma, Preena, and Sanda. Of these Rukma (Radiance) has the clearest ideas about discipline; Preena (the Elf) knows best how to coax; and Sanda, excellent Mouse that she is, has the gift of patience. These three (who after all are only school-girls, continuing their own education with their Prema Sittie) are attempting to instruct the babies on the lines of organised play; but the babies feel they have much to teach their teachers, and this is how they do it:—

Prema Sittie goes into the room when the kindergarten is in progress, and from three classes at once babies come springing towards her with squeals of joy, and they clasp her knees and look up with eyes full of affection and confidence in their welcome. "Go back to your place!" she says, and tries to look severe; with a chuckle the children obey, and she looks round and takes notes.

Chellalu is lying full-length on the bench, with a look of supreme content on her face, and her two feet against the wall. Pyarie has turned her back to the picture that is being shown, and is tying a handkerchief round her head. Ruhinie, an India-rubber-ball sort of baby, has suddenly bounced up from her seat, and is starting a chorus, of which she is fond, at the top of her not very gentle voice; and Komala, a perfect sprite, is tickling the child who sits next to her. "Sittie!" exclaims the distracted teacher, "they won't learn anything!" Or if she happens to be the Mouse, she is calmly engaged with the one good child in her class.

The next group is stringing beads on pieces of wire. "Look, look!" and an eager babe holds out her wire for admiration, and probably spills her beads in her effort to secure attention. If she does, there is a general scramble, beads rolling loose on the floor being quite irresistible. One wicked baby sits by herself and strings her beads on her curls.

A few minutes later it is mat-plaiting; and the agile little fingers are diligently weaving pieces of blue and yellow material, bits over from their elder sisters' garments, beautifully unconscious that they are supposed to be working the colours alternately. Sometimes in the gayest way they exclaim: "Sittie! It's wrong! it's wrong!" Occasionally there is a howl from a child who has been pinched by another, or whose neighbour has helped herself to her beads. Sittie crosses the room hurriedly. "What's the matter?" With tears rolling down her cheeks the victim points to her oppressor. "May you do that?" is the invariable English question. It is answered by a shake of the head, the tiniest baby understanding that particular remark. The injured baby smiles. A reproof, or at worst a pat on the fat arm next to hers, satisfies her sense of justice, and she is content.

When an English lesson begins, those afflicted with delicate nerves are happier elsewhere. One class has a toy farmyard, another a set of tea-things, the third a doll which every member of the class is aching to embrace. The teachers and children alike are inclined to talk with emphasis; and if you stand between the three classes you hear queer answers to queerer questions, and wonder if the babies at Babel were anything like so bewildering.

But this vision of the kindergarten is hardly a fortnight old; for Classes B, C, and D are of recent development, and are made up of some heedless characters, as Chellalu and Pyarie, who could not keep up with class A, and a few more young things from the nursery who were wilder than wild rabbits from the wood when we began. Also it should be stated that from the babies' point of view white people are only playthings. "They were very good before you came!" is the unflattering remark frequently addressed to us; and as we discreetly retire, the babies do seem to become suddenly beautifully docile. But even so they might be better, as an unconscious comedy over-seen this morning proves. I was in the porch outside the door, when Rukma, pointing to a blackboard on which were written sundry words, told Chellalu to show her "cat," and I looked in interested to know if Chellalu really knew anything of reading. Chellalu brandished the pointer, then turned to Rukma with a confidential smile, "Cat? Where is it, Accal? Is it at the top or at the bottom?" Rukma, who has a keen sense of the comic, seemed to find it difficult to look as she felt she ought. Chellalu caught the twinkle in her eye, and throwing herself heartily into the spirit of the game, which was evidently intended to be a kindergarten version of Hunt the Mouse through the Wood, she searched the blackboard for cat. Then to Rukma: "Accal! dear Accal! Tell me, and I'll tell you!"

There is nothing that helps us so much to be good as to be believed in and thought better than we are; and the converse is true, so we do not want to be always suspecting Chellalu of sin; but this last was entirely too artless, and this was apparently Rukma's view, for she sent Chellalu back to her seat and called up another baby, who, fairly radiating virtue, immediately found the cat.

The next room—which Class A (the first to be formed) has to itself—is a haven of peace after the Bear-garden. It is a pleasant room like the other, pretty with pictures and with flowers. And the little bright faces make it a happy place, for this class, though serious-minded, is exceedingly cheerful. There is the demure little Tingalu, the good child of the kindergarten, its hope and stay in troublous hours, and the quaint little trio, Jeya, Jullanie, and Sella—this last is called Cock-robin by the family, for she has eyes and manners which remind us of the bird, and she hardly ever walks, she hops. Mala and Bala are in the class, and a lively scamp called Puvai.

The kindergarten is worked in English, helped out with Tamil when occasion requires. This plan, adopted for reasons pertaining to the future of the children, is resulting in something so comical that we shall be sorry when the first six months are over and the babies grow correct. At present they talk with delightful abandon impossible to reproduce, but very entertaining to those who know both languages. They tack Tamil terminations to English verbs, and English nouns make subjects for Tamil predicates. They turn their sentences upside down and inside out, and any way in fact which occurs to them at the moment, only insisting upon one thing: you must be made to understand. They apply everything they learn as immediately as possible, and woe to the unwary flounderer in the realm of natural science who offers an explanation of any phenomena of nature other than that taught in the kindergarten. The learned baby regards you with a tender sort of pity. Poor thing, you are very ignorant; but you will know better in time—if only you will come to the kindergarten, the source of the fountain of knowledge.

The ease and the quickness with which a new word is appropriated constantly surprises us. As for example: one morning two babies wandered round the Prayer-room, and, discovering passion-flowers within reach, eagerly begged for them in Tamil. One of the two pushed the other aside and wanted all the flowers. "Greedy! greedy!" I said reprovingly, in English. "Greedy mine!" was the immediate rejoinder, and the little hand was held out with more certainty than ever now that the name of the flower was known. "Greedy my flower! Mine!"

But some of the quaintest experiences are when the eloquent baby, determined to express herself in English, falls back upon scraps of kindergarten rhyme and delivers it in all seriousness. On the evening before my birthday I was banished from my room, and the children decorated it exactly as they pleased. When I returned I was implored not to look at anything, as it was not intended to be seen till next morning. Next morning the babies came in procession with their elders, and while I was occupied with them out on the verandah, Chellalu and her friend Naveena, discovering something unusual in my room, escaped from the ranks and went off to examine the mystery. I found them a moment later gazing in astonished joy at the glories there revealed. "Who did it all?" gasped Chellalu, whose intention, let us hope, was perfectly reverent. "God did it all!"