When the train approached a way-station, the blinds were drawn quickly lest a man should look upon the women within, for, although none of them were keeping purdah strictly, still most of these women were careful in public not to subject themselves unduly to the glances of men.
As the blinds were lifted after the train left the first small station, the light disclosed, huddled into a far corner seat, a young woman wrapped in the coarsest of white garments, with scarcely an ornament upon her body and no caste mark upon her forehead. Her face was shaded by the sari which she had drawn close over her head, but out of the shadow peered a pair of sad, wistful eyes. Her face was thin and her hands, which clasped tightly upon her lap a carefully wrapped bundle, were thin and rough as if with toil. Her eyes were anxiously examining the faces in the carriage. At every unusual noise or sudden jolt, they would look frightened and she would clasp still more closely the bundle in her lap. It was a bundle about eighteen inches long, tied and double knotted most carefully in a piece of coarse but clean white cloth. The girl's white sari was also as clean as most Indian white clothes ever look, washed in dirty water and dried on the ground as they are. She was evidently on some important journey and, as evidently, for the first time on a train. The bundle which she carried would not have been noticeable among such a myriad of bundles as the carriage held, had she not guarded it so closely, and, when any one changed a seat or passed by her, shielded it with her arms.
After comparative peace had reigned a little while, the frightened look left the young woman's eyes and, untying one corner of the bundle, which opening showed still another wrapping within, she drew out a cold chapati and ate it slowly as if to make it last a long time. As she ate, her eyes met those of a sociable looking, old, gray-haired woman, evidently of low caste, who, sitting opposite between two high caste women, was apparently longing to talk to some one. As their eyes met, the older woman leaned across the aisle and said to the young girl in Hindustani:
"Where are you going?"
The girl looked alarmed, as the question was addressed her, but answered timidly, "To Benares. Are you going there?"
"No, but I am going almost as far as that. You see I have been ayah to master's little boy and they moved away and now they have sent for me to come and I am going to be his ayah again." The old woman's face beamed as she chattered. "I might have gone long ago when they went, for they always called me a fine ayah and always praised me to all of their guests, but when they moved away to Allahabad I did not want to leave my family. But my boy went off to the city and—and—my little girl died; so now I am glad to go." Her eyes had filled with tears as she said that her little girl had died and at the words the young woman involuntarily clutched at the bundle in her lap.
Just then the Brahmin woman in the corner opposite got up to arrange her dress and moved about in the aisle so that the conversation was interrupted. And the two women got no further chance to talk until the train pulled into a station and some of the passengers getting out gave the old lady an opportunity to slip into the seat beside the girl.
"Where are you from?" she asked, resuming the conversation at once.
"From C——," the girl answered.
"Are you a sweeper?" the old lady continued her catechism. "Do you work at it?" she went on without waiting for an answer. "There is lots of money in that work, isn't there? I never had to work at it, you know."