[Ill.u.s.tration: "The humblest of them frequently rises to acts of great courage and chivalry"]

Well, here we are! You didn't just expect to see gra.s.s huts under palm trees as a suburb of the great city of Bombay, did you? And there are the children gathered around the door of the schoolhouse waiting for us. Aren't they beauties? Hadn't you better take a picture of them to show to your boy at home? Their dress isn't exactly American in style, that is true; but it is comfortable, if it is rather exaggerated in abbreviation.

Salaam, boys! Salaam! Salaam!

VIII

The Way to Happiness

With a shrill whistle and a clanging of her engine bell, the train for Calcutta pulled into the station at M----. "Coolie, coolie!"

with a decided accent on the second syllable, came the well-known call as scantily-clothed men, falling in beside the train, ran from the end of the platform to the station entrance, with hands upon the first and second-cla.s.s carriage doors, lest other coolies might get the jobs of carrying the heavy trunks and earn the anna or two anna bits that they might have had.

With a cloth about the loins for decency's sake and a turban on the head as a pad for heavy boxes, otherwise naked, the brown coolie took possession of the upper cla.s.s compartments and in a minute or so scores of them were filing away through the station with heads laden with trunks, boxes, hat-boxes, rolls of bedding, lunch-baskets, baskets of fruit, and every conceivable sort of parcel that an Anglo-Indian or a tourist carries with him in the compartment of an Indian train; for, although luggage vans are run on these trains, the charge for excess luggage is so great that people crowd as much under the seats, on the seats, and over the seats as possible. As an individual rarely travels with less than ten parcels the platform swarmed with carriers.

While the first and second cla.s.s pa.s.sengers in topis and linen suits were thus being taken out of their carriages and a fresh lot, also in topis and linen, were being put in, in no undue haste, for all Indian trains stop fifteen minutes everywhere; while that end of the platform, therefore, was in comparative calm, the other end where the third-cla.s.s carriages stood was in an uproar.

Railroad travel is cheaper nowhere in the world than in India. The traveller can ride in a compartment for twelve persons by day, six by night, on leather cushions, with toilet conveniences including even a shower bath at close hand, for the matter of one cent a mile; or he can pay about two cents a mile and ride on cushions a little softer, with a trifle more floor s.p.a.ce for stacking his bird-cages and bandboxes and with furnishings a little glossier--first cla.s.s; or he can have a ride for almost nothing, if he will be content to herd with the natives in a coach with wooden seats, a coach that accommodates from twenty to fifty, the number depending on the packing.

Since the fare is so small and since the Hindu religion, as also the Mohammedan, teaches the efficacy of pilgrimages, the people now make their pilgrimages, as far as possible and wherever possible, by train. Their religions have thus so accustomed the natives to the trains that they seem to be always travelling. The richer ones may go first or second cla.s.s. But the majority of them go third and, since the first person in gets the best seat in these third-cla.s.s cars while others crowd in as long as there is an inch to spare, there is a mad scramble for first, second, third, fourth, and fifth place at the third-cla.s.s carriage doors.

So it was as the Calcutta train pulled into M----. Men with bundles and women with babies, more bundles, water jars, and bags of food swarmed into the third-cla.s.s coaches. In a remarkably short time, however, the people who had wanted to get off were gone with their bundles, trailing women, and dangling children, and the lot going towards Calcutta had stowed away inside the carriages, on top of each other or anywhere that they could, their bundles, their clinging women, and their crying children; and still there were several minutes before time for the train to pull out. Then the through pa.s.sengers, since, as the newcomers were settled, their own seats were secure, could get out upon the platform. A bearded Mohammedan with flowing robes and turbaned head, spreading a mat on the platform beside the car and slipping out of his shoes, knelt three times and said his prayers towards Mecca, unmindful of the crowd around him. At the hydrant a good Hindu carefully washed out his mouth preparatory to partaking of his noonday meal; while men of all castes walked up and down beside the cars, resting their cramped limbs. From the car windows many a braceleted arm reached out a bra.s.s water jar to be filled by the Mohammedan water-carrier. And at other windows Hindu women waited for the Hindu water-carrier to fill their jars so that they might have water for the journey.

The sweetmeat venders were unusually busy, for it was just about noon and Indian sweets are to native Indians really a staple article of diet instead of a confection as in other countries. They are made of wholesome food stuffs; sometimes they are shaped like pretzels; sometimes, rolled into b.a.l.l.s; sometimes, chopped into flakes. But all kinds are well liked and the boy, pa.s.sing along the trainside with the flat basket of sweets upon his head, just in range of the carriage windows, was kept busy dealing out his wares until he had a light load left and a hand full of coppers. The baskets of the pretty green pan were also many packages lighter when the gong on the platform sounded.

At the sound of the gong the through pa.s.sengers scrambled back into their places; all but the Mohammedan faithful, who, having deliberately slipped his feet back into his shoes, carefully folded up his prayer mat, and with no loss of dignity climbed slowly into his compartment.

The guard raised his hand.

The train started.

