The Glory of the Usual
[Illustration: AFTER HER BOTTLE.]
"AND all things were done in such excellent methods, and I cannot tell
how, but things in the doing of them seemed to cast a smile"--is a
beautiful sentence from Bunyan's _Holy War_, which has been with us ever
since we began the Nursery work. Lately we found its complement in a
modern book of sermons, _The Unlighted Lustre_, by G. H. Morrison. "No
matter how stirring your life be, it will be a failure if you have never
been wakened to the glory of the usual. There is no happiness like the
old and common happiness, sunshine and love and duty and the laughter of
children. . . . There are no duties that so enrich as dull duties."
The ancient voice and the new voice sing to the same sweet tune; and we
in our little measure are learning to sing it too.
As we have said, India is a land where the secular does not appeal. When
we were an Itinerating Band, we had many offers from Christian girls and
women to join us, as many in one month as we now have in five years.
Sometimes it has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a
new and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace. Day by day
we learn to rub out a little more of the clear chalked line that someone
has ruled on life's black-board; the Secular and the Spiritual may not
be divided now. The enlightening of a dark soul or the lighting of a
kitchen fire, it matters not which it is, if only we are obedient to the
heavenly vision, and work with a pure intention to the glory of our God.
[Illustration: NORTH LAKE AND HILLS.]
The nursery kitchen is a pleasant little place. We hardly ever enter it
without remembering and appreciating John Bunyan's pretty thought, for
there things in the doing of them seem to cast a smile. Ponnamal, who,
as we said, superintends the more delicate food-making work, has trained
two of her helpers to carefulness; and these two--one a motherly older
woman with a most comfortable face, the other the convert, Joy--look up
with such a welcome that you feel it good to be there. Scrubbing away at
endless pots and pans and milk vessels is a younger convent-girl, who,
when she first came to us, disapproved of such exertion. She liked to
sit on the floor with her Bible on her lap and a far-away look of
content on her face until the dinner-bell rang. Now she scrubs with a
sense of responsibility.
All the younger converts have regular teaching, for they have much to
learn, and all, older and younger, have daily classes and meetings;
above all, it is planned that each has her quiet time undisturbed. But
it is early understood that to be happy each must contribute her share
to the happiness of the family; and one of the first lessons the young
convert has to learn is to honour the "Grey Angel," Drudgery, and not to
call her bad names.
The kitchen has an outlook dear to the Tamil heart. A trellis covered
with pink antigone surrounds it, but a window is cut in the trellis so
that the kitchen may command the bungalow. "While I stirred the milk I
saw everything you did on your verandah," remarked one of the workers
lately, in tones of appreciation. The opposite outlook is the mountain
shown in the photograph; only instead of water we have the
kitchen-garden with its tropical-looking plantains and creeping marrows.
"And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the tawny sand," is a line
for an Eastern garden when the great marrows ripen suddenly.
The kitchen thus favoured without, is adorned within, according to the
taste of its owners, with those very interesting pictures published by
the makers of infant foods. "How do you choose them?" we asked one day.
"The truest and the prettiest," was the satisfactory answer. Our
Dohnavur text, which hangs in every nursery, looks down upon the
workers, and, as they put it, "keeps them sweet in heart": "Love never
faileth."
When first we began to cultivate babies we were very ignorant, and we
asked advice of all who seemed competent to give it. The advice was most
perplexing. Each mother was sure the food that had suited her baby was
the best of all foods, and regarded all others as doubtful, if not bad.
One whom we greatly respected told us Indian babies would be sure to get
on anyhow, as it was their own land. And one seriously suggested
rice-water as a suitable nourishment. Naturally we began with the
time-honoured milk and barley-water, and some throve upon it. But we
found each baby had to be studied separately. There was no universal
(artificial) food. We could write a tractlet on foods, and if we did we
would call it "Don't," for the first sentence in it would be, "Don't
change the food if you can help it." This tractlet would certainly close
with a word of thanks to those kind people, the milk-food manufacturers,
who have helped us to build up healthy children; for feelings of
personal gratitude come when help of this kind is given.
The nursery kitchen is a room full of reminders of help. "I have
commanded the ravens," is a word of strength to us. Once we were very
low. A little child had died under trying circumstances. One of the
milk-sellers, instead of using the vessel sent him, poured his milk
into an unclean copper vessel, and it was poisoned. He remembered that
it would not be taken unless brought in the proper vessel, so at the
last moment he corrected his mistake, but the correction was fatal, for
there was no warning. The milk was sterilized as usual and given to the
child. She was a healthy baby, and her nurse remembers how she smiled
and welcomed her bottle, taking it in her little hands in her happy
eagerness. A few hours later she was dead.
At such times the heart seems foolishly weak, and things which would not
trouble it otherwise have power to make it sore. We were four days'
journey from the nursery at the time, and had the added anxiety about
the other babies, to whom we feared the poisoned milk might have been
given, and we dreaded what the next post might bring. Just at that
moment it was suggested, with kindest intentions, that perhaps we were
on the wrong track, the work seemed so difficult and wasteful.
It was mail-day. The mail as usual brought a pile of letters, and the
top envelope contained a bill for foods ordered from England some weeks
before. It came to more than I had expected, in spite of the kindness of
several firms in giving a liberal discount; and for a moment the
rice-water talk (to give it a name which covers all that type of talk)
came back to me with hurt in it: "To what purpose is this waste?" But
with it came another word: "Take this child away (away from the terrible
Temple) and nurse it for Me." And with the pile of letters before me,
and the bill for food in my hand, I asked that enough might be found in
those letters to pay it. It did not occur to me at the moment that the
prayer was rather illogical. I only knew it would be comforting, and
like a little word of peace, if such an assurance might even then come
that we were not off the lines.
Letter after letter was empty. Not empty of kindness, but quite empty
of cheques. The last envelope looked thin and not at all hopeful.
Cheques are usually inside reliable-looking covers. I opened it. There
was nothing but a piece of unknown writing. But the writing was to ask
if we happened to have a need which a sum named in the letter would
meet. This sum exactly covered the bill for the foods. When the cheque
eventually reached me it was for more than the letter had mentioned, and
covered all carriage and duty expenses, which were unknown to me at the
time the first letter came, and to which of course I had not referred in
my reply. Thus almost visibly and audibly has the Lord, from whose hands
we received this charge to keep, confirmed His word to us, strengthening
us when we were weak, and comforting us when we were sad with that
innermost sense of His tenderness which braces while it soothes.
Surely we who know Him thus should love the Lord because He hath heard
our voice and our supplication. Every advertisement on the walls of the
little nursery kitchen is like an illuminated text with a story hidden
away in it:--
When Thou dost favour any action,
It runs, it flies;
All things concur to give it a perfection.
The nursery kitchen, we were amused to discover, has a sphere of
influence all its own. Our discovery was on this wise:--
One wet evening we were caught in a downpour as we were crossing from
the Taraha nursery to the bungalow, and we took shelter in the
kindergarten room, which reverts to the Lola-and-Leela tribe when the
kindergarten babies depart. The tribe do not often possess their Sittie
and their Ammal both together and all to themselves, now that the
juniors are so numerous, and they welcomed us with acclamations. "Finish
spreading your mats," we said to them, as they seemed inclined to let
our advent interrupt the order of the evening; and we watched them
unroll their mats, which hