When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

CHAPTER XXXI

SAMBO

He had but one shirt and it was very ragged. He washed it every few nights after dark. He was too young for a coolie, and too old for a chokera. When I was cross with him I called him “coolie,” and he hung his head. When I was pleased with him I called him “chokera,” and he looked up and smiled. We never could pronounce his name. It is not the custom in India to call your native servants by name, but we quarrelled with the custom. Failing to gain the mastery over his proper appellation, my children called him “Sambo”—perhaps partly because that was something like his name, and partly because they had some inherited memory of darkie servants on their great-great-grandfather’s plantation.

I paid him three annas a day. His duties were various. He did errands with a fair degree of precision, but never with celerity. He fed the pets and the chickens. He helped the other servants a very little. He played with and waited on the children. In that he excelled.

We were keeping house on the hills. We were within a stone’s throw of a railway station; but we were miles from the nearest European. At first there were four of us; my two children and I, and their nurse, who was also my housekeeper and rock of defence. We needed an additional servant to do indefinite scraps of work. The Hindoo stationmaster recommended Sambo, and Sambo was engaged.

He had less knowledge of English than any one else I ever met who attempted to speak it. When he was frightened he forgot the little English he did know. And he almost always was frightened—at least, when he first came to us. He developed and improved amazingly under kindness, as almost all natives do.

When he had been with us a few days, he ran to me crying bitterly that the “chota sahib” had struck him. My small boy and he had been playing horse, and my son had been either so careless or so naughty as to strike Sambo too hard. I made the child give Sambo an anna of his pocket-money, for indemnity. Sambo was delighted. A few days after, I caught him trying to induce his young master to repeat the blow for which he had, on a former occasion, been so handsomely recompensed. I informed them both that when the next blow was struck I should “cut” Sambo’s pay and my youngster’s pocket-money, one half-anna each, and present the anna to the mallie’s children. I hope that my little one never again struck Sambo; if he did, Sambo never told on him.

I was giving Sambo a severe scolding one afternoon about his appearance. One shoulder was out of his shirt, one arm was half bare, and the skirt of his shirt hung about his bare brown legs like a coarse fringe. In India one grows accustomed to the nude, as one does in the Pitti Palace or in the Vatican itself. But one likes to draw the line somewhere with one’s personal attendants. I had often spoken to Sambo about his rapidly-diminishing garment, and thought his disregard of what I had said impertinent. So now I spoke very sharply, and he slunk away. The dhursies, who were sitting on one end of the verandah, looked after him and laughed. They were both sleek and fat and amply clad. My ayah was at the other end of the verandah building brick houses for my baby. She rose quietly and came to me. “Memsahib,” she said softly, but with the confidence of a conscious favourite, “no scold Sambo, no be angry. He got one shirt—no more. Not Sambo fault. He so poor. His grandmother so old—so poor. Sambo no father—no mother.” Then she went back to her “missie baba.” When my ayah told me anything I knew that it was true. It is not “correct” in India to let your conscience prick you about anything in connection with the natives. But I have never been correct, and I hope I never shall be. I looked from the dhursies, who were making my boy a dozen new white suits, to the other end of the verandah. We were on the hills, living quite out of the world, but my baby’s little white frock had pale-blue shoulder-knots. She had whole blue socks on her little pink feet. And the dainty frock itself was the second she had worn that day. I went inside. Sambo was sitting on the ground, outside the nursery door, trying to mend his tatters. He had borrowed a needle and thread from my housekeeper. I called her to me, and we put our heads together. We found some Roman shirts and togas in one of our boxes. They had originally been worn by gentlemen of artistic temperament, residing in Melbourne, who had impersonated Roman senators for the nominal honorarium of two shillings a night. The shirts and togas were made of unbleached calico, and were bordered with red, or blue, or yellow. They were all too large for Sambo. Our Victorian “captain of the supers” had been particular as to height, and Sambo was only fourteen. I made the dhursies put away their work and alter the six best shirts for Sambo. I meant it kindly, but I almost killed him. The night they were finished, he lay awake until morning, crying for joy, crying himself almost into a fever. I gave him the togas to match the shirts and he was very proud. I gave him two huge tartans that had done duty in Rob Roy. The natives came for miles to see the memsahib who had given her chokera “six shirt, six sari, and two shawl.” Dear old Ayah was as delighted as Sambo, though she had children of her own to whom I had usually given all our discarded garments.

