The Scamp
"PAT-A-CAKE is a thing of the past, but the stage from the highest point
of view is still distinctly attractive"; so decided Chellalu, and
resolved to devote herself thenceforth to this new and engrossing
pursuit. She chose the scene of her first public performance without
consulting us. It was the open floor of the church, on a Sunday morning,
in the midst of a large congregation. This was how it happened.
Chellalu's Attai, who in those days was unaware of all the painful
surprises in store, had taken her to morning service, and allowed her to
sit beside her on the mat at the back of the church. All through the
first part of the service Chellalu was good; and as the sermon began,
she was forgotten. In our church we sit on the floor, men on one side,
women and children on the other. A broad aisle is left between, and the
Iyer (Mr. Walker), refusing to be boxed up in the usual manner, walks up
and down as he preaches. This interested Chellalu.
That morning the sermon was to children, and the subject was "Girdles."
The East of this ancient India is the East to which the prophet spoke by
parable and picture; and, following that time-worn path, the preacher
pictured the parable of Jeremiah's linen girdle: the attention of the
people was riveted upon him, and no one noticed what was happening on
the mat at the end of the church. Only we, up at the front with all the
other children, saw, without being able to stop it, the dreadful
pantomime. For Chellalu, wholly absorbed and pleased with this
unexpected delight, first stood on the mat and acted the girdle picture;
then, growing bolder, advanced out into the open aisle, and, following
the preacher's gestures, reproduced them all exactly. It was a moment of
tension; but if ever a child had a good angel in attendance, Chellalu
has, for something always stops her before the bitter end. I forget what
stopped her then; something invisible, and so, doubtless, the angel. But
we did not breathe freely till we had her safe at home.
[Illustration: CHELLALU, WATCHING THE PICTURE-CATCHER WITH SOME
SUSPICION.
"Whatever is he doing with that black box?"]
Chellalu's visible angel is the gentle Esli, a young convert-helper, of
a meek and lowly disposition. At first sight nothing seems more
unsuitable, for Chellalu needs a firm hand. But firmness without wisdom
would have been disastrous; so as we had not the perfect combination, we
chose the less dangerous virtue, and gave the nursery scamp to the
gentlest of us all. Sometimes, to tell the whole unromantic truth, we
have been afraid less Esli was spilling emotion in vain upon this
graceless soul; and we have suggested an exchange of angels--but somehow
it has never come to pass. Once we almost did it. For a noise past all
bounds called us down to the nursery, and we found the cause of it in a
huddled heap in the corner. "Chellalu! what is the matter?" Only the
softest of soft sobs, heard in the silence that followed our advent, and
one round shoulder heaved, and the curly head went down on the arm in an
attitude of woe. Now this is not Chellalu's way at all. Soft sobbing is
not in her line; and I turned to the twenty-nine children now prancing
about in unholy glee, and they shouted the explanation: "Oh, she is Esli
Accal! She was very exceedingly naughty. She would not come when Accal
called; she raced round the room so fast that Accal could not catch
her, and then she jumped out of her cumasu" (the single small garment
worn), "and ran out into the garden! And Esli Accal sat down in a corner
and cried. And Chellalu is Esli Accal!"
But the pet opportunity in those glad days was when some freak of manner
in friend or visitor suggested a new game. We used to wish, sometimes,
that these kind people understood how much pleasure they were giving to
the artless babe who was studying them with such interest, while they,
all unconscious of their real use, imagined probably she was thinking of
nothing more serious than sweets. After an hour in the bungalow,
Chellalu would wander off, apparently because she was tired of us, but
really because she was full of a new and original idea, and wanted an
audience. Once she puzzled the nursery community who had not been
visiting the bungalow, by mincing about on pointed toes, with shoulders
shrugged like a dancing master in caricature. The babies thought this a
very nice game, and for weeks they played it industriously.
Chellalu talked late--she has long ago made up for lost time--but she
was never at a loss for an answer to a question which could be answered
by action. "Who is in the nursery now?" we asked her one afternoon when
she had escaped before the tea-bell, that trumpet of jubilee to the
nursery, had rung. She smiled and sat down slowly, and then sighed.
Another sigh, and she proceeded to perform her toilet. When the small
hands went up to the head with an action of decorously swinging the back
hair up and coiling it into a loose knot, and when a spasmodic shake
suggested it must be done over again, there was no doubt as to who was
in charge. No one but the excellent Pakium, one of our earlier workers,
ever did things quite like this. No one else was so ponderous. No one
sighed in that middle-aged manner, no one but Pakium. We never could
blame Pakium for Chellalu's escape. As well blame a mature cat for the
escapades of her kitten. Chellalu, watching for a clue as to her fate,
would sigh again profoundly. It was never easy to return her.