But in the ladies' compartment of the third cla.s.s the confusion continued after the start, for three naked babies were climbing over their mothers and crying; an old woman was rummaging over her treasures which had been tied up in a white cloth and raising a wild lamentation because she had lost an anna; and two young beauties in gay saris, with jangling bracelets, clanking anklets, and flashing necklaces, were chewing pan very vigorously and chattering in shrill voices, displaying as they did so mouths most beautifully reddened with the pan juice and teeth most artistically blackened by the same delicacy.

But after a short time the babies, either satisfied with their natural diet or at least appeased with cold chapatis or bits of sweets handed out by tired mothers, became quiet. The old woman, exhausted by her unavailing search and grief, was reduced to a quiet mumbling and a hopeless picking at her bundle. And the two young women became less noisy in a close comparing of jewels. There was enough of calm, therefore, so that the travellers could get a glimpse of each other and see what sort of company each was in.

It was a motley crowd and one that broke many of the laws of caste.

It showed plainly how much the railroad is doing to rid India of that curse. In one corner sat a Brahmin woman, distinguishable by the refined features of her cla.s.s rather than the caste mark upon her forehead, but too poor for the greater privacy of a second compartment. Next to her, a proximity which would have broken her caste at one time, sat a Chumar woman. Next was a lady with the white head-cloth and one-coloured sari of the Parsi. And beside the Parsi was a tiny high caste girl, most bejewelled and bedecked, wearing the necklace which showed that although she was but eight or nine years old she was married. Evidently the child-wife was taking the journey with her mother-in-law, for the woman next beyond her, apparently of the same caste, would occasionally jerk the little girl into her seat and scold her roundly when she ventured to lean over to look out of the window.

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 coa.r.s.est 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 coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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."

The young girl looked at her frankly. "I don't think so. I got two annas a day."

"Oh, my! I get ten rupees a month!"

The girl opened her eyes in surprise. "And what do you do?" she questioned in return.

"I am an ayah, I told you. All I have to do is to take care of the little boy. He is a dear, good boy. I dress him in the morning and give him his breakfast and watch him at play. I get his tiffin and then put him to sleep. After he wakes up I dress him all up fine and take him out in the compound in the carriage and usually his mother walks with us a little and then I give him an early supper and put him to bed and sit in the room with him until his mother comes up-stairs. Wouldn't you like to do that? It just isn't work at all and yet I get ten rupees a month for it."

"Oh, I would like to! But I'd never get a chance to do that," the girl said sadly.

"Were you ever in a sahib's house?" the old woman ambled on, seeing that the girl was really interested and impressed. "It is a great, big place, as big as that station almost," and the old woman pointed out to a station at which they were just stopping.

"My husband used to go to one sometimes," said the girl, and, clutching at her bundle, her face grew sad again.

"You are a widow?" asked the other, although she must have known from the girl's dress that she was.

"Yes, my husband has been dead two years." She paused a moment and then as if she could restrain herself no longer, as if the flood of her speech had been loosened, she went on rapidly in a low but intense tone. "Yes, for two years he has been dead. He was not sick long. I was but a girl. I did not know very much about it except that he was sick and that they made offerings to the G.o.ds and did all they could to cure him. But one day my mother-in-law came to me and called me terrible names and told me that if my husband died I would be to blame and that awful things would happen to me. She frightened me terribly and told me that I must not let him die. So I crept away to the temple. I had no offering to make except as I stole a handful of rice in the bazaar and took that. I prayed and prayed. At one temple the priests said that they would cure him for ten rupees but I had no money and I was afraid to go and tell my mother-in-law. A priest at another shrine said that a little Ganges water might help my husband and, as I turned away in despair, for I did not know where the Ganges was, I heard him say to a man standing there, 'When I die I am going to the Ganges and die there so that my bones may be thrown into the river and Mother Gunga may hold them upon her bosom; then shall I be forever happy.' But I had done all I could by my prayers and so I crept back home to find my husband--dead.--But I remembered what the priest had said.

"My mother-in-law beat me. She took my jewels away from me. She shaved my head and drove me from the house. But I got work as a sweeper and for two years I have swept up the sc.r.a.pings in the streets and made fuel cakes. I never went back to my husband's home."

Her story told, to which the old woman had listened with sympathy, the girl covered her face with her sari and, clasping her bundle in her arms, sat silent, shaking occasionally as with sobs.

Finally the other woman put her hand upon the girl's arm to soothe her. "What are you going to Benares for?" she asked.

"I am going to Benares," was the only answer the girl made.

Most of the women had left the carriage by this time and night was coming on. The old lady leaned over to the window and peered out through the semi-darkness.

"There is the Ganges River--Holy Mother Gunga!" she cried.

The girl started up and eagerly looked from the window, too. "Is that the Ganges River?" she asked and looked and looked until the last gleam of the water was lost as the train sped on.

"What are you going to Benares for?" the old woman asked again.

"I am going to Benares," the girl answered again with a frightened stare, clutching her bundle.

As there were but few pa.s.sengers left, the two women soon lay down at full length on the hard benches and went to sleep. But the girl did not use her bundle for a pillow as her companion had suggested but lay with it in her arms.