Mundra

"Mundra!" a harsh voice screamed from the door of the mud house.

"Mundra, child of the devil, come here. Where are you, spending all

your life in laziness and I working hard to put rice into the mouth

of a god-cursed creature like you!"

There would have been no need for more than the first call, if the

old woman had simply wanted the child to come to her, for at the

first sound of the voice the little thing had started up from the

dirt of the road where she had been lying and, gathering the sari,

in which she had been wrapped, up around her hips and waist, had

moved hastily towards the speaker. But the woman seemed to be giving

vent to her own ill nature in an evidently customary and certainly

vivid way.

"You vile object of the gods' wrath! To be sleeping when every

decent creature is at work!

"Bring water," the old woman commanded fiercely and with a thrust of

her foot sent the child, who had reached the door by that time,

reeling in the direction of a large brass water pot which stood in a

corner of the mud porch.

[Illustration: "For a few moments she managed to keep up the

straining movement"]

Evidently too wise and too tired for words, the little creature,

recovering her balance, quietly but not without great difficulty,

lifted the big, brass jar and, putting it upon her head, started off

down the village street.

The small, dark, thin figure walked very straight because of the jar

on the head, not from any sense of pride, for what had Mundra to be

proud of? Not a single ornament so dear to the hearts of India's

women did the child wear; her sari was but a dirty cloth; and her

head was shaven. Little girls of her own age with clinking anklets

and glistening jewels drew away their gay garments from any possible

contact with hers as she came near and stepped to one side of the

street with their water jars. The men who came towards her along the

road carefully turned away so as to avoid her shadow as she passed

them. And no one addressed her except as a small boy now and then

pointed a finger at her and called out the same words which the men

muttered to themselves as she passed them--"Cursed of the gods."

As she paused to rest for a moment under the shade of the great

peepul tree which protects the emblems most sacred to the Hindu

villager, even the priest, who tended the various small shrines

beneath the great tree, muttered a curse and moved quickly to the

other side of the gnarled trunk where a coolie, clad only in soiled

white loin cloth and dirty pink turban, was winding a garland of

marigolds about one of the sacred stones. The worshipper's

attention, attracted by the sudden movement of the priest, was drawn

to Mundra and he in turn, muttering, paused in his acts of worship

until the contaminating presence should be withdrawn.

When the child reached the well, she had to wait at a distance until

all the others there had filled their vessels and gone. Then she

filled her own and, without assistance, although it took a dreadful

struggle, raised it to the necessary position on her head.

But the child was so accustomed to all this treatment and so tired

that she scarcely noticed how the people acted. Her body ached all

over, from hard work and blows, even to her very heart, which really

ached hardest of all. Just one short year before Mundra had been one

of the happy, bejewelled girls of this very town and everybody had

smiled at her and passers-by had called her "Blest of the gods." But

now how different! Her father had been of the weaver caste and when

she had been about ten years old, no native ever knows his exact

age, she had been married to a man in the same caste. And at that

time, less than one year before, she had gone to her husband's home

a welcomed bride, the very home to which she was now returning in

disgrace, and her mother-in-law had been pleased with her and

greeted her with kind words, the very same woman who but a few

moments before had kicked her away with curses.

At the time of Mundra's wedding the people had been anxious because

rain had not come and the crops were dying. Therefore, with grain

still at famine prices from the year before, conditions had been bad

in the district where she lived. So it had not been a surprise when,

soon after the wedding, among these ill-fed natives had come the

ever-expected and ever-dreaded cholera. In the early days of the

scourge Mundra's father and mother had died. At first their death

had meant little to the child for she was no longer a part of their

household. But soon death did take one whose going meant at once

more to her, almost more, than the loss of her own life. One morning

her husband, a strong man of about thirty, was stricken. By

nightfall another body had been placed upon the funeral pyre and

Mundra was a widow.

Mundra, and she alone, had caused the death of her husband; so

thought every one in the village and so thought the child herself,

brought up in Hinduism. Now she realized the death of her parents,

for had they been alive she would have been sent back to them at

once. But since they were dead she had to be kept as a despised

member of the household of her mother-in-law, practically a slave

there, with all the hardships and abuse usually attendant upon the

lot of such an one. Her hair had been cut off; her pretty jewelry

had been taken from her; her coloured saris had been sold to a

neighbour; and in place of all these belongings she had been given a

few yards of white cotton to wrap about her and part of a ragged

blanket for a bed. But Mundra could have stood all this hard

treatment, hard as it had been, and even gladly would have slept on

the mud porch with the cattle or in the street with the dogs, if

only every one had not hated her and shunned her as foul and

unclean, if only some one had loved her, if only some one had even

spoken kindly to her sometimes or smiled upon her.

"Late as usual, you foul creature of the dust! If you have touched

that water with your unclean hands, may the next drop which you take

into your accursed mouth choke you! To your work there at once, you

abomination in the sight of all that's holy! May the moon blast you!

