Prem Singh had company. When I went in the gathering dusk to feed the
cow I noticed, instead of the usual solitary figure crouched above the
little camp fire in the open, two lean forms silhouetted against the
dancing flames, while a flow of guttural conversation that broke
occasionally into seemingly excited treble argument mingled with the
fragrant smoke from burning greasewood roots.
“He probably has a letter from India,” I told the Lady of the Castle,
when I went back into the little stone house, “and has rung in a chap
from the gang below to read it to him.”
“From his brother, probably,” said the Lady. “He’ll be all excited over
it. You’ll have to do the milking.”
Her surmise as to the letter was correct, though I didn’t have to do the
milking.
“Letter come China country! My brother!” Prem Singh announced
exultantly, when he came for the milk pail. “Pretty good!” He ducked
his head sideways in a delighted nod. “I go milk now.”
We had known of this brother ever since the Hindu had become our devoted
and isolated adherent. He was Prem Singh’s family, the only relative he
had in the world.
“My father, mammy, been die,” he had explained to me. “Both. My father,
my mammy, two my sister, my little brother: all one time die. Too much
sick. All my uncle, my auntie, everybody die. Too many people. Just
me, my big brother, live. Thass all.” From which we gathered that a
cholera epidemic had left the two boys orphans: Prem Singh, now our
vassal, and Kala Singh, half a dozen years older, at present a British
policeman at Shanghai.
It was a poor life, this brother’s, but highly treasured by the younger
brother, who, curiously enough, proved to be the stable member of the
family. Kala Singh had left a bad record behind him in India, including
a year’s jail sentence for knifing a co-conspirator in a bank robbery.
“My brother pretty much been marry,” Prem Singh told me one time, his
face clouding over. “One time twelve hundred, one time fifteen hundred,
dollar—my country rupee. All go.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate
the disappearance of the marriage money into thin air. “Too much drink.
Too much gambler.”
Evidence that the black sheep had never mended his ways was furnished
abundantly in the repeated requests that came for money, which Prem Singh
never refused.
“Mester,” he would usually ask me on the day succeeding the arrival of a
letter from “China country,” “you two hundred dollar today bank take off,
mice.” I had never been able to teach him the use of the possessive
“mine”; it was invariably mice. “I send money China country. My
brother.” Once or twice I remonstrated with him about this, to no
purpose. After all, it was his own money: the two dollars a day which,
with practically no outgo, added up month by month in the bank. A letter
from India, which he told me came from one of his brother’s deserted
wives, proved equally futile, though troubling him for several days. Its
only ultimate result was to prejudice his young mind still further
against womankind and the institution of marriage.
“Me? Not any been marry!” he assured me, his eyes flashing. “Never!
All time too much trouble! No good.”
Yet he was engaged, one of those betrothals arranged in infancy by Hindu
parents, binding till death. It hung over Prem Singh like a sword of
Damocles, exiling him forever from his native land.
“This country pretty good,” he told me often. “Girl wait all time my
country. Twenty year old now, I guess, maybe. I stay America! Pretty
good. Not any go back!” He shook his head emphatically. “Maybe some
time my brother come this country. Thass good!” His eyes gleamed at the
pleasant vision.
It was this dream of a reunion with his beloved black sheep of a brother
in the great and good land of America, far from the cloudy danger of
marriage that overhung all India, that more than any other illumined his
long days and lonely evenings on the California mesa. He kept aloof from
the other Hindus, from the large camps where they congregated, twenty and
thirty together, for the clearing work that in time was to transform mesa
into orchard land. He preferred to remain alone, apart, as my man.
“You pretty good man, Mester,” he told me. “I all time stay here,
please. I your man. My life!” Then he smiled. “Maybe some time my
brother come; then two your men! Both. Thass pretty good!”
And now the dream seemed likely to materialize. When he returned with
the full milk pail, Prem Singh had a question to ask. He fidgeted
awkwardly about it, remaining in the kitchen an unconscionable length of
time, resting one foot and then the other. It came out at last with a
rush.
“Mester, how much you think cost ticket, Shanghai this country?”
“I don’t know, Prem Singh. I’ll find out in Los Angeles, if you want.
Steerage?”
“No, Sair!” He was indignant. “Not any! Maybe my brother come this
country. Second class, sure. Thass pretty good.”
I learned the amount, and it went forward on the next boat by money order
to Kala Singh, care Sikh Temple, Shanghai. Then followed for Prem Singh
a protracted period of pleasant anticipation that ended dismally two
months later when another letter arrived from China country, announcing
that the money was gone.
“Too much gambler, my brother,” Prem Singh confided to me sadly. “I
guess ticket more better.”
It was a good idea; and the next registered letter carried no additional
money order, but instead a one-way ticket, second class, from Shanghai.
This was efficacious; and when, six weeks later, another letter arrived
from Shanghai, Prem Singh came to the house in a tremble of excitement.
“Mester, you know Salina Cruz? This country? Canada? I guess not.
Meeseeco? I guess maybe! My brother come Salina Cruz. English read.”
He always used the word “read” indiscriminately for read or write,
reading or writing.
Inclosed with the sheet covered with Indian script was a small slip
bearing a message in English. “Arrive Salina Cruz November 29,” it read.
“Send money.”
“I guess my brother read maybe, himself,” announced Prem Singh, scanning
it closely. “Pretty smart man, my brother. English pretty good speak.
My country read easy, English read little. Me not any. Not smart, me.”
Then he shook his head. “I guess this not any my brother read.”