Part 12 (1/2)
When an English lesson begins, those afflicted with delicate nerves are happier elsewhere. One cla.s.s has a toy farmyard, another a set of tea-things, the third a doll which every member of the cla.s.s is aching to embrace. The teachers and children alike are inclined to talk with emphasis; and if you stand between the three cla.s.ses you hear queer answers to queerer questions, and wonder if the babies at Babel were anything like so bewildering.
But this vision of the kindergarten is hardly a fortnight old; for Cla.s.ses B, C, and D are of recent development, and are made up of some heedless characters, as Ch.e.l.lalu and Pyarie, who could not keep up with cla.s.s A, and a few more young things from the nursery who were wilder than wild rabbits from the wood when we began. Also it should be stated that from the babies' point of view white people are only playthings.
”They were very good before you came!” is the unflattering remark frequently addressed to us; and as we discreetly retire, the babies do seem to become suddenly beautifully docile. But even so they might be better, as an unconscious comedy over-seen this morning proves. I was in the porch outside the door, when Rukma, pointing to a blackboard on which were written sundry words, told Ch.e.l.lalu to show her ”cat,” and I looked in interested to know if Ch.e.l.lalu really knew anything of reading. Ch.e.l.lalu brandished the pointer, then turned to Rukma with a confidential smile, ”Cat? Where is it, Accal? Is it at the top or at the bottom?” Rukma, who has a keen sense of the comic, seemed to find it difficult to look as she felt she ought. Ch.e.l.lalu caught the twinkle in her eye, and throwing herself heartily into the spirit of the game, which was evidently intended to be a kindergarten version of Hunt the Mouse through the Wood, she searched the blackboard for cat. Then to Rukma: ”Accal! dear Accal! Tell _me_, and I'll tell _you_!”
There is nothing that helps us so much to be good as to be believed in and thought better than we are; and the converse is true, so we do not want to be always suspecting Ch.e.l.lalu of sin; but this last was entirely too artless, and this was apparently Rukma's view, for she sent Ch.e.l.lalu back to her seat and called up another baby, who, fairly radiating virtue, immediately found the cat.
The next room--which Cla.s.s A (the first to be formed) has to itself--is a haven of peace after the Bear-garden. It is a pleasant room like the other, pretty with pictures and with flowers. And the little bright faces make it a happy place, for this cla.s.s, though serious-minded, is exceedingly cheerful. There is the demure little Tingalu, the good child of the kindergarten, its hope and stay in troublous hours, and the quaint little trio, Jeya, Jullanie, and Sella--this last is called c.o.c.k-robin by the family, for she has eyes and manners which remind us of the bird, and she hardly ever walks, she hops. Mala and Bala are in the cla.s.s, and a lively scamp called Puvai.
The kindergarten is worked in English, helped out with Tamil when occasion requires. This plan, adopted for reasons pertaining to the future of the children, is resulting in something so comical that we shall be sorry when the first six months are over and the babies grow correct. At present they talk with delightful abandon impossible to reproduce, but very entertaining to those who know both languages. They tack Tamil terminations to English verbs, and English nouns make subjects for Tamil predicates. They turn their sentences upside down and inside out, and any way in fact which occurs to them at the moment, only insisting upon one thing: you must be made to understand. They apply everything they learn as immediately as possible, and woe to the unwary flounderer in the realm of natural science who offers an explanation of any phenomena of nature other than that taught in the kindergarten. The learned baby regards you with a tender sort of pity. Poor thing, you are very ignorant; but you will know better in time--if only you will come to the kindergarten, the source of the fountain of knowledge.
The ease and the quickness with which a new word is appropriated constantly surprises us. As for example: one morning two babies wandered round the Prayer-room, and, discovering pa.s.sion-flowers within reach, eagerly begged for them in Tamil. One of the two pushed the other aside and wanted all the flowers. ”Greedy! greedy!” I said reprovingly, in English. ”Greedy _mine_!” was the immediate rejoinder, and the little hand was held out with more certainty than ever now that the name of the flower was known. ”Greedy _my_ flower! _Mine!_”
But some of the quaintest experiences are when the eloquent baby, determined to express herself in English, falls back upon sc.r.a.ps of kindergarten rhyme and delivers it in all seriousness. On the evening before my birthday I was banished from my room, and the children decorated it exactly as they pleased. When I returned I was implored not to look at anything, as it was not intended to be seen till next morning. Next morning the babies came in procession with their elders, and while I was occupied with them out on the verandah, Ch.e.l.lalu and her friend Naveena, discovering something unusual in my room, escaped from the ranks and went off to examine the mystery. I found them a moment later gazing in astonished joy at the glories there revealed. ”Who did it all?” gasped Ch.e.l.lalu, whose intention, let us hope, was perfectly reverent. ”G.o.d did it all!”
The one kindergarten cla.s.s taught entirely in Tamil is the Scripture lesson, ill.u.s.trated whenever possible by pictures; and being always taught about sacred things in Tamil, the babies have no doubt about the language in use in Bible days. But sometimes a little mind is puzzled, as an instructive aside revealed a day or two ago. For their teacher had told them in English, not as a Scripture lesson, but just as a story, about Peter and John and the lame man. The picture was before them, and they understood and followed keenly; but one little girl whispered to another, who happened to be the well-informed c.o.c.k-robin: ”Did Peter and John talk English or Tamil?” ”Tamil, of course!” returned c.o.c.k-robin, without a moment's hesitation.
The Scripture lessons are usually given by Arulai, whose delight is Bible teaching. ”So that as much as lieth in you you will apply yourself wholly to this one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way,”
is a word that always comes to mind when one thinks of Arulai and her Bible. She much enjoys taking the babies, believing that the impressions created upon the mind of a little child are practically indelible.