Sambo was slowly emerging from a frightened, almost useless encumbrance, into a cheerful, moderately useful servant, when he met with a shocking misfortune. It completely unnerved him, and threatened to set him back three months in his development. We were living at Khandalah. Most of our provisions came from Bombay. We sent, however, to Lanaulie—a distance of four miles—for soda, lemonade, butter, and anything of which we ran short. Sometimes we took Lanaulie in in our afternoon drive. Sometimes we sent Sambo. He would take an empty box three feet by two by three on his head, and march off cheerfully enough, returning a few hours later with the things I wanted. We always gave him a list and the money. One Saturday we discovered as late as three o’clock that we were out of sugar, butter, tea, and some other articles which were, to our pampered European palates, necessities. “We must send Sambo on the train,” I said, “else he’ll be too late.” The little general store at which we dealt closed at six. Because the boy was to go luxuriously on the train, I made out rather a long order. I gave him six annas and a ten-rupee note, saying, “Tie the ten rupees up tight, and buy your ticket out of the six annas.” Sambo went,—but he failed to return. I had told him he might come back by train. Travelling in India is not expensive. When it is done third-class it is decidedly cheap. We were living on the line between Poona and Bombay, and the trains were frequent. He should have been back at five. At six we wondered. At seven we were a little anxious. At eight I had my dinner, minus sugar, butter, and a few other incidentals. Ayah sat on the floor sewing buttons on to the children’s clothes; her face was drawn and stern. Just when dinner was over, Sambo rushed in. “Memsahib! Memsahib!” he cried, and fell at my feet. He had thrown his box down at the door. It was empty. My bearer and the khitmatgar dragged him to his feet. His big thick lips were quite white, and they were trembling piteously. Every vein on his body showed white and rigid against his black skin. It was a long time before we could get him to speak a word. When at last he did speak, it was in Hindustani. Ayah translated, and with unconcealed anger, though she scarcely lifted her eyes from her work. “He say man no give tings memsahib want. He no have money. He lose ten rupee. He say he pray memsahib not beat hard.” Ayah evidently repeated the last sentence reluctantly.

“Tell him that European women do not strike servants,” I said grandly.

The unwonted occurrence had drawn all the servants to the door. At my remark they burst into concerted laughter. It is not Anglo-Indian etiquette for a servant to laugh at a memsahib; yet my servants, who were fairly well bred, laughed now; even my own “boy,” who was usually a model of propriety. The cook, a dignified old Goanese, who took many liberties because he knew he was the best chef between Poona and Bombay, took a step forward. “Memsahib,” said the old fellow, “vera much memsahib, European beat plenty—plenty hard.”—“Then tell him that I don’t,” I said rather shortly, and went out. To do myself justice I was very angry. It was too late to send anywhere for what I required. Moreover, that ten-rupee note had been my last one; and my next letter from my husband in Calcutta was not due until Tuesday. And in Khandalah there were neither banks nor pawnshops.

Sambo came to me at five every morning, and went home at eight or nine at night. That night Ayah said to me, “Sambo not come back morning morrow. He thief. He too frightened.” I had a long talk with the European woman who has for years shared all my ups and downs, nursing my babies, keeping my accounts, mending my gowns, and doing me a hundred other loving services. We didn’t know what to think. The ten rupees were gone, and at an inconvenient moment. But we were in doubt whether Sambo had lost or stolen them.

