"I am helping grandmother," said Mahala's little sister Shriya, who, with a very important air, was sitting on the floor stirring something in a big bowl. Shriya felt that she was a person of importance these days, for was she not going to be married soon!
"Shriya is a useful little girl; besides, why are you not in the great room where thy fathers make sacrifice to the Gods of the Household?" answered the old lady, rather tartly. Like all good cooks she did not like to be bothered while she was preparing her dishes.
"Come away, the grandmother is always cross when she is in the cook-room," whispered Chola; so he and Mahala crossed the court again and went into the house.
If you should come to visit Chola, you would think no one lived there when you first entered the house. You would see no furniture of any kind, no tables or chairs, for every one sits cross-legged on mats or rugs spread on the floor, or squats on their heels. The walls are whitewashed and bare, and there are no pictures or knick-knacks such as you have at home.
The great-room was the sitting-room and dining-room for all the family except the women, who lived in their own part of the house, called the zenana.
At one end of the great-room was a shrine, in which was a curious old idol of baked red clay. This was supposed to be the image of the family god, and each morning offerings were made to it. This morning when the boys came in, they found that the offerings of dishes of rice and wreaths of flowers had already been placed around the old idol.
"Thou art late," called out Chola's father, who was sitting on the wide veranda in front of the great-room, smoking his big pipe called a hookah. It was very comfortable on the veranda, for all around it hung mats of woven grass to keep off the burning sun and yet let in a cooling breeze. You must know that India is a very hot country and that the people make use of all sorts of things to make them comfortable. That is why the houses all have broad verandas, where the folk can sit and keep much cooler than within doors.
"It was all Jam's fault," said Chola, and he sat beside his father and told of the trick the little monkey had played him, which amused his father very much.
"You have spoilt Jam," he said. "Some day he will have to be sent back to the forest if he does not behave himself better."