In Kali's Country: Tales from Sunny India

by Emily Churchill Thompson Sheets

A brightness as of renewed life suffused the face of the old woman. "God be thanked!" she tried to shout, but the shout fell away into a murmur and the hands, which she had tried to clap as was her custom when overjoyed, fell back at her sides. But although she became again unconscious, the smile of joy remained upon her face and lighted up the thin, dark features surrounded by the straggling gray locks and made her face beautiful, as beautiful for the moment as the face, young and perfect of feature, that bent over her.

"She is dying!" said the man. Stopping his bullocks as he spoke he slid from his seat and began to fumble under the blankets.

"What are you doing, Nado?" called the girl.

"Here is a shrine. I will pray for the life of the old woman and offer a handful of rice to the god."

"Nado," a slim brown hand was laid on his big black one and prevented him from opening the rice bag, "Nado, she is a Christian. I, too, am a Christian now. We cannot pray for her life at a heathen shrine. Sit in your place, Nado, and I will pray to our God."

The man did not get up into his place but stood and with wide, interested eyes watched the girl as, laying the old woman's head gently back in her lap, she freed her hands and clasping them to heaven, raised her eyes and prayed. The words were the words of the young girl herself but the gestures were copied from Old Sarah as she had prayed many, many times in the girl's presence. One, not impressed by the solemnity of the moment, would have laughed at the grotesque motions of her hands and head as she prayed.

"Oh, most great God, most great of all the gods," said the girl. "Let Old Sarah live. She is a good woman. Never has she harmed any one. Her whole life has been given to helping others. Save Old Sarah's life, I pray. I will bring Thee an offering of the best I have, if Thou wilt spare her life and let her live. Take the awful pain away from her. Let her sleep and let her rest and do, oh God, let her live. I will bring Thee cocoanuts and sweets, rice and a young kid, if Thou wilt spare her life. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!"

The girl, unconscious of the absurd way that she had mixed the ideas of her old heathenism with the words and thoughts of the new religion she had learned from the old woman, unclasped her hands and with a smile looked down upon the face in her lap. Already it seemed to her that her prayer was being answered, for the sick woman's breath seemed to come more easily and the moaning had ceased. As the girl was absorbed in watching the effect of her prayer, the man took a handful of rice from the bag, without attracting attention, and slipped to the side of the road where under a tree stood a wayside shrine. Pouring out the rice before the ugly image and bowing three times in front of it, he hurriedly muttered some unintelligible words and climbed back into the wagon. There was a gleam of satisfaction on his face as he started the bullocks again, for he had done what he could to save the life of the old woman whom he, as a respected servant in the family of the chief, had seen often about their home but to whose preaching he had never had time to listen.

To the city and then through the city to the hospital was a long ride in the lumbering ox-cart but it was not a particularly hard ride to any of the three, for native Indians prefer hard seats and hard beds to springs and cushions. And already the old woman was resting so quietly that the girl thought her prayer had been answered and the man felt that his offering had been accepted.