We value this photo exceedingly, it was so hard to get. We were in a big heathen village when we saw this Ugly Duckling, in fact she was one of the most tiresome of the "rabbits" mentioned in [Chapter I]. She saw us, and darted off and climbed a wall and made faces at us in a truly delightful manner. We thought we would take her, and tried. As well try to pick up quicksilver; she would not be caught. The deed was finally done when she had not the least idea of it, and the camera gave a triumphant click as it snapped her unawares. "What do they want her for?" inquired a grown-up bystander, who had observed our little game. "Look at her hair," said another, "they never saw hair like that in England, that's what they want her for!"
Professor Drummond speaks of our whole life as a long-drawn breath of mystery, between the two great wonders—the first awakening and the last sleep. I often think of that as I listen to the little children talking to each other and to us. They are always wondering about something. One day it was, "Do fishes love Jesus?" followed by "What is a soul?" The conclusion was, "It's the thing we love Jesus with." When they first come to us they invariably think that mountains grow like trees: "Stones are young mountains, aren't they? and hills are middle-aged mountains." Later on, every printed thing on a wall is a text. We were in a railway station, on our way to the hills: "Look! oh, what numbers and numbers of texts! But what queer pictures to have on texts!" One was specially perplexing; it was a well-known advertisement, and the picture showed a monkey smoking a cigar. What could that depraved animal have to do with a text? When we got to the hills the first amazement was the sight of the fashionable ladies wearing veils. "Don't they like to look at God's beautiful world? Do they like it better spotty?"
Tangles has another name; it is the "Ugly Duckling," and it is extremely descriptive; but Ugly Duckling or not, she is of an inquiring turn of mind, and one Saturday afternoon, after standing under a tree for fully five minutes lost in thought, she came to me with a question: "What are the birds saying to each other?" I looked at the Ugly Duckling, and she twisted herself into a note of interrogation, in the ridiculous way she has, but her face was full of anxiety for enlightenment about the language of the sparrows. "There," she said, pointing vigorously to the astonished birds, which instantly flew away, "that little sparrow and this one are making quite different noises. What are they saying? I do want to know so much!"
As I imagined the birds in question had just been having supper, I told her what I thought they were probably saying. Next day, in the sermon, there was something about the praise all creation offers to God, and I saw Tangles knotting her hands together and going into the queerest contortions in appreciation of the one bit of the sermon she could understand.
The Imp's questions were various. "What is that?"—pointing to a busy-bee clock—"is it an English kind of insect? Don't its legs get tired going round? Oh! is it dead now?" (when it stopped). "Who made Satan?" was an early one. "Why doesn't God kill him immediately, and stamp on him?" One day I was trying to find and touch her heart by telling her how very sorry Jesus is when we are naughty. She seemed subdued, then—"Amma, where was the Queen's spirit after she died and before they buried her, and what did they give it to eat?"
"Did you see Lot's wife?" was a question which tickled the Bishop when, on his last visitation, he gave himself up to an hour's catechising upon his tour in the Holy Land. They were disappointed that he had to confess he had not. "Oh, I suppose the salt has melted," was the Elf's comment upon this.
Tangles is distinctly inclined to peace. The Elf, I grieve to say, is not. Yesterday she announced a quarrel: "I feel cross!" Tangles objected to quarrel. "I do feel cross!" and the Elf apparently showed corroborative symptoms. Then Tangles looked at her straight: "I'm not going to quarrel. The devil has arrived in the middle of the afternoon to interrupt our unity, and I won't let him!" which so touched the Elf that she embraced her on the spot; and then, in detailing it all in her prayer in the evening, this incorrigible little sinner added, with real emotion, "Lord, I am not good. I spoiled unity with L." (the Imp), "and Thou didst feel obliged to remove her to a boarding-school. Now do help me not to spoil unity with P." (who is Tangles), "lest Thou shouldst feel obliged to remove her also to a boarding-school,"—a view of the Imp's promotion which had not struck me before.
Tangles and she belong to the same Caste, and Tangles has the character of that Caste as fully developed as the Elf, and can hold her own effectually. Also she is a little older and taller, and being the Elf's "elder sister," is, therefore, entitled to a certain measure of respect. All those small things tend to the discipline of the Elf, who is very small for her age, and who would have preferred a junior, of a meek and mild disposition, and whose constant prayer is this: "O Lord, bring another little girl out of the lion's mouth, but, O Lord, please let her be a very little girl!" Shortly after this prayer began, a very little girl was brought; but she was a vulgar infant, and greatly tried the Elf, and she was, for various reasons, promptly returned to her parents. After this episode the prayer varied somewhat: "Lord, let her be a suitable child, and give me grace to love her from my heart when she comes."
The conversation of these young creatures is often very illuminating, and always most miscellaneous. The Elf's mind especially is a sort of small curiosity shop, and displays many assortments. The Elf, Tangles, and little Delight (Delight is a youthful Christian) are curled up on the warm red sand with their three little heads close together. The Elf is telling a story. I listen, and hear a marvellous muddle of the Uganda Boys and Cyril of North Africa. "He was only six years old, and he stood up and said, 'What you are going to do, do quickly! I am not afraid. I am going to the Golden City!' And they showed him the sword and the fire, and he said, 'Do it quickly!' and they chopped off his arm, and said, 'Will you deny Jesus?' and he said, 'No!' and they chopped off his other arm,"—and so on through all the various limbs in most vivid detail,—"and then they threw him on the fire, and burnt him till he was ashes; and he sang praises to Jesus!"
The Elf leans to the tragic. Tangles' mother had a difference of opinion with a friend. The friend snatched at her opponent's ear jewels, and tore the ear. Life with a torn ear was intolerable, so Tangles' mother walked three times round the well, repeated three times, "My blood be on your head!" and sprang in. She rose three times, each time said the same words, and then sank. All this Tangles confided to the Elf, who concocted a game based upon the incident—which, however, we ruthlessly squashed. They are tossing pebbles now, according to rules of their own, and talking vigorously. "The Ammal told me all the people in England are white, and I asked her what they did without servants, and she said they had white servants, white servants!!" and the note of exclamation is intense. The others are equally astonished. White people as servants! The two ideas clash. They have never seen a white servant. In all their extensive acquaintance with white people they have only seen missionaries (who are truly their servants, though they hardly realise it yet), and occasionally Government officials, whose mastership is very much in evidence. So they are puzzled. They get out of the difficulty, however. "At the beginning of the beginning of England, black people must have gone to be the white people's servants, and they gradually grew white." Yes, that's it apparently; they faded.