When I woke in the morning Sambo was stealing about the house doing his work with trembling hands. His big, soft eyes were very red. When I saw that he had come back I was sure that he was innocent of any worse fault than carelessness. My housekeeper went to the stationmaster, from whom Sambo had bought his ticket, and to the storekeeper in Lanaulie. Neither could give any conclusive testimony. He had bought his ticket out of the six-anna piece. He had handed in my order at the little store; it was then that he had discovered, or seemed to discover, his loss. He had cried and seemed very terrified. He had spent hours hunting for the note. I thought it greatly to his credit that he had come back to me; he could so easily have disappeared. But he had been careless, and I more than half suspected him of having shown the note on the train, in a moment of boyish braggadocio. I told him that night that I should cut his pay an anna a day until he had paid back the ten rupees. He seemed to think my decision a kind one. The next morning he came to the bungalow a little late, and he had an ugly scar upon his back. I ascertained with some difficulty that the scar was his grandmother’s autograph. It was the only one she knew how to write, and she had inscribed it upon her grandson’s back with a stick, because he had brought home two annas instead of three. I sent the bearer for a gharri. When it came I took Ayah with me, and went in search of the grandmother. We passed through the native bazaar, and found her in a miserable little native hut. It was a chill, cool day. She lay half asleep upon the mud floor of her “home.” She was as ragged and far filthier than Sambo had been when I first saw him. The skin hung in thick wrinkles, half clinging to, half falling from, her bent bones. Her dark-red gums were toothless. In one palsied hand she grasped a stout stick. On her narrow forehead, beneath her scant gray hair, a circle of white paper and a daub of red paint denoted I know not what length of performed prayer and caste altitude. A brightly-burnished chattee stood in one corner. The woman and the chattee were all the room contained; and it was the only room in the house. I had come with big wrath in my heart. It was gone. Her poverty, her misery, had scarred Sambo’s back—not she. “Why does she sleep?” I asked Ayah. “Because she has no rice to eat,” was the answer. We went back to the bazaar. I bought fifteen pounds of rice for a rupee, and a big bag of gram for three annas, a bottle of milk for one anna, a packet of curry ingredients for two annas, six eggs, a few plantains, a loaf of bread, some firewood, a box of matches, a few simple cooking utensils, a bar of soap, a pair of cheap blankets, and a chicken. A chicken sounds rather lavish, but it only cost two annas. I have bought them in India for less. When we went back, Ayah lit a fire, and then we woke the old woman. She ate ravenously, though she seemed scarcely to have strength to eat at all. And I wondered what moment of distress had given her the sudden power to deal her grandson so cruel a blow. She had, however, the strength to thank me abundantly. I left a few small coins with her; bade Ayah tell her that if she never beat Sambo again she should be helped, and drove home through the soft, sweet twilight. Please don’t think that I am a philanthropist. I am not. I am a woman, and, like most women, very selfish. But I had tinned asparagus and a glass of very good claret for my dinner that night; and I should have lost half the flavour of the one and the bouquet of the latter had I not known that one old bag of Hindoo bones was no longer cold and famished. After dinner, out amid my little paradise of Indian flowers, I enjoyed the perfumed Indian night and the cup of coffee that Sambo brought me far more because I had arranged that, while he was in my service, his back should not again ache so cruelly. I gained among the simple natives the reputation of great generosity. And any European who fails to buy that reputation at the cost of a few wisely-spent rupees foregoes one of the greatest charms of an Indian sojourn.

A few days before Christmas my husband came home from Calcutta. The day of his arrival I saw Ayah and Sambo consulting together anxiously. I asked Ayah what the matter was. I thought her answer very naïve and droll: “We say is your sahib nice sahib? Will us like your sahib?”—“I hope so,” I said cheerfully. Ayah shook her head sadly and replied, “Me like no sahib.” I noticed, however, that all the other servants and even the mallie’s family, who lived in a hut near by, seemed greatly elated. It appears that they thought it far more of a social distinction to be the servants of a sahib than to be those of a memsahib. But Ayah did not like men, and poor Sambo had had so uncomfortable a life that he dreaded any new development.

My husband came at twilight. He was followed by six or seven coolies; for he had brought every one in my little establishment something. Sambo was very amazed. He had never dreamed of such a home-coming. After dinner all hands were called in to help to undo the parcels. Sambo sat on the floor, a useless heap of round-eyed boy. For my four-year-old son there was a big, ventilated wooden house. When it was opened a pair of beautiful little monkeys were disclosed. Sambo uttered a quick little cry of joy, and said something in excited Hindustani. Ayah was always my interpreter, perhaps because, after Sambo, she knew less English than any servant I had. She translated now: “Sambo say he feed monkeys, he wash monkeys, he be very good to monkeys.” And he kept his word. He was a most devoted valet to our mischievous pets. A few days ago, the monkey, whom I still have, seemed a little ill. I sent for the monkey-keeper at the Zoo. He remarked upon the beautiful condition of “Ned’s” coat and skin. “It’s had fine care when it was little, mum;” and he was quite right. Sambo had given it the best care.

A great big doll was in the next parcel. It had a fine satin frock, and could open and close its eyes in a most seductive way. Ayah’s heart warmed to the sahib at the sight, and she gathered baby and doll into one delighted embrace. When she realised that the sahib had brought her a silver bangle, she crept over and kissed my dress. My husband made Ayah many a little gift after that. She would always say, “Salaam, sahib,” and then seize upon and kiss some part of my raiment. I used to tease her by telling her that she ought to kiss her master’s coat sleeve instead of mine; but though she grew really fond of him, she was always horrified at my suggestion.

When Sambo saw the fine red and gold turban that had been brought to him from Calcutta, he wiped his eyes. When the last parcel was undone, the newly-arrived master made the servants stand in a line against the wall. There were fourteen of them; they were all smilingly anticipant of something pleasant; all except Sambo—he was horribly frightened. Each servant was asked in a stern tone if he or she had been good and served the memsahib well. They all said they had, except poor Sambo. He was one of those people who, Mr. Middlewick tells us, always “wept when they was spoke to harsh.” Then into each expectant hand was put a rupee. Sambo had never had an entire rupee before. I think it dawned upon him, as he stood looking at it, that his new sahib was a jolly, fun-loving fellow, and the kindest master in the world.

