"Will you not draw a little water for me? I am ill and tired, and the well is very deep."
The woman turned angrily, and uttered, in a scathing tone, the one word, "Widow!" then she burst out: "Curse you! How dare you come between me and the glorious sun! Your shadow has fallen upon me, and I'll have to take the bath of purification before I can eat food! Curse you! Stand aside!"
Poor Sita stood bewildered. She made no answer, but the tears coursed down her cheeks. Something akin to pity made the woman pause. Halting at a safe distance from the shadow of the child, she talked to her in a milder tone. She was thinking, perhaps, of her two soft-eyed daughters, very dear to her proud heart, though she mourned bitterly when they were born, because the gods had denied her sons.
"Why should I help you," she said, "when the gods have cursed you? See, you are a widow!"
Then, in answer to the child's vacant gaze, she continued: "Don't you understand? Didn't you have a husband once?"
"Yes, I think so," Sita answered; "an old, bad man who used to shake me, and tell me to grow up quickly to work for him; perhaps he was my husband. When he died, they said I killed him, but I did not."
"So you call him bad?" the woman cried. "Ah, no wonder the gods hate you! No doubt you were very wicked ages and ages ago, and so now you are made a widow. By and by you will be born a snake or a toad." And, gathering up her water-pots, she went away.
The slender, ill-fed child hurriedly filled the brass vessels, knowing that abuse awaited her late return. Raising the huge jars to her head, she hastened to her house—a home she never knew. The sister-in-law met the little thing with violent abuse, and bade her prepare the morning meal. The child was ill, and nearly fell with fatigue.
"I'll show you how to wake up!" the woman cried, and, seizing a hot poker, she laid it on the arms and hands of the child.
Screaming with pain, the poor little creature worked on, trembling if the sister-in-law even looked her way. This was one day. Each of the seven long years contained three hundred and sixty-five such days, and now they were growing worse. The last year, in token of the deep disgrace of widowhood, the child's soft dark tresses had been shaved off, and her head left bare. When that has been done, but one meal a day is permitted a widow, no matter how she works.