6. Poetry of Childhood
Poetry of Childhood
TWO FABLES OFTEN CAME TO MIND in those first days. When we were perplexed by diverse advisers (for we found that both books and people differed considerably about the proper way to bring up children), then we thought of Aesop’s old man and his donkey. And when we hardly dared to do anything for fear of doing wrong, the mother-bear story … was delightfully in point: “Shall I,” said the bear’s cub to his mother, “move my right paw first or my left, or my two front paws together, or the two hind ones, or all four at once, or how?”
“Leave off thinking, and walk,” grunted the old bear.
So in a great simplicity we tried to let the children grow as the green things about them grew, not too closely regarded, not pulled up at frequent intervals to see how they were getting on.
A TEACHER WAS OFFERED TO US who appeared to be all that we wanted, and the hardest thing we had to do that year was to return her to the one who had so kindly sent her to us. Another came, but we could not use her either, and we had to close the kindergarten…. It was as though something in the place acted as touchstone and declared what was, as apart from what seemed to be, in these whom we would so gladly have used because we needed them so much. In each case truth was the rock upon which they foundered. If our children were to grow up truthful they must be taught by those who had a regard for truth; and not just a casual regard, a delicate regard. On this point we were adamant.
AFTER A WHILE INDOORS we used to go out into the garden. It was Wonderland to the children. We never suggested questions and never answered any that they did not ask (we had as much as we could do to find answers to those they did ask) but we, as it were, ran to meet their minds in welcome. It was a merry kind of schooling.
AS THEY GREW OLDER, we tried, by means of travelling on the King’s business, and with the splendid help of books, to enlarge our children’s minds so that they would be always eager to learn more. And we learned more than we taught.
WE HEARD OF HER FIRST through our good Pakium, who, during a pilgrimage round the district, paid a visit to the family of which she was the youngest member. “She lay in her cradle asleep” – Pakium kindled over it – “like an innocent little flower, and she once opened her eyes – such eyes! – and smiled up in my face. Oh, like a flower is the babe!” And much speech followed, till we pictured a tender, flower-like baby, all sweetness and smiles.
Her story was such as to suggest fears, though on the surface things looked safe. Her grandfather, a fine old man, head of the house, was sheltering the baby and her mother and three other children; for the son-in-law had “gone to Colombo,” which in this case meant he desired to be free from the responsibilities of wife and family. He had left no address, and had not written after his departure. So the old man had the five on his hands. A temple woman belonging to a famous South-country temple, knowing the circumstances, had made a flattering offer for the baby, then just three months old. The grandfather had refused; but the grandmother was religious, and she felt the pinch of the extra five, and secretly influenced her daughter, so that it was probable the temple woman would win if she waited long enough. And temple women know how to wait.
A year passed quietly. We had friends on the watch, and they kept us informed of what was going on. The idea of dedication was becoming gradually familiar to the grandfather, and he was ill and times were hard. But still we could do nothing, for to himself and his whole clan adoption by Christians was a far more unpleasant alternative than temple dedication. After all, the temple people never break caste….
We were sitting round the dinner table one wet evening, thinking of nothing more exciting than the flying and creeping creatures which insisted upon drowning themselves in our soup, when the jingle of bullock bells made us look at each other incredulously; and then, without waiting to wonder who it was, we all ran out and met Rukma running in from the wet darkness. “It’s it! It’s it!” she cried, and danced into the dining room, decorum thrown to the pools in the compound. “Look at it!” And we saw a bundle in her arms. And it howled.
From that day on for nearly a week it continued consistently to howl…. The very crows made remarks about the baby when she wakened the morning with her howls. Mercifully for the family’s nerves she fell asleep at noon; but as soon as she woke she began again, and went on till both she and we were exhausted. There were no tears, the big dark eyes were only entirely defiant; and the baby stood straight up with her hands behind her back and her mouth open – that was all. But we knew it meant pure misery, though expressed so very aggressively; and we coaxed and petted when she would allow us, and won her confidence at last, and then she stopped.
It took months to tame the little thing. She had been allowed to do exactly as she liked; for she was her grandfather’s pet, and no one might cross her will. We had to go very gently; but eventually she understood and became a dear little girl, reserved but very affectionate, and scampish to such a degree that Chellalu, discerning a congenial spirit, decided to adopt her as “her friend.”
