Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People

  THE FINANCES OF THE GODS

  [Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN & Co.]

  The evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara and the oldpriests were smoking or counting their beads. A little naked childpattered in, with its mouth wide open, a handful of marigold flowersin one hand, and a lump of conserved tobacco in the other. It triedto kneel and make obeisance to Gobind, but it was so fat that it fellforward on its shaven head, and rolled on its side, kicking and gasping,while the marigolds tumbled one way and the tobacco the other. Gobindlaughed, set it up again, and blessed the marigold flowers as hereceived the tobacco.

  'From my father,' said the child. 'He has the fever, and cannot come.Wilt thou pray for him, father?'

  'Surely, littlest; but the smoke is on the ground, and the night-chillis in the airs, and it is not good to go abroad naked in the autumn.'

  'I have no clothes,' said the child, 'and all to-day I have beencarrying cow-dung cakes to the bazar. It was very hot, and I am verytired.' It shivered a little, for the twilight was cool.

  Gobind lifted an arm under his vast tattered quilt of many colours, andmade an inviting little nest by his side. The child crept in, and Gobindfilled his brass-studded leather waterpipe with the new tobacco. WhenI came to the Chubara the shaven head with the tuft atop, and the beadyblack eyes looked out of the folds of the quilt as a squirrel looks outfrom his nest, and Gobind was smiling while the child played with hisbeard.

  I would have said something friendly, but remembered in time that if thechild fell ill afterwards I should be credited with the Evil Eye, andthat is a horrible possession.

  'Sit thou still, Thumbling,' I said as it made to get up and run away.'Where is thy slate, and why has the teacher let such an evil characterloose on the streets when there are no police to protect us weaklings?In which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying kites from thehouse-tops?'

  'Nay, Sahib, nay,' said the child, burrowing its face into Gobind'sbeard, and twisting uneasily. 'There was a holiday to-day among theschools, and I do not always fly kites. I play ker-li-kit like therest.'

  Cricket is the national game among the schoolboys of the Punjab, fromthe naked hedge-school children, who use an old kerosene-tin for wicket,to the B.A.'s of the University, who compete for the Championship belt.

  'Thou play kerlikit! Thou art half the height of the bat!' I said.

  The child nodded resolutely. 'Yea, I DO play. PERLAYBALL OW-AT! RAN,RAN, RAN! I know it all.'

  'But thou must not forget with all this to pray to the Gods accordingto custom,' said Gobind, who did not altogether approve of cricket andwestern innovations.

  'I do not forget,' said the child in a hushed voice.

  'Also to give reverence to thy teacher, and'--Gobind's voice softened--'to abstain from pulling holy men by the beard, little badling. Eh, eh,eh?'

  The child's face was altogether hidden in the great white beard, and itbegan to whimper till Gobind soothed it as children are soothed all theworld over, with the promise of a story.

  'I did not think to frighten thee, senseless little one. Look up! Am Iangry? Are, are, are! Shall I weep too, and of our tears make a greatpond and drown us both, and then thy father will never get well, lackingthee to pull his beard? Peace, peace, and I will tell thee of the Gods.Thou hast heard many tales?'

  'Very many, father.'

  'Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard. Long and long agowhen the Gods walked with men as they do to-day, but that we have notfaith to see, Shiv, the greatest of Gods, and Parbati his wife, werewalking in the garden of a temple.'

  'Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward?' said the child.

  'Nay, very far away. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar, whither thou must makepilgrimage when thou art a man. Now, there was sitting in the gardenunder the jujube trees, a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv forforty years, and he lived on the offerings of the pious, and meditatedholiness night and day.'

  'Oh father, was it thou?' said the child, looking up with large eyes.

  'Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this mendicant wasmarried.'

  'Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head, and forbid himto go to sleep all night long? Thus they did to me when they made mywedding,' said the child, who had been married a few months before.

  'And what didst thou do?' said I.

  'I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I smote HER, and wewept together.'

  'Thus did not the mendicant,' said Gobind; 'for he was a holy man, andvery poor. Parbati perceived him sitting naked by the temple steps whereall went up and down, and she said to Shiv, "What shall men think of theGods when the Gods thus scorn their worshippers? For forty years yonderman has prayed to us, and yet there be only a few grains of rice andsome broken cowries before him after all. Men's hearts will be hardenedby this thing." And Shiv said, "It shall be looked to," and so he calledto the temple which was the temple of his son, Ganesh of the elephanthead, saying, "Son, there is a mendicant without who is very poor. Whatwilt thou do for him?" Then that great elephant-headed One awoke in thedark and answered, "In three days, if it be thy will, he shall have onelakh of rupees." Then Shiv and Parbati went away.

  'But there was a money-lender in the garden hidden among themarigolds'--the child looked at the ball of crumpled blossoms in itshands--'ay, among the yellow marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking.He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakhof rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, "O brother,how much do the pious give thee daily?" The mendicant said, "I cannottell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes a little pulse, and a fewcowries and, it has been, pickled mangoes, and dried fish."'

  'That is good,' said the child, smacking its lips.

  'Then said the money-lender, "Because I have long watched thee, andlearned to love thee and thy patience, I will give thee now five rupeesfor all thy earnings of the three days to come. There is only a bondto sign on the matter." But the mendicant said, "Thou art mad. In twomonths I do not receive the worth of five rupees," and he told thething to his wife that evening. She, being a woman, said, "When didmoney-lender ever make a bad bargain? The wolf runs through the corn forthe sake of the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods. Pledgeit not even for three days."

  'So the mendicant returned to the money-lender, and would not sell. Thenthat wicked man sat all day before him offering more and more for thosethree days' earnings. First, ten, fifty, and a hundred rupees; and then,for he did not know when the Gods would pour down their gifts, rupees bythe thousand, till he had offered half a lakh of rupees. Upon this sumthe mendicant's wife shifted her counsel, and the mendicant signed thebond, and the money was paid in silver; great white bullocks bringing itby the cartload. But saving only all that money, the mendicant receivednothing from the Gods at all, and the heart of the money-lender wasuneasy on account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third day themoney-lender went into the temple to spy upon the councils of the Gods,and to learn in what manner that gift might arrive. Even as he wasmaking his prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped, and,closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the Gods walking inthe temple in the darkness of the columns, and Shiv called to his sonGanesh, saying, "Son, what hast thou done in regard to the lakh ofrupees for the mendicant?" And Ganesh woke, for the money-lender heardthe dry rustle of his trunk uncoiling, and he answered, "Father, onehalf of the money has been paid, and the debtor for the other half Ihold here fast by the heel."'

  The child bubbled with laughter. 'And the moneylender paid themendicant?' it said.

  'Surely, for he whom the Gods hold by the heel must pay to theuttermost. The money was paid at evening, all silver, in great carts,and thus Ganesh did his work.'

  'Nathu! Ohe Nathu!'

  A woman was calling in the dusk by the door of the courtyard.

  The child began to wriggle. 'That is my mother,' it said.

  'Go then, littlest,' answered Gobind; 'but stay a momen
t.'

  He ripped a generous yard from his patchwork-quilt, put it over thechild's shoulders, and the child ran away.