Sometimes these impressions are expressed in vigorous fas.h.i.+on. Once the subject of the cla.s.s was the Good Samaritan. The babies were greatly exercised over the scandalous behaviour of the priest and the Levite.
”Punish them! Let them have whippings!” they demanded. Arulai explained further. But one baby got up from her seat and walked solemnly to the picture. ”Take care what you are doing!” she remarked impressively in Tamil, shaking her finger at the two retreating backs. ”Naughty!
naughty!”--this was in English--”take care!”
One of the favourite pictures shows Abraham and Isaac on the way to the mount of sacrifice. This story was told one morning with much reverence and feeling, and the babies were impressed. There were tears in Bala's eyes as she gazed at the picture, but she brushed them away hurriedly and hoped no one had noticed. Only Ch.e.l.lalu appeared perfectly unconcerned. She had business of her own on hand, and the story, it seemed, had not touched her. The babies are searched before they come to school, and all toys, bits of string, old tins, and sundries are removed from their persons. But there are ways of evading inquisitors. Ch.e.l.lalu knows these ways. She now produced a long wisp of red tape from somewhere--she did not tell us where--and proceeded to tie her feet together. This accomplished, she curled herself up on the bench like a caterpillar on a leaf, and to all appearances went to sleep. Why was she not awakened and compelled to behave properly? asks the reader, duly shocked. Perhaps because on that rather special morning the teacher preferred her asleep.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ARULAI AND RUKMA, WITH NAVEENA.]
The story finished, the children were questioned, and they answered with unwonted gravity. ”What did Isaac say to his father as they walked alone together?” An awed little voice had begun the required answer, when Ch.e.l.lalu suddenly uncurled, sat up, and said in clear, decided Tamil: ”He said, 'Father! do not kill me!' _Yes.h.!.+_ that was what he said.”
When first the babies heard about Heaven, they all wanted to go at once, and with difficulty were restrained from praying to be taken there immediately. There was one naughty child who, when she was given medicine, invariably announced, ”I will not stay in this village: I am going to Heaven! I am going now!” But they soon grew wiser. It was our excitable, merry little Jullanie who summed up all desires with most simplicity: ”Lord Jesus, please take me there or anywhere anytime; only wherever I am, please stay there too!” Some of the babies are carnal: ”When I go to that village (Heaven), I shall go for a ride on the cherubim's wings. I will make them take me to all sorts of places, just wherever I want to go.”
The latest p.r.o.nouncement, however, was for the moment the most perplexing. ”Come-anda-look-ata-well!” said Ch.e.l.lalu yesterday evening, the sentence in a single long word. The well is being dug in the Menagerie garden and is surrounded by a trellis, beyond which the babies may not pa.s.s, unless taken by one of ourselves. As we drew near to the well, Ch.e.l.lalu pointed to it and said: ”Amma! That is the way to Heaven!” This speech, which was in Tamil, considerably surprised me, as naturally we think of Heaven above the bright blue sky. The yawning gulf of the unfinished well suggested something different.
But Ch.e.l.lalu was positive. ”It is the way to Heaven. _I_ may not go there, but _you_ may! Yes.h.!.+ _you_ may go to Heaven, Amma, but _I_ may not!” She had nothing more to say; and we wondered how she could possibly have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion, till we remembered that it had been explained to the babies that any baby falling in would probably be drowned and die, and so until it was finished and made safe no baby must go near it. Ch.e.l.lalu had evidently argued that as to die meant going to Heaven, the well must be the way to Heaven; and as only grown-up people might go near it, they, and they alone apparently, were allowed to go to Heaven.
These babies are nothing if not practical. Arulai had been teaching the story of the Unmerciful Servant; and to bring it down to nursery life, supposed the case of a baby who s.n.a.t.c.hed at other babies' toys, and was unfair and selfish. Such a baby, if not reformed, would grow up and be like the Unmerciful Servant. The babies looked upon the back of the offender as shown in the picture. ”Bad man! Nasty man!” they said to each other, pointing to him with aversion. And Arulai closed the cla.s.s with a short prayer that none of the babies might ever be like the Unmerciful Servant.
The prayer over, the babies rushed to the table where their toys were put during the Scripture lesson. Pyarie got there first, and, gathering all she could reach, she swept them into her lap and was darting off with them, when a word from Arulai recalled her. For a moment there was a struggle. Then she ran up to Tingalu, the child she had chiefly defrauded, poured all her treasures into her lap, and then sprang into Arulai's arms with the eager question: ”Acca! Acca! Am I not a _Merciful_ Servant?”
CHAPTER XXIV
The Accals
”This sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder than the diamond.”--PeRE DIDON.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PONNAMAL, WITH PREETHA ON HER KNEE, AND TARA BESIDE HER.]
THE Accals, without whom this work in all its various branches could not be undertaken, are a band of Indian sisters (the word Accal means older sister) who live for the service of the children. First among the Accals is Ponnamal (Golden). With the quick affection of the East the children find another word for Gold and call her doubly Golden Sister.
Sometimes we are asked if we ever find an Indian fellow-worker whom we can thoroughly trust. The ungenerous question would make us as indignant as it would if it were asked about our own relations, were it not that we know it is asked in ignorance by those who have never had the opportunity of experiencing, or have missed the happiness of enjoying, true friends.h.i.+p with the people of this land. Those who have known that happiness, know the limitless loyalty and the tender, wonderful love that is lavished on the one who feels so unworthy of it all. If there is distance and want of sympathy between those who are called to be workers together with the great Master, is not something wrong? Simple, effortless intimacy, that closeness of touch which is friends.h.i.+p indeed, is surely possible. But rather we would put it otherwise, and say that without it service together, of the only sort we would care to know, is perfectly impossible.