The great bungalow, set far back in the grassy compound and shaded
by mango trees, looked peaceful and sleepy in the afternoon
sunlight. The very roses in the carefully rounded beds in the centre
of the lawn before the house were nodding as if resting in the shade
after the blaze of an Indian noonday sun. The only human creature in
sight, a dhersy, sitting cross-legged on the little side porch, was
asleep over his sewing. Between the rows of potted ferns and palms
along the front veranda appeared glimpses of white as if the
occupants of the bungalow might be taking their siestas on the open
rattan couches in preference to the warmer curtained beds within,
one of which could be seen through an open bedroom door. A mongoose,
tied to a post of the veranda, had, for a moment, ceased to fret at
his bondage and gone to sleep. Even several lizards half-way across
the gravel path from one grassy hunting ground to another had
stopped as if too exhausted to pursue the never-ending chase. Only
the shadows moved, little by little lengthening out, creeping
towards the compound wall, as the never-sleeping sun continued his
ceaseless journeying towards the west.
Still one hundred and twenty by the thermometer which on the wall
behind the sleeping dhersy caught the direct rays of the sun! At
three o'clock of an afternoon in India after a morning's combat with
the heat how could Nature do aught but sleep in whatever shade she
could find for her weary head? But even in sleepy, dreamy India
there are the exceptions that prove the rules. Suddenly a wail arose
upon the sleepy air and a most terrified cry broke up all quiet and
repose.
The dhersy, startled from his stolen slumber, looking up guiltily,
quickly began to turn the wheel of the hand-sewing machine beside
him. The mongoose tugged at his cord. And a frightened woman started
up from her couch on the front veranda, as a little white figure
with flying feet and topiless curly head came running from behind
the bungalow with the usual cry of childhood's terror:
"Mother! Mother! Oh, mother!"
Even the ayah, who was trying to keep up with the child but having a
hard time to run in her long, tightly-drawn sari, looked frightened.
An ugly chattering, sounding from behind the house, kept up for some
moments as the mother, having gathered the child up in her arms, sat
down again with her, soothing and quieting her as only a mother
can, while the ayah dropped panting on the floor beside them.
"There, dear, what is the matter? Tell mother quickly."
"Oh, mother! The monkeys! The monkeys!" sobbed the child.
"There, there, dear, don't cry. You are here with mother now and the
monkeys cannot hurt you. Tell mother what happened."
However, before the little girl could calm herself enough to tell
the story, the ayah began it for her.
"Baby woke early from her nap to-day, Memsahib, and would not go to
sleep again and so I dressed her and brought her down for her bread
and milk. She ate it like the good little girl that she is and so I
gave her a piece of cake. I had just turned to put the plate back in
the cupboard, when I heard a scrambling noise behind me and there
was a monkey. He grabbed the cake from baby's hand and ran up a
tree, chattering. He was a great, big fellow, the biggest one I ever
saw. He looked very fierce and chattered terribly. Of course baby
was frightened most to death and she ran at once for you." The ayah
looked fearfully over her shoulder. "I'm afraid to go back there
again myself."
"Hush, ayah!" whispered the mother over the child's head. "Don't
frighten her any more. And you were giving her cake, too, when I
have told you that she must not have any for a few days now as she
really hasn't been feeling very well."
"Oh, mother!" interrupted the child, who had got the better of her
sobs. "The monkey looked so ugly and grabbed the cake right out of
my hand just as I was going to take a bite. His paw almost touched
my face. Will he come again?"
"No, dear," replied the mother as she hugged the little girl close
in her arms. "Father comes home to-night. We will tell him and he
will send the monkeys away. Something has got to be done, for we
cannot have the naughty monkeys stealing our baby's food right out
of her mouth," she added playfully.
"Look, dear," she said in a moment to the child whose fright was
soon over. "See how your curls are mussed! And, dearie," she looked
at the little girl very reproachfully, "you ran all the way around
in the sun without your topi. Go into the house now and let ayah fix
your hair and wash your face. Then you can come out again and we
will watch for father together, for he will surely come soon. Won't
it be nice to have father home again?" And she kissed the child as
she set her down on the floor. "A week isn't very long, but it seems
a month since he went away this time."
"Yes, the naughty monkeys have been so bad!" nodded the little girl
as she hopped along into the bungalow before her native nurse,
forgetful of her fear, for her father was coming home and he was to
her omnipotent. Nothing, not even a monkey, could harm her while he
was near.
For a moment after the child had gone, the mother remained standing
by one of the veranda pillars, looking down the road in the
direction of the railway station. But soon she retreated to a chair
near the door, for the branches of the biggest tree near the porch
had begun to sway and she could see distinctly at least one pair of
bright eyes peering out from among the shining green leaves.