[Illustration: "OH, IT'S A JOKE!"]
We were not sorry when this phase passed into something safer for
herself, though perhaps not so charming to the public. Chellalu at two
and three-quarters had surgical ambitions. Medical work she considered
slow. She liked operations. Her first, so far as we know, was performed
upon the unwilling eye of a smaller and weaker sister. "Lie down!" she
had commanded, and the patient had lain down. "Open your eyes!" At this
point the victim realised what she was in for, and her howls brought
deliverance; but not before Chellalu had the agitated baby's head in a
firm grip between her knees, and holding the screwed-up eye wide open
with one hand, was proceeding to drop in "medicine" with the other.
Mercifully the medicine was water.
Thwarted in this direction, Chellalu applied herself to bandaging. She
would persuade someone to lend her a finger or a toe; the owner was
assured it was sore--very sore. She would then proceed to bandage it to
the best of her ability. But all this was mere play. What Chellalu's
soul yearned for was a real knife, or even only a needle, provided it
would prick and cause red blood to flow. Oh to be allowed to operate
properly, as grown-up people do! Chellalu had seen them do it--had seen
thorns extracted from little bare feet, and small sores dressed; and it
had deeply interested her. The difficulty was, no one would offer a
limb. She walked up and down the nursery one morning with a bit of an
old milk tin, very jagged and sharp and inviting, and secreted in her
curls was a long, bright darning needle; but though she took so much
trouble to prepare, no one would give her a chance to perform, and
Chellalu was disgusted. Someone who did not know her suggested she
should perform on herself. This disgusted her still more. Do doctors
perform on themselves!
Chellalu's latest phase introduces the kindergarten. For an educational
comrade, perceiving our defects in this direction, furnished a
kindergarten for us, and gave us a kind push-off into these pleasant
waters; so the little boat sails gaily, and the children at least are
content.
Chellalu has never been so keen about this institution as the other
babies are. "Do you like the kindergarten?" some one asked her the other
day; and she answered with her usual decision: "Yesh. No." We thought
she was talking at random, and tested her by questions about things
which we knew she liked or disliked. But she was never caught. "Well,
then, don't you like the kindergarten?" "Yesh. No." It was evident she
knew what she meant, and said it exactly. Bits of it she likes, other
bits she thinks might be improved. The trouble is that she has an
objection to sitting in the same place for more than a minute at
longest. Other babies, steady, mature things of five, are already
evolving quite orderly sentences in English--the language in which the
kindergarten is partly taught--and we feel they are getting on. Chellalu
never stops long enough to evolve anything, and yet she seems to be
doing a little. From the first week she has talked all she knew in
unabashed fashion. "Good morning very much" was an early production; and
it was followed by many oddments forgotten now, but comical in effect at
the time, which perhaps may explain the otherwise inexplicable fact that
she sometimes learns something.
One only of those early dashes into the unexplored land is remembered,
because it enriched us with a new synonym. It was at afternoon tea that
a sympathetic Sittie (the word means "Mother's younger sister"), knowing
that Chellalu had received something thoroughly well earned, asked her
in English: "What did Ammal give you this morning?" Chellalu caught at
the one familiar word in this sentence (for the babies learn the names
of the flowers in the garden before they are troubled with lesser
matters), and she answered brightly: "Morning-glory!" So Morning-glory
has become to us an _alias_ for smacks.
This same Morning-glory is the subject of one of the kindergarten songs.
For after searching through two or three hundred pages of nursery
rhymes, and interviewing many proper kindergarten songs, we found few
that belonged to the Indian babies' world; and so we had to make them
for ourselves. These songs are about the flowers and the birds and other
simple things, and are twittered by the tiniest with at least some
intelligence, which at present is as much as we can wish. All the babies
sing to the flowers, but it is Chellalu who gives them surprises. One
day we saw her standing under a bamboo arch, covered with her favourite
Morning-glory. She had two smaller babies with her, one on either side.
"Amma! _Look!_" she called; but italics are inadequate to express the
emphasis. "LOOK, Morning--glory--kissing--'chother," and she pointed
with eagerness to the nestling little clusters of lilac, growing, as
their pretty manner is, close to each other. Then, seizing each of the
babies in a fervent and somewhat embarrassing embrace, she hugged and
kissed them both; and finally wheeling round on the flowers, addressed
them impressively: "For--all--loving--little--Indian--children--want--
to--be--like--you."