But Chellalu was positive. "It is the way to Heaven. I may not go there, but you may! Yesh! you may go to Heaven, Amma, but I may not!" She had nothing more to say; and we wondered how she could possibly have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion, till we remembered that it had been explained to the babies that any baby falling in would probably be drowned and die, and so until it was finished and made safe no baby must go near it. Chellalu had evidently argued that as to die meant going to Heaven, the well must be the way to Heaven; and as only grown-up people might go near it, they, and they alone apparently, were allowed to go to Heaven.
These babies are nothing if not practical. Arulai had been teaching the story of the Unmerciful Servant; and to bring it down to nursery life, supposed the case of a baby who snatched at other babies' toys, and was unfair and selfish. Such a baby, if not reformed, would grow up and be like the Unmerciful Servant. The babies looked upon the back of the offender as shown in the picture. "Bad man! Nasty man!" they said to each other, pointing to him with aversion. And Arulai closed the class with a short prayer that none of the babies might ever be like the Unmerciful Servant.
The prayer over, the babies rushed to the table where their toys were put during the Scripture lesson. Pyârie got there first, and, gathering all she could reach, she swept them into her lap and was darting off with them, when a word from Arulai recalled her. For a moment there was a struggle. Then she ran up to Tingalu, the child she had chiefly defrauded, poured all her treasures into her lap, and then sprang into Arulai's arms with the eager question: "Acca! Acca! Am I not a Merciful Servant?"
CHAPTER XXIV
The Accals
"This sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder than the diamond."—Père Didon.
PONNAMAL, WITH PREETHA ON HER KNEE, AND TARA BESIDE HER.