"Something must be done!" she said aloud as she sank into the chair,
at the same time instinctively taking up in her hand a paper weight
which lay on the table beside her. "We just cannot stand being thus
bothered and frightened by these animals, and such horrid looking
ones too!"
The Burbanks had been in Sindabad only two weeks and had scarcely
got settled in their bungalow when Mr. Burbanks had been called away
on business. He had felt very secure about leaving his family
because of the location of their new home which was about half a
mile from the native city and very close to the other few European
residences. To him the bungalow had appeared to be far enough away
from the native quarter to be free from all unpleasant sights,
odours, and visitors, the usual unpleasant associations of too close
proximity to one of the sacred cities of India. Disagreeable sounds
he had expected they would hear, for the hideous sounds, especially
of night in a Hindu city, carry far. But after a residence of five
years in India he did not think his family would be particularly
annoyed by them.
So Mr. Burbanks had been perfectly satisfied with his new residence
and its location until just before he left he and his wife had been
obliged to drive through the native city on some errand. It had been
with great disgust that they had seen the filth of the place, the
usual filth of a native city, but here augmented by a horde of
hideous monkeys that, unrestrained, wandered about the streets, over
the houses, in and out of the windows, apparently the most respected
denizens of this most holy city. To kill a monkey is a most heinous
sin in the eyes of a Hindu! Did not Haunamon and his monkeys help
the great god Ram and rescue his wife Sita when she had been carried
off by his rival? Besides, these animals are surely some Hindu's
beloved dead. Therefore no one in Sindabad ever touched or harmed a
monkey. When, however, the creatures got so thick that life became
unendurable, the people would entice a crowd of them into a great
basket and carry them off to the forest and let them loose there.
But this did not happen often, because the native of India will put
up with well-nigh unendurable conditions rather than break through
established custom and perform an unusual task.
As they had looked upon the monkey-infested city, Mrs. Burbanks had
wondered aloud if the animals would venture as far as their
bungalow, but her husband had assured her that they were much too
far from the city and the bazaars for that. But the sight of the
animals had taken off the keen edge of their satisfaction in their
new home and womanlike Mrs. Burbanks had worried about the matter
until a week had passed without the appearance of any such company
in the compound. Then she had felt better and both of them had
forgotten all about the monkeys. However, the very next morning
after her husband's departure a strange running and jumping on the
roof had awakened Mrs. Burbanks, who, peering cautiously from the
window of her roof-bedroom, a room which the most fortunate of
India's foreign residents consider a requisite of their bungalows
for the hot weather, she had seen a couple of big monkeys sporting
across the roof. And from that moment it had kept up: monkeys here;
monkeys there; monkeys everywhere, poking their inquisitive fingers
and noses into everything in the compound except the house itself.
Into the house they had not ventured and even on the verandas the
family had felt secure from intrusion until now; but now one had
actually jumped into the rear veranda and stolen a piece of cake
from Marjory's hand.
"This is too much! Something must be done!" said Mrs. Burbanks again
aloud but in a more decided tone, as she saw three of the brown
creatures playing tag across the rose-bed.
Just then the sound of horses' feet upon the road came to her ears;
the monkeys vanished; and Mrs. Burbanks forgot her annoyance in
greeting her husband as he drove up in a covered gari, shunning the
light even of the setting sun.
Mr. Burbanks looked tired as he superintended the carrying in of his
luggage and the paying of the gariwala, who, of course, tried to
insist upon a larger fare than the correct one handed him. He seemed
glad to stretch out at once in a big chair and take a cup of tea
from his wife's hand, while he listened drowsily to her account of
the happenings of the week of separation. Little Marjory came out
for her petting soon and clambered upon the arm of his chair.
Smoothing his hair, she wove admiring remarks upon her father's
appearance and her gladness at his return into an account of her
recent experience with the monkey.
"Father dear," she said, turning his head with a chubby hand on each
side of his chin. "Father dear, I'm so glad you have come home. Now
you must look right at me for I've something very 'portant to tell
you. Father, a monkey"--her eyes got big and round, "a monkey jumped
down from the tree---- Oh, father! What funny eyes you've got!" and
she stopped her story with a little squeal to look at his eyes which
he had made very round in imitation of her own when she had
mentioned the monkey. Then not satisfied with just looking at such
"funny" eyes, Marjory pulled them up at the corners to see how they
would look that way. After a moment's critical survey, she shook her
head and went on with her story. "The monkey jumped down from a
tree. Ayah had just given me a piece of cake and---- Why, father,
what a pretty necktie you've got! I never saw that one before." With
pats and pulls she spent some time endeavouring to arrange the
"pretty necktie" before going on with her story. "And,"--she began
again with a lingering look at her last twist at the tie, "that
monkey jumped down from the tree right at me and grabbed my cake and
ran away."