This fact was announced to us at the babies’ Bible class, when the word “friend,” which was new to the babies, was being explained. It has four syllables in Tamil, and the babies love four-syllabled words. They were rolling this juicy morsel under their tongues with sounds of appreciation, when Chellalu pointed across to Naveena, and with an air of possession remarked, “She is my friend.” The other babies nodded their heads, “Yes, Naveena is Chellalu’s friend!” Naveena looked flattered and very pleased.
These friends in a kindergarten class are rather terrible. They are always separated – as the Tamil would say, if one sits north the other sits south – but even so there are means of communication. This morning, passing the door of the kindergarten room, I looked in and saw something not included in the timetable. We have a little yellow bellflower here which grows in great profusion; and some vandal taught the babies to blow it up like a little balloon, and then snap it on the forehead. The crack it makes is delightful. We do not like this game, and try to teach the babies to respect the pretty flowers; but there are so many sins in the world, that we do not make another by actually forbidding it; we trust to time and sense and good feeling to help us. So it comes to pass that the worst scamps indulge in this game without feeling too guilty; and now I saw Chellalu with a handful of the flowers, cracking them at intervals, to the distraction of the teacher and the delight of all the class. One other was cracking flowers too. It was Naveena, and there was a method in her cracks. When Rukma turned to Chellalu, Naveena cracked her flower. When she turned to Naveena, then Chellalu cracked hers.
THERE WERE LITTLE ONES, TOO, and Indian sister-workers who required change and rest and refreshment as much as we did. What were we to do? We looked up to the Lord, our leader, and then we looked up to the hills that lay so near Dohnavur….
Elephants haunted those uplands, and bears and tigers, sambur, wild pigs, deer, the ever-fascinating monkey, the huge monitor lizard like a toy crocodile, and countless furred and feathered marvels. Life was all gladness there. Once the children, entranced, saw a tigress at play with her cubs. They rushed down to call me, but the tigress heard their cries of joy and took her cubs elsewhere; and once one of us met a tiger full face, but he, too, politely moved away. Later, we were to meet panthers, wild dogs, bears, and other forest people – not every day, but often enough to lend zest to life. And the children, and we with them, scrambled up dizzy rocks to almost inaccessible places, to the amazement of the foresters, who had not seen before, they said, such adventurous children. This was nectar to me. And indeed they were splendid climbers and never knew fear. Cool air, climbs, heavenly views, a mountain river, ferns, flowers, mosses (cushiony moss was a special pleasure; it does not grow on the plains) – what was there left to wish?
A dear little story is connected in my mind with our first visit to that woodland place. We left Dohnavur one evening in the heat of early September, and spent a breathless night in a forest hut under the hills. Next morning, the children set off to walk the three thousand feet to the house, leaving me to follow…. The way was long, and it was evening when I reached a stream not far from the house and stopped to rest…. And then from the other side of the stream I heard merry laughter, and shouts of welcome, and the children flew across like a flock of blue forest birds, and there were kisses and embraces so eager and so loving that we might have been parted for weeks. Then in the evening light that filled the air with gold-shine, we all went up to the house, and my tiredness fell from me in the happiness of being with the children again. It was one of those earthly pictures of heavenly things that cannot be forgotten.
SICK BIRDS AND STRAYED BIRDS are our most usual pets. We have not the heart to shut up wild things in cages, except when they are invalided or too young to fend for themselves. When they are considered well enough or old enough to be set at liberty, there is general jubilation. But alas! The little sunbird that has licked honey for a fortnight from affectionate fingers is apt to acquire too trustful a disposition for life in a world infested by hard-pressed pariah dogs. “The babies are our longest lasting pets,” one small mourner was heard confiding to another after the tragic deaths of several little favorites. “I am glad there is no wild beast that wants to eat them up.”
Animals would be much to the fore if only we could suitably have them. “When I am grown up,” said one, undaunted by accidents, “I shall have twenty dogs and twenty cats, and they shall play with each other.” Ten minutes after she had made this announcement I found her chuckling to herself, as with a child’s vivid imagination she surveyed the diverting prospect….
