[126]. Cloth worn over shoulders.
In the morning a dry coolness blew in at the windows. It had been raining, it would rain again; but here in Behar the earth had been needy, and her face had grown lovely with the slaking of her great thirst. The rain had washed the air and the sun had dried it; to these dwellers in Calcutta it seemed that they were already on the heights. All night long they had been going through the rice country, where the pale green shoots stood knee-deep in the glistening water for miles around, now they rolled through a land where the crops waved tall with sprouting ears—maize and millet and wheat. The little villages were almost lost in them. High over the grain the ryot’s sons kept watch and ward against the thieving parrots in little open thatched houses stuck on the top of a long pole or in the fork of a dead tree. They were perched up there to be safe from the leopard’s spring; the leopards like a maize-fed ryot’s son. They could give warning, too, if the zemindar’s servant came that way, to ask an extra tax for the wedding expenses of his master’s second daughter. The little villages seemed of kindly disposition; here was a precarious crop that wanted shade, and upon this field every man had set his bed, one beside another, so that it was covered. They were at ease, the little villages, the crops throve, there would be enough for the zemindar if they pretended to be very poor; nobody would starve that year, and perhaps Malita or Alanga would add a new silver bangle to her wedding portion.
The Brownes were too utterly poor for the railway restaurants. They brought a tiffin-basket. Young Browne designed the tiffin-basket, a Chinaman designed the price. It was as big as a small trunk; it would just go under the seat. There was room in it for everything that has yet been thought of in connection with a civilized repast. I believe Mrs. Browne is now using it as a china and linen closet. It held ten rupees’ worth of tinned stores among other things, and a kerosene stove. Mrs. Browne filled the rest of it up economically with bread and butter and cold meat, and young Browne added as an after-thought half a dozen pints of champagne. It was a modest Anglo-Indian tiffin-basket, and they drew it forth with much joy in the morning, having the carriage to themselves. It was seven o’clock and the train had stopped. Servants were running about the platform with cups of tea and slices of toast for the chota hazri of people who hadn’t brought tiffin-baskets. “Just for curiosity, George,” said Helen, “ask how much they are charging?”
Young Browne, in the unconventionality of his pyjamas,[[127]] leaned out of the window. “Hi, you!” he called, “dom kitna?”[[128]]
[127]. Night garments worn by men in India.
[128]. “Price, how much?”
“Aht anna, sahib!”
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Browne. “Eight annas for a cup of tea and two bits of toast! The tiffin-basket is a saving, dear!”
“Oh, it is!” responded Mr. Browne, “for the other meals. But now that I think of it, I want my chota hazri now, don’t you? Hi-ups kitmutgar! lao chota hazri and jeldi karo!”[[129]]
[129]. “Bring a little breakfast, and be quick about it!”