She paused again and inspected her sleepy looking father. "I
b'lieve," she said as her eye ran slowly up and down her father's
white-clad figure, "I b'lieve I'd like monkeys better if they wore
white. Do monkeys ride on railway trains? Did they keep you awake
last night as they did mother? You look so sleepy, father dear, that
I am sure they did."
Mr. Burbanks, somewhat awakened by the incongruous remarks of his
daughter, laughed and said, "I've never met a monkey on a railway
train yet. But weren't you afraid of the one you saw?"
"Oh, yes. I cried and ran to mother but I'm not afraid any more now
for mother said you wouldn't let them hurt me." And Marjory cuddled
down in his arms.
"See, there is one in that tree there now and I'm not afraid," she
said after a moment and, raising her head from his arm, pointed
towards a tree a little to the right, where was a large monkey
jumping from bough to bough with a tiny baby monkey clinging
fearlessly beneath her.
The father and the little girl watched the monkey and her baby with
great interest until the ayah came and took Marjory in to bed.
Throughout dinner and the evening Mrs. Burbanks told of their
troubles with the monkeys during her husband's absence and urged him
to do something to drive them away.
But at the close of the evening all the satisfaction she received
was this very masculine reply to all of her urgings: "You are simply
nervous over them. I don't believe they will do any harm. In fact
they seem to me to be rather interesting creatures. That one out
there on the lawn this afternoon appeared perfectly harmless and
playful. Besides they are sacred animals and we might make the
Hindus very angry if we should touch them." And with a yawn Mr.
Burbanks started for bed.
When Mrs. Burbanks saw that all of her conversation had not
impressed her husband with the urgency of the situation, unusual
woman that she was, she said no more, but wisely left the matter to
time. Even when they were awakened at an early hour the next
morning, she did not say a word, but listened with relish to the
remarks which issued from the curtained bed beside her own.
Since Mr. Burbanks' departure his wife had paid no attention to his
office, as her servants could be trusted to keep things clean and in
order. Therefore, when he came to her a little later in the morning
with complaints about the condition of his desk, she was extremely
annoyed. His inkstand had been tipped over; his blotting-pad was
torn; his pens were lying scattered about the room; and the books on
the table were all in confusion. The servants declared that all had
been in perfect order the night before. The ayah said that Marjory
had not entered the room. So Mrs. Burbanks, after inspecting the
strange confusion, was about to leave the room in perplexity when
she chanced to glance at one of the high windows. Quickly, with a
smile upon her lips and a twinkle in her eye, she motioned to her
husband to come from the veranda where he had retired after finding
the disorder in his study. His eyes followed hers to the window and
there he saw a monkey watching them intently from the small window
sill.
"Don't stare at him or he may spring at you," cautioned Mrs.
Burbanks. "Monkeys are just the opposite to most animals. You cannot
treat one or control him in the same way, for it angers him to have
you look him in the eye. The servants all tell me that."
As they turned away, the bearer entered the room. To his wife's
amusement, Mr. Burbanks addressed him fretfully. "Boy, can't you
drive these monkeys away? They are beginning to be a nuisance."
"Me touch a monkey!" The usually obedient boy raised his hands in
horror.
During the dialogue the monkey had scuttled away. So the high window
was closed by the long bamboo pole, for--"The monkeys must be kept
out even if the ventilation is interfered with," said the head of
the house.
After breakfast the post brought a package of home letters and,
although it was the middle of the morning, Mr. Burbanks took a while
off, after his week of strenuous work, to listen to home news. He
laid himself in a comfortable chair preparatory to listening to his
wife's reading, for he always preferred to hear her comments and
exclamations as she read aloud than to read the letters himself.
Mrs. Burbanks seated herself at the table beside him and, although a
young woman, put out her hand to take up the reading glasses which
invariably lay by her sewing basket.
"Why, my glasses aren't here!" she exclaimed in a tone of annoyance.
A search followed but no glasses could be found. After a while, in
despair, Mrs. Burbanks handed the letters to her husband and
prepared to be herself the listener, a situation which neither
really enjoyed. But scarcely had Mr. Burbanks reached the second
page of the first letter when an exclamation of surprise from his
wife stopped the reading and he found her looking with laughing eyes
at a spot high up on the wall. There, hanging by the bows from the
moulding, were the spectacles. With one voice the two exclaimed: "A
monkey!"
The boy was called and the spectacles were soon rescued from the
dangerous place where they had evidently been hung with great care,
for they were uninjured.
Although this was but a trifling incident, Mr. Burbanks was
disturbed by the impertinence of the "ugly beasts." But his wife
made no comments on the encounters of the morning, going on with her
work in silence, although she had to hang her head to hide her
smiling lips at some of his muttered remarks when he returned from
an attempt to clear up the papers on his office desk. One valuable
document was badly blotted with ink and a letter of the greatest
importance he had been able to read only after patching together the
torn bits gathered from the rug.