It was our fourth consecutive Christmas far from home; but we kept high holiday. That is an easy, inexpensive thing to do in India. There was a rocking-horse—such a rocking-horse! and a splendid doll’s house. There was a little gift for each servant, and a small coin, which they liked even better. After breakfast I called Sambo to me, and gave him ten rupees. I expected him to cry, but he did not. He looked up with bright smiling eyes and said, “Sambo love memsahib. Sambo be good. Memsahib jao, Sambo die.”

We had a grand dinner, and every servant who would take it had all they could eat and a bottle of beer. Only two refused to break their caste. The dhursie and the mallie were true to their faith. The next day they were the only two natives on the place who seemed quite well. The obvious moral is, that strict religious observance is accepted of the gods.

I have yet some of the little gifts that our servants gave me and the children that Christmas. Each of them spent very little, but not one of them could afford that little. I have never spent a Christmas in the East, no, nor a birthday, without receiving many tokens of my native servants’ good-will.

Sambo had strictly Eastern ideas of the relative positions of man and woman. One day, in the midst of a great romp with the children, my husband broke a cup belonging to a rare set of old china that had been given me in Tokio. I shook him. Sambo, who was in the room, covered his face with his hands and fled, crying, “The sahib will kill the memsahib!” I think he was relieved when he found that I was permitted to live yet a little longer. But I fear that he never again felt for his master entire respect. He said to my nurse, “Hindoo woman shake Hindoo man, Hindoo man kill Hindoo woman. Little European woman shake big European man, he laugh. Crab! Crab!” As for me, I had disgraced myself in his eyes for ever; I should have felt honoured and delighted to have my best china broken at the dear hand of my lord and master.

In India no “up-to-date” European feeds his servants. You give them from two annas to eleven annas a day; and you know that two annas a day is a fortune to a native. You know it, because every European that has lived in India longer than you tells you so. When we lived on the hills we kept chickens. A chicken is a luxury in England. In India it is a drug; but a drug we swallow, because meat is so bad and so scarce. Sambo had a genius for chickens—I mean an intense sympathy with chickens. It’s the same thing. He always fed our chickens; we looked on and admired. The garden about the bungalow looked empty, but when Sambo stepped on to the verandah with a dish of scraps, and cried, “Ah! Ah! Ah!” the garden swarmed with feathered denizens. One day I threw a crust to a chicken. We had been lunching, as we often did, on the verandah. When I had gone to my own room I looked out, and thought I saw Sambo pick up and eat the crust the fowl had disdained. That gave me a painful thought. I went to the larder—oh yes, we had one even there—and gathered on to a plate bits of meat and hunks of et ceteras. I called Sambo and told him to take the plate of food to the dogs and monkeys. I watched him, and saw him steal a piece of stale bread from the dish. I called Ayah and questioned her. She said, “Sambo very hungry, memsahib. He no eat two days but little I give him. His grandmother very sick. Send no food.”— “But,” I said, “he has three annas a day.”—“Yes, but two go to man they debt. One feed grandmother.” They had borrowed, as almost all Indians do, from a usurer more pitiless than those who, through the columns of the London dailies, proffer pecuniary accommodation to younger sons and M.P.’s. Sambo, though well-incomed, from the Anglo-Indian point of view, was almost starving. The poor old woman, of whom I had thought as being very comfortable, also was very hungry. After that I fed Sambo, which I shall always feel was very good of me. He ate so unlimitedly! He ate a loaf of bread as we eat an apple, and found it an appetiser. He romped with my children like another child, but watched over them like another mother.

I noticed one morning that he was trembling. I found that he and the mistree had been sleeping in the open without a film of cover. I had thought that I had been very good to all my servants; and two of them had been shivering with the cold! I gave them two miserable blankets, and permission to sleep in the henhouse. They thought me kind, and repaid me a hundredfold, as I have always found that “natives” will.

It is the custom in India to abuse your Indian servants. The dear black faces of American darkies clustered about my cradle. Perhaps, for that reason, I found myself very much en rapport with my native servants in India. I liked them, and I thought I understood them. They seemed to like and understand me.

Let me crown Sambo! I found out, through the most peculiarly revealed chain of circumstances, that he had lost, not stolen, the ten-rupee note; and it made me devoutly thankful that I had not been too hard upon the black innocent, nor soiled my nice European lips by calling him a thief.