CHAPTER III.

I do not know how long this kind of life continued. It may have been a year or only a few months. There was nothing to break the monotony, nothing to be as time marks to show the passing days and months. The little mama took less and less interest in everything. One day coming out of the other room I found her lying on the floor. I saw by the look of her face that something was the matter with her, so I ran quickly and called the old woman, who placed her carefully upon the charpoy. She did not utter a word, made no sign of pain or distress, but kept on looking in the old direction with those large brilliant eyes, so wide open, peering into the distance. How bright they seem to me now, how they have haunted me all these years! Many a night have I awakened to see those eyes before me as if in reality they were there.

The rupees had been going, one by one, and now that the little mama remained on the charpoy day and night, the old woman took the key of the padlock from my mother’s waist-string and opened the box to get a rupee for some food. I saw there was but little in the box, a few fancy bits of clothing, some ornaments and a bundle of papers bound up with a string. The old woman took the best care she could of us all. She evidently saw that the time was short before all her labors, especially for the mama, would be ended.

One morning early, coming out of the other room, I saw those wide open eyes as usual, but the strange appearance of the face startled me. I had never seen a dead person, I had never heard of death. I did not know that people died. Yet, ignorant as I was, I saw that something terrible was the matter with mama. The old woman came quickly and at the first sight with a wailing cry exclaimed, “gayi! gayi!” gone! gone! I could not comprehend it, mama gone and yet she was lying there before me! The little sister came and we put our hands on mama’s face, we took her hands in ours. They were so cold and strange, we spoke to her, but her lips moved not. So unlike our little mama, as we delighted to call her. The old woman beckoned to some women in the court below. They quickly came. One of them took us into the other room and tried to make us understand what had happened but all we could realize was this, that our mama had gone. When we came out into the room again a white sheet was placed over the charpoy and tied at the four corners. All was so still and silent; we went and crouched into a corner clinging to each other in abject fear.

I felt as I did when that fearful white giant was in the room on that dreadful night, that I did not dare to breathe hard for fear some one might discover us. Toward evening two men came and took away the charpoy and all on it. I tried to get the old woman to tell me what had happened, but her only reply was that mama, the dear mama, had gone and we should never see her again. Our little hearts were breaking. We wept together until we fell asleep at night. The morning came but no mama for us to see.

How many times in my life since those dark sorrowful days have I thought to myself, Alas! What numbers of women’s hearts have been broken by these faithless Christian Europeans! These women were only natives to be sure, but they had hearts as warm for those whose soft words of love they had heard, and whose promises they believed, as any of their more favored white sisters. What is the use of talking of God, of justice, of virtue, of right and wrong, if such deception, cruelties and wrongs are to remain unnoticed and unpunished? Is there to be no recompense to those so cruelly injured? Are there no memories to follow the perpetrators of such infamous deeds? If not, then this world is one of chance and confusion. Might makes right, vice is as good as virtue and the sooner we get through the farce of living the better, to die and perish forever.

Soon the few remaining rupees were gone, then the trinkets, the few articles of clothing, and lastly, the box itself, all, everything had gone to purchase the little food we needed. There was nothing left with which to supply our wants or to pay our rent. One day the old woman took the little sister and me down into a little shelter, made by an old grass roof leaning against the back wall of the court. This was to be our home. She had gathered some coarse grass on which we were to sleep. Our only furniture consisted of two old earthen pots in which to cook our food if we could get any. All of our beautiful brass dishes that we once looked upon as shining jewels, when, after our meals they were scoured and placed in the sun to dry, had gone, following the trinkets and the box. My best suit consisted of a few inches of cloth and a string around my waist. My little sister had a very short skirt much fringed by long use around the bottom. For awhile the people in the court gave us food, some rice, others vegetables, and others a pepper pod and a few grains of salt. The little sister and I gathered old grass, and dried manure with which our food was cooked. So we were happy. It takes so little when we are willing to be happy that I sometimes question whether civilization is a benefactor, for it increases our wants and adds to our labor in supplying them.

The old woman lived with us of course, as this was her only home as well as ours. She was so kind that we clung to her as our new mama. Bye and bye the neighbors gave us less and less; not that they were unwilling, but they were all so poor. I did not understand the political economy of either poverty or riches. I did not know fully why the people could not give us anything.

However, I well remember a scene, an object lesson of tyranny, and the helplessness of poverty, that occurred one day. A man on a horse rode into the big gate followed by a number of men with long bamboo sticks in their hands. I heard one who lived in a hut next to us say as he ran into his house, that the zemindar who owned the place had come to collect his rents. It seemed that the rents were long overdue, because the people were unable to pay them though they did the best they could. The people were all called out of their huts where the most of them had concealed themselves and those that would not come were forced out by the men with sticks. The man on his horse demanded the rents. The people said they had nothing to pay. The little fields outside the city that they cultivated had produced nothing, for there had been no rain. They had tried to get work but there was none to be had. They could not get the poorest food for their wives and children. They were starving. They would work for him and do anything he told them, for their lives were in his hands. He turned upon them with scorn, denounced them with all the filthy names he could use and they were many. I could understand only a few of the words, but I knew they were terrible. How angry he was!

The men, with the women and children, threw themselves on the ground around his horse and pleaded with him for mercy, but the more they begged the more angry he grew, and then, when he became tired out with his stream of fearful words, he gave orders to his men with the long sticks to search every house, and in they went with a rush. The old charpoys, the tattered rags of blankets, here and there a brass cup or an iron dish, everything was brought and laid in the center of the court, a mass of rubbish the most of which should have gone out by the back door and been thrown into the gully. A cart was brought in and everything placed upon it and off it went. Just as the zemindar was going out of the gate, a man living in one of the huts came in. He had been out from very early morning going for miles to a pond where he caught a few small fish, not one over an inch in length. These he was bringing for his poor old decrepit mother who was really starving. As soon as the big man saw this handful of fish he ordered one of his men to take them. The poor man seeing that he was about to lose his little treasure threw himself upon the ground, and in tones heart-rending, begged the fish for his old mother who was dying for want of food; but he might as well have talked to the gate post. The fish were gone and the big man departed on his high-stepping horse.

Had the big zemindar put us all in some room, closed the door and suffocated us, it would have been an act of mercy compared with what he