Mr. Burbanks was plainly annoyed but his annoyance grew to fear in
the early afternoon when, in passing by the dining-room door, he
happened to look in. Marjory had slipped into her mother's chair and
with a big napkin around her neck was about to eat a luscious guava
which lay on the plate before her. Mr. Burbanks was just on the
point of calling out something in play to his little daughter, when
a quick motion on the wall behind her attracted his attention.
Afraid to move or speak for fear of bringing greater danger to the
child, the father watched in silence. An immense monkey slid down
the wall and jumped into the chair beside the little girl, with his
eye on the fruit before her. The child, frightened, shooed with her
handkerchief at the beast, who, turning his eyes upon her, showed
his teeth and snarled. The man held his breath; but the child,
shoving the plate of fruit towards the animal quickly slipped from
her chair and ran, unharmed, out of the room. In a second the monkey
had seized the guava and was gone through the high window.
That was the last straw. No one could live in such danger! Mr.
Burbanks went back to his study and called the boy, but he did not
tell his wife what he had seen.
"Can you drive the monkeys away?" he asked the boy again.
"Me no touch monkeys. Me afraid. Monkeys belong gods," was the reply
he received.
The gentleman could see that no help was to be had from his servants
and he realized that he himself must move cautiously or he might
bring the wrath of the Hindu city upon him. Therefore he thought the
matter over carefully and decided that first of all after it had
become dark he would fire off his pistol and perhaps frighten the
monkeys away without harming them. So, as soon as night had come and
all were in bed, he told his wife what he intended to do. She was
overjoyed at his quick conversion to her views, for she did not know
even then of Marjory's experience, as the child, soon forgetting it
in her play, had not mentioned it to her mother.
Mr. Burbanks stepped out upon the roof and after a moment's pause
fired his pistol into a clump of trees at a little distance from the
bungalow. A sharp, shrill, almost human cry came from the tree and
then all was still. Even the chokidar, already asleep, did not seem
to have heard the shot.
"Well, I've killed one, I guess," Mr. Burbanks said as he came back
into the room. "That is too bad! I hope the natives won't mind. But
it is over now and we need not worry. If they do make a fuss we will
just have to face the music, that's all. Probably it will drive the
animals away effectually, if one of them is killed. I most sincerely
hope so."
There was quiet throughout the night, although Mrs. Burbanks lay
awake listening for trouble as women will. But in the early morning,
just as she had at last fallen into a light sleep, they were both
awakened by the usual noise of running and jumping on the roof. With
an exclamation of great annoyance Mr. Burbanks sprang up and opened
the shutters of the door. He stood there in silence for a minute
before he spoke again and then he called his wife softly to come and
look out. There, on the roof, stood a female monkey and before her
lay a tiny, baby monkey, dead, with a hole in its breast. The mother
patted it with her paw; she stroked it; then she ran around it and
jumped up and down as if to attract its attention. Then she took it
up and put its arms about her and started to spring away, evidently
expecting it to cling beneath her as it had always done; but the
little thing fell limply back upon the roof. Again and again the
mother tried, with the infinite patience of a mother. But finally,
with a cry of despair, she picked the baby up in her arms and,
squatting down, rocked to and fro, moaning and moaning. The servant,
bringing up the chota hazri, made a noise at the foot of the stairs.
The monkey, with an almost human look of woe, glanced around at the
sound and the Burbanks, watching from the shuttered door, saw the
agonized expression on her face, as she sprang to her feet and with
the dead baby still clasped tightly in her arms leaped away among
the tree tops.
With tears in her eyes Mrs. Burbanks turned to her husband. "You
won't shoot another, will you?"
"No, my dear, we'll move before I use the gun again. But it seemed
to be a choice between her baby and mine and, of course, I am glad
that it was hers," Mr. Burbanks replied. Then he told his wife of
Marjory's experience.
But the Burbanks did not have to move, for the monkeys disappeared.
Since her parents never told Marjory why they had gone, she watched
for them for a long time and ate her cakes in haste lest "a naughty
monkey might snatch 'em."
One day a short time after their disappearance Marjory received a
present from her father of a little black dog. When she playfully
asked him why he had bought her the dog, expecting that he would say
because she had been such a good girl, he said, "Because monkeys are
afraid of dogs."
"Why, how funny!" she exclaimed. "You bought me a mongoose because
snakes are afraid of mongooses and now I have a dog because monkeys
are afraid of dogs. What pet will you buy me next, father dear?"
"I will have to live in India a little longer before I can answer
that question, my daughter." And, wondering what unexpected danger
would next assail his child in this strange land, he swung her up on
his shoulder and, as it was sunset, carried her tenderly into the
house to her waiting ayah, followed by the dog--a tiny, but
sufficient guard against the encroachments of the tribe of
Haunamon.