My father used to be out all day at his work, and my mother often went to do coolie-work,[13] and she had to take my father his dinner (my mother did plenty work in the world); and when my granny was strong enough she used sometimes to go into the bazaar, if we wanted money, and grind rice for the shop-keepers, and they gave her half a rupee for her day’s work, and used to let her have the bran and chaff besides. But afterward she got too old to do that, and besides there were so many of us children. So she used to stay at home and look after us while my mother was at work. Plenty bother ’tis to look after a lot of children. No sooner my granny’s back turned than we all run out in the sun, and play with the dust and stones on the road.
Then my granny would call out to us, “Come here, children, out of the sun, and I’ll tell you a story. Come in; you’ll all get headaches.” So she used to get us together (there were nine of us, and great little fidgets, like all children), into the house; and there she’d sit on the floor, and tell us one of the stories I tell you. But then she used to make them last much longer, the different people telling their own stories from the beginning as often as possible; so that by the time she’d got to the end, she had told the beginning over five or six times. And so she went on, talk, talk, talk, Mera Bap reh![14] Such a long time she’d go on for, till all the children got quite tired and fell asleep. Now there are plenty schools to which to send the children, but there were no schools when I was a young girl; and the old women, who could do nothing else, used to tell them stories to keep them out of mischief.
We used sometimes to ask my grandmother, “Are those stories you tell us really true? Were there ever such people in the world?” She generally answered, “I don’t know, but maybe there are somewhere.” I don’t believe there are any of those people living; I dare say, however, they did once live; but my granny believed more in those things than we do now. She was a Christian, she worshiped God and believed in our Saviour, but still she would always respect the Hindoo temples. If she saw a red stone, or an image of Gunputti[15] or any of the other Hindoo gods, she would kneel down and say her prayers there, for she used to say, “Maybe there’s something in it.”
About all things she would tell us pretty stories—about men, and animals, and trees, and flowers, and stars. There was nothing she did not know some tale about. On the bright cold-weather nights, when you can see more stars than at any other time of the year, we used to like to watch the sky, and she would show us the Hen and Chickens,[16] and the Key,[17] and the Scorpion, and the Snake, and the Three Thieves climbing up to rob the Ranee’s silver bedstead, with their mother (that twinkling star far away) watching for her sons’ return. Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, you can see how her heart beats, for she is always frightened, thinking, “Perhaps they will be caught and hanged!”
Then she would show us the Cross,[18] that reminds us of our Saviour’s, and the great pathway of light[19] on which He went up to heaven. It is what you call the Milky Way. My granny usen’t to call it that: she used to say that when our Lord returned up to heaven that was the way He went, and that ever since it has shone in memory of His ascension, so beautiful and bright.
She always said a star with a smoky tail (comet) meant war, and she never saw a falling star without saying, “There’s a great man died;” but the fixed stars she used to think were all really good people, burning like bright lamps before God.
As to the moon, my granny used to say she’s most useful to debtors who can’t pay their debts. Thus: A man who borrows money he knows he cannot pay, takes the full moon for witness and surety. Then, if any man so silly as to lend him money and go and ask him for it, he can say, “The moon’s my surety; go catch hold of the moon!” Now, you see, no man can do that; and what’s more, when the moon’s once full, it grows every night less and less, and at last goes out altogether.
All the Cobras in my grandmother’s stories were seven-headed. This puzzled us children, and we would say to her, “Granny, are there any seven-headed Cobras now? For all the Cobras we see that the conjurors bring round have only one head each.” To which she used to answer, “No, of course there are no seven-headed Cobras now. That world is gone, but you see each Cobra has a hood of skin; that is the remains of another head.” Then we would say, “Although none of those old seven-headed Cobras are alive now, maybe there are some of their children living somewhere.” But at this my granny used to get vexed, and say, “Nonsense! you are silly little chatter-boxes; get along with you!” And, though we often looked for the seven-headed Cobras, we never could find any of them.
My old granny lived till she was nearly a hundred; when she got very old she rather lost her memory, and often made mistakes in the stories she told us, telling a bit of one story and then joining on to it a bit of some other; for we children bothered her too much about them, and sometimes she used to get very tired of talking, and when we asked her for a story, would answer, “You must ask your mother about it; she can tell you.”
Ah! those were happy days, and we had plenty ways to amuse ourselves. I was very fond of pets; I had a little dog that followed me everywhere, and played all sorts of pretty tricks, and I and my youngest brother used to take the little sparrows out of their nests on the roof of our house and tame them. These little birds got so fond of me they would always fly after me; as I was sweeping the floor one would perch on my head, and two or three on my shoulders, and the rest come fluttering after. But my poor father and mother used to shake their heads at me when they saw this, and say, “Ah, naughty girl, to take the little birds out of their nests: that stealing will bring you no good.” All my family were very fond of music. You know that Rosie (my daughter) sings very nicely and plays upon the guitar, and my son-in-law plays on the pianoforte and the fiddle (we’ve got two fiddles in our house now), but Mera Bap reh! how well my grandfather sang! Sometimes of an evening he would drink a little toddy,[20] and be quite cheerful, and sing away; and all we children liked to hear him. I was very fond of singing. I had a good voice when I was young, and my father used to be so fond of making me sing, and I often sang to him that Calicut song about the ships sailing on the sea[21] and the little wife watching for her husband to come back, and plenty more that I forget now; and my father and brothers would be so pleased at my singing, and laugh and say, “That girl can do anything.” But now my voice is gone, and I didn’t care to sing any more since my son died, and my heart been so sad.