Our Little Persian Cousin

by E. Cutler Shedd

"Praise be to God!" exclaimed Abdullah, and sent the ring in to Kadija, who of course was keeping out of sight of the men.

Her grandmother put it upon the girl's finger, thus showing that she was now betrothed to Karim. Then the men all sat down to a dinner cooked from the food Abdullah had sent.

After this Abdullah was careful to send a present to Shahbaz once in a while—a chicken, or a lamb, or a toman or two. It would have been more improper than ever for Karim to visit Kadija, now that they were betrothed. As she did not know how to read he could not send her notes, but had to trust that Nana or Grandmother would tell Kadija what he wished her to know. This was very hard to bear whenever he was at home on a visit, but there was no help for it.

One day the mirza said, "Karim, you know about that dog of a Kurd, Sheikh Tahar, who captured the governor's soldiers among the mountains, coming on them while they were asleep, and who robbed the village of Dizza. Now he has sent a letter to the governor in which he asks that some one be sent to talk with him and make peace. The governor is going to send Abbas Khan. He wants a mirza to go with him. I have taught you to compose and write well. I am old; why should I trot about among the mountains to please that dog of a Kurd? The work will be an honour to you. Let me recommend you."

So it came about that a few days later Karim was riding over the plain towards the mountain pass with Abbas Khan and his forty horsemen. Each man carried a breech-loading gun, with a pistol at the pommel and a dagger in his belt.

The road passed over the flat plain, by a river, now running quietly below high banks in its wide and stony bed, for it was late in the summer. In the spring, after the rains, the bed was filled from bank to bank with an angry torrent of muddy water. Crossing a bridge, with arches of red brick, and small towers at either end, built by a rich man as a good deed, to help him enter heaven when he died, they entered the village where they were to stop for the night.

The kedkhoda and village white beards met them with many bows.

Almost every house had one or more guests that night. Karim and the major who commanded the forty horsemen were together in a room that had a rude framework of poles along one side. From its top stretched downwards a long line of woollen threads of different colours. On the little stools in front, the women of the house sat while hour after hour for days at a time they patiently wove in and out the coloured wool thread that slowly built up a beautiful Persian carpet. None of these women had ever read a book telling how to weave, or had ever seen a pattern of the bright figures they wove into the rug. They had learned the patterns by practice under the direction of their mothers. Their mothers had learned them in the same way. And now the girls were sitting before the loom and learning by practice to weave the same patterns.

A small boy told them some interesting news.