May the sun smite you! May your food poison you! And may the gods

damn you, you devil-bought murderer of men!"

This was the greeting the child received as she staggered upon the

porch and almost fell as she set the brass jar in the corner. But

not one moment's rest was there for her.

"To your work, I say!" shrieked the woman again, pointing a brown,

bony finger towards the grinding-stones in the opposite corner of

the porch where sat a strong young girl, about sixteen years of age,

with her hand already upon the handle of the stones waiting for

Mundra to help her. This girl was well dressed, an honoured

daughter-in-law in the family, who must do a share of the household

work, as all Indian women, except the rich, must, but who was well

fed, strong, and able to work.

Mundra sank down on the floor beside the mill and, placing her small

hand on the handle above the other's big one, threw all the strength

she could muster into her thin arm to make the one great stone

revolve upon the other beneath and crush to flour the grain which by

handfuls with her free hand the older girl was pouring into the

opening at the top of the stone.

Meanwhile the mother-in-law had lighted a fire in the tiny mud stove

beside them, the home-made mud stove, found even in the kitchens of

the rich, a small, hollow, semicircular mound of mud about eight

inches high, upon which a kettle could be set and within which a

fire could be lighted and replenished through the opening in front.

Upon this stove, instead of a kettle, the woman had put a large,

flat, iron griddle, upon which, after having patted and rolled out

some flour, she threw a flat cake, about eight inches in diameter.

This cake she turned with a pair of long, iron tongs. After it had

browned a little, she thrust it over the coals in the fire to let it

puff out and when it was just right to suit her Indian taste, with

the iron tongs she tossed it, the hot chapati, the common bread of

India, into a basket by her side. This process she had repeated

until her basket was nearly full.

The old woman was not so busily engaged with this task, however, as

to be unable to give her attention to other things. When Mundra's

tired hand relaxed its hold upon the handle of the grinding-stones

and the strength in her little body gave out, with one swing of the

arm, down upon the child's bare back came the hot tongs.

"To work, you accursed creature!" screamed the mother-in-law.

A sharp cry of agony followed the blow, but Mundra, although her

body was quivering with pain, resumed her work. For a few minutes

she managed to keep up the straining movement of the arm. Then, in

spite of all her gathered will, her fingers slipped again. Down came

the hot tongs a second time upon the tender, though dark, skin and

Mundra fell in a faint beside the mill.

When the child regained consciousness she was still lying beside the

mill. She could hear the family within eating their evening meal of

chapatis, rice, and curry. She could hear their talk of the coming

rain, of the tiger that had been seen in the jungle near the river,

of the preparations for the festival of Ram, and of the offerings of

rice and flowers which must be taken to the god before the day of

the great procession. Dimly she heard it all. No one mentioned her

or seemed to have noticed her lying there in the corner of the

porch. She hoped that they had not; if they would only forget her

and torture her no more for a little while she would be so glad!

The smell of the fresh chapatis, however, made her long for food,

for as a widow she had had no meal since morning and could have

nothing more until the next day. The pain in her back almost made

her cry out at times, but she restrained herself and lay still,

unheeded, in the corner behind the mill, until darkness came and the

lump of clay in the little shrine across the street under the red

flag had been propitiated by offerings of rice and chapatis, and

the people of the household had rolled themselves in their blankets

and gone to sleep.

Then Mundra dragged herself to the edge of the porch and looked

about. All was dark except a tiny spot in front of the shrine

opposite, which was still lighted by a small wick burning in a

shallow dish of oil. The priest had not yet come for the offering.

All was quiet.

An old blue rag, the remnants of a sari, lay on the floor near her.

Mundra picked it up quickly. As quickly and silently she slipped

across the street, and--unholy act! worthy of one "cursed of the

gods"!--she emptied the dish of rice which stood there before the

idol into the piece of blue cloth; then laying the chapatis upon the

rice, hurriedly tied the whole into a bundle. For a moment she stood

looking up and down the street. In both directions all was still

quiet and dark. But she did not hesitate long. Towards the river,

where the jungle lay, the tiger might be; down towards the well,

where the village street joined the public highroad, there might

be--the child did not know what, except that somewhere in that

direction lay the great city.

She turned towards the highroad. Creeping along, half walking, half

crawling, she reached the well. There beside it she tore off her own

dirty white covering, and, having changed the rice from the blue

cloth into a piece of the white, she wrapped the ragged blue sari

around her and drew it up over her shaven head.

Having, with the shrewdness of the native, placed her old clothes on

the brink of the well, Mundra, now no longer in the garb of a widow,

turned down the main road towards the great city. She knew not what

might await her there, but, childlike, she had faith to believe that

even unknown people would not treat a beggar more cruelly than she,

a widow, had been treated by her own.