Others
[Illustration: STURDY AND STOLID, AND LITTLE VEERA
--whose story, however, is different.]
WE have some children who were not in Temple danger, but who could not
have grown up good if we had not taken them. "If peril to the soul is of
importance," wrote the pastor who sent us two little girls, "then it is
important you should take them": so we took them. These little ones were
in "peril to the soul," because their nominal Christian mother had,
after her husband's death, married a Hindu, against the rules of her
religion and his. The children were under the worst influence; and both
were winning little things, who might have drifted anywhere. We have
found it impossible to refuse such little ones, even though danger of
the Temple kind may not be probable.
Such a child, for example, is the little girl the Moslem is ready to
adopt and convert to the faith. Our first redeemed from this captivity
(literally slavery under the name of adoption) was a cheerful little
person of six, with the sturdy air the camera caught, and a manner all
her own. An American missionary in an adjoining district heard of her
and her little sister, and wrote to know if we would take them if he
could save them. We could not say No; so he tried, and succeeded in
getting the elder child; the little one had been already "adopted," and
he could not get her. "The whole affair was the most astonishing thing I
have ever seen in India," he wrote when he sent the little girl. The
child upon arrival made friends with another, and confided to her in a
burst of confidence: "Ah, she was a jewel, my own little sister--not
like me, not dark of skin, but 'fair' and tender; and the great man in
the turban saw her and desired her, and he took her away; and she cried
and cried and cried, because she was only such a very little girl."
"The business was being discussed out in the open street"--the writer
was another missionary--"the pastor heard of it from a Christian who was
passing, and saw the cluster of Muhammadans round the mother and her
children. It was touch-and-go with the child." These two, Sturdy and
Stolid, side by side in the photograph, are in all ways quite unlike the
typical Temple child; but the danger from which they were delivered is
as real, and perhaps in its way as grave.
One of the sweetest of our little girls, a child with a spiritual
expression which strikes all who see her, came to us through a young
catechist who heard of her and persuaded her people to let her come to
Dohnavur. She is an orphan; and being "fair" and very gentle, needed a
mother's care. Her nearest relatives had families of their own, and were
not anxious for this addition to their already numerous daughters; and
the little girl, feeling herself unwanted, was fretting sadly. Then an
offer came to the relations--not made expressly in words, but
implied--by which they would be relieved of the responsibility of the
little niece's future. All would not have been straight for the child,
however, and they hesitated. The temptation was great; and in the end it
is probable they would have yielded, had not the catechist heard of it,
and influenced them to turn from temptation. It was the evening of our
Prayer-day when the little Pearl came; and when we saw the sweet little
face, with the wistful, questioning eyes like the eyes of a little
frightened dog taken away alone among strangers, and when we heard the
story, and knew what the child's fate might have been, then we welcomed
her as another Prayer-day gift. We do not look for gratitude in this
work; who does? But sometimes it comes of itself; and the grateful love
of a child, like the grateful love of a little affectionate animal
lifted out of its terror and comforted, is something sweet and tender
and very good to know. The Pearl says little; but her soft brown eyes
look up into ours with a trustful expression of peaceful happiness; and
as she slips her little hand into ours and gives it a tight squeeze, we
know what her heart is saying, and we are content.
Two more of these "others" are the two in the photograph who are playing
a pebble game. Their parents died leaving them in the care of an aunt, a
perfectly heartless woman whose record was not of the best. She starved
the children, though she was not poor; and then punished them severely
when, faint with hunger, they took food from a kindly woman of another
caste. Finally she gave them to a neighbour, telling her to dispose of
them as she liked.
About this time our head worker, Ponnamal, was travelling in search of a
child of whom we had heard in a town near Palamcottah. She could not
find the child, and, tired and discouraged, turned into the large Church
Missionary Society hall, where a meeting was being held to welcome our
new Bishop. As Ponnamal was late, she sat at the back, and could not
hear what was going on; so she gave herself up to prayer for the little
child whom she had not found, and asked that her three days' journey
might not be all in vain.
[Illustration: PEBBLES.]
As she prayed in silence thus, another woman came in and sat down at the
back near Ponnamal. When Ponnamal looked up, she saw it was a friend she
had not met for years. She began to tell her about her search for the
child; and this led on to telling about the children in general, and the
work we were trying to do. The other had known nothing of it all before;
but as she listened, a light broke on her face, and she eagerly told
Ponnamal how that same morning she had come across a Hindu woman in
charge of two little girls. The Tamils when they meet, however casually,
have a useful habit of exchanging confidences. The woman had told
Ponnamal's friend what her errand was. Ponnamal's talk about children in
danger recalled the conversation of the morning. In a few hours more
Ponnamal was upon the track of the Hindu woman and her two little
charges. It ended in the two little girls being saved.