In Kali's Country: Tales from Sunny India

nd

d of the devil, come here. Where are you, spending all your life in laziness a

he little thing had started up from the dirt of the road where she had been lying and, gathering the sari, in which she had been wrapped, up around her hips a

wrath! To be sleeping when eve

ot sent the child, who had reached the door by that time, reeling in the di

E MANAGED TO KEEP UP

g her balance, quietly but not without great difficulty, lifted the big, b

head was shaven. Little girls of her own age with clinking anklets and glistening jewels drew away their gay garments from any possible contact with hers as she came near and stepped to one side of the street with their water jars. The men who came towards her along

e, muttered a curse and moved quickly to the other side of the gnarled trunk where a coolie, clad only in soiled white loin cloth and dirty pink turban, was winding a garland of marigolds about one of the sacred s

ere had filled their vessels and gone. Then she filled her own and, without assistance

f this very town and everybody had smiled at her and passers-by had called her "Blest of the gods." But now how different! Her father had been of the weaver caste and when she had been about ten years old, no native ever knows his exact age, she had been married to a man in the same caste. And at that t

soon after the wedding, among these ill-fed natives had come the ever-expected and ever-dreaded cholera. In the early days of the scourge Mundra's father and mother had died. At first their death had meant little to the child for she was no longer a part of their househ

in-law, practically a slave there, with all the hardships and abuse usually attendant upon the lot of such an one. Her hair had been cut off; her pretty jewelry had been taken from her; her coloured saris had been sold to a neighbour; and in place of all these belongings she had been given a few yards of white cotton to wrap about her and part of a ragged blanke

you take into your accursed mouth choke you! To your work there at once, you abomination in the sight of all that's holy! May t

upon the porch and almost fell as she set the brass jar

oung girl, about sixteen years of age, with her hand already upon the handle of the stones waiting for Mundra to help her. This girl was well dressed, an honoured

ll the strength she could muster into her thin arm to make the one great stone revolve upon the other beneath and crush to

shed through the opening in front. Upon this stove, instead of a kettle, the woman had put a large, flat, iron griddle, upon which, after having patted and rolled out some flour, she threw a flat cake, about eight inches in diameter. This cake she turned with a pair of long, iron tongs. After it had

her things. When Mundra's tired hand relaxed its hold upon the handle of the grinding-stones and the strengt

ed creature!" scream

inutes she managed to keep up the straining movement of the arm. Then, in spite of all her gathered will, her fingers slippe

that had been seen in the jungle near the river, of the preparations for the festival of Ram, and of the offerings of rice and flowers which must be taken to the god before the day of the great procession. Dimly she heard

k almost made her cry out at times, but she restrained herself and lay still, unheeded, in the corner behind the mill, until darkness came and the lump of clay in the little shrine a

xcept a tiny spot in front of the shrine opposite, which was still lighted by a small

was

before the idol into the piece of blue cloth; then laying the chapatis upon the rice, hurriedly tied the whole into a bundle. For a moment she stood looking up and down the street. In both directions all was still quiet and dark. But she did not hes

beside it she tore off her own dirty white covering, and, having changed the rice from the blue cloth in

of a widow, turned down the main road towards the great city. She knew not what might await her there, but, childlike, she had