Occasionally the dolls, who for the most part live in boxes, are produced and hung in cradles swung from the trees. The effect of a dozen or so of these little hammocks, made of bits over from their own little garments, is very comical. Houses are arranged for the sleepers, to be ready when they wake. These houses follow the bungalow type. There is a central room “for food and meetings,” and two bedrooms, one on each side. There is a verandah, with steps, and a curl meant for decorative architecture finishes either side of the steps. The kitchen, Indian fashion, is at a little distance. As all this is made of mud, patted into shape, on the raised model plan, with very low walls and spaces for doors, you may easily make a mistake and overlook the walls when invited to pay a visit. Nothing more offends the general sense of propriety. “You have stepped over the wall. That is wall. The door is on the other side. Please come in by the door.”
Grown-up people, though so stupid, have some redeeming features. It is they who give the dolls. Also they kindly mend them when, as often happens, limbs come off. Here, judging by previous experience, one would expect a great display of sympathy with the sorely injured treasure. There is nothing of the sort. Strong common sense comes to the rescue, and the most heroic operative measures are regarded with perfect equanimity. The maternal mind thus disengaged has time to moralize. “Are you mending my doll’s leg to the glory of God?” was a question put to Mrs. Walker one day.
NEW LIGHT ON OLD TEXTS might be the safe and sober title to a chapterful of sundries. “Do you know about the devil’s beginning?” This was Leela to the Firefly, whose eager “Tell me, Leela!” started Leela at a trot….
“In the beginning,” began Leela in unctuous tones, “the bad devil was good. He was an angel. He lived in heaven. One day all the angels came to sing to God. Then the devil was angry. He got angrier and angrier. He was very rude to God.” Here Leela seemed to freeze all over, and her voice sounded quite deep and awful. Irreverence was far from her intention. “That bad, bad devil said: ‘I won’t stand before God’s chair any more, and I won’t sing to God any more. I want to sit in God’s chair, and make God sing to me!’” There was a perfectly horrified pause, as the enormity of the transgression became evident. “So God took him, and tumbled him down out of heaven, and he was turned into the devil.”
There was another solemn pause, then Leela continued cheerfully, “And we each have a little devil; he says, ‘Tell lies, steal, be cross.’ And we each have a little angel; he says, ‘Don’t tell lies, don’t steal, don’t be cross.’ That devil is a nasty little devil.”
“Which is more necessary,” inquired the practical Firefly of the Elf who just then appeared, “our little angel, or our Ammal?” (mother).
“Well,” returned the Elf impartially, “I think both are necessary. Our little angel is very important; he looks at God’s face for us. But then Jesus knows we couldn’t do without a mother. So he gives us both.” There was a vehement raid upon me, and the book which was considered too absorbing was triumphantly carried off.
“It was nice and kind of Jesus,” said little Leela in cooing tones; “when I see him I will run up to him fast, and give him hugs and kisses.”
“But he is God,” said one of the small elders soberly.
“But he is our Lord Jesus too,” said another quickly, feeling for Leela, whose loving little heart had meant nothing wrong. Leela looked grateful, and afterward confided that she always gave him kisses in her prayers.
Then from these heights there was a sudden drop. “I want to see the bad devil a corpse,” said the Firefly, with startling energy.
BUT THE TIME OF ALL TIMES to get into the very inside mind of an Indian child is in the wonderful sunset hour when all nature breathes softly, and just a little later, when the stars come out. Sometimes one gets shocks.
I had always thought children heard God’s voice in the thunder and were awed. Not at all. “The clouds are quarrelling. If they don’t take care they’ll spill,” was the painfully practical remark that blew the dust from my eyes. So even in the silent glory of sunset, and even under the solemn stars, one must be prepared for prose as well as poetry….
Often now an excited little creature comes flying in, impetuous, full of some new discovery. Once it was a beetle rolling a ball much bigger than himself to a hiding place under a tree. The children wanted to help the beetle, and they made a smooth track for him; but he obstinately persisted in kicking it by the rough way of his choice. Once it was a weed, as we disrespectfully call our flower guests who come without being invited. “It has thirteen different colors, not counting the stalk.” Once it was a praying mantis, whose devotional manners charmed the whole community and suggested any number of moral reflections. Often it is a new mimic insect, like a straw, or a leaf, or a bit of bark. Once it was green clouds.
“Green clouds! Oh, you little green girl!” I said not in the least believing. But the earnest, “Indeed, they are green,” and the tugging little hands prevailed. The clouds were really green; a sort of undefined sea-green, like the color of a wave before it rolls over, just as the crest curls ready to break. They were lighted with lemon color toward the under edge, and darkened into gray above, and they were floating in violet air. Then through that pure violet the sickle of the new moon curved, sharp against its transparency. Jupiter, at some seasons very large and brilliant here, shone above the moon; and the little filmy cloudlets swept across it, making halos as they passed.
The splendor and the silence of the movement held us still. I think we both felt we might miss something if we spoke. Slowly the lemon light faded; the cloud colors melted into a blue that was almost electric. Every moment the moon cut clearer, and the silver of the planet grew more radiant. And the little halos flying round it were like rainbows caught and twisted into rings.
At last the child spoke, her brown eyes fixed wistfully on the fading glory of the sky. “I thought he was coming back,” she said. Then I found she had fancied to herself that our Lord went home on a sunset cloud, pink and soft and beautiful, with gold from the inside shining through. “And whenever the clouds are just like that, I look to see if he is not there. And I have looked so often, and he hasn’t come yet.” But other little voices broke in upon us – “What is the sky made of? Is it a real roof? Look at the big star! Oh, it is running! Where is it running to? Why has it got a colored crown?”
In the warm southland the spirit of the moonlight and the starlight need not be shut out unkindly. We sit outside with it and sleep outside beside it. The toil and the littleness of the day pass out of memory in that large calm, as the heat that has passed is forgotten in the cool. The juniors generally go to bed early, but sometimes they break bounds and sit on the sand in the courtyard, in the starshine, very wide awake. Then, if you happen to be conveniently exhausted and unfit for conversation, the compassionate children will leave you in peace and forget your near existence. You have the chance then, if you care to take it, to drop for awhile into the world that is never far away, though we so seldom seem to find the little bypath into it.
“I want to string all the stars together on a thread and make a necklace.” This was Lola.
“You can’t,” said the Firefly, scandalized. “They aren’t yours.”
“Whose are they?” Lola sounded defiant.
“They’re God’s. They’re the lamps of God’s village.”
“Where is God’s village?”
“Up there.”
“What is it called?”
“It’s Heaven, of course.”
“And it’s up there?”
Lola pointed up with one fat forefinger, and looked searchingly at the Firefly, who answered with confidence, “Yes, up there; high up.”
Then Lola … gathered herself together and demanded, “How does it stay up?”
I WONDER WHAT your biggest temptation is. Is it to be suddenly angry? That was mine when I was a little girl. I used to feel something like a fire suddenly burning up in my heart. If you feel like that, ask the Lord Jesus to pour his cool, kind, gentle love into your heart instead. Never go on being angry with anyone; be Jesus’ little peacemaker.
IN OUR MOUNTAIN RAVINE, just above our swimming pool, a small tree grows on the rock in midstream. When the river is in flood and a roaring torrent pours over the little tree, whipping off its every leaf, it stands unmoved. Its roots grip the rock. We wanted the children to be like that.
When sudden illness struck five-year-old Lulla, Amy sent for a doctor. He came immediately but arrived too late.
IT WAS IN THAT CHILLY HOUR between night and morning. A lantern burned dimly in the room where Lulla lay; there was nothing in that darkened room to account for what we saw. The child was in pain, struggling for breath, turning to us for what we could not give. I left her with Mabel Wade and Ponnammal, and, going to a side room, cried to our Father to take her quickly.
I was not more than a minute away, but when I returned she was radiant. Her little lovely face was lighted with amazement and happiness. She was looking up and clapping her hands as delighted children do. When she saw me she stretched out her arms and flung them round my neck, as though saying goodbye, in a hurry to be gone; then she turned to the others in the same eager way, and then again, holding out her arms to someone whom we could not see, she clapped her hands….
We looked where she was looking, almost thinking that we should see what she saw. What must the fountain of joy be if the spray from the edge of the pool can be like that? When we turned the next bend of the road, and the sorrow that waited there met us, we were comforted, words cannot tell how tenderly, by this that we had seen when we followed the child almost to the border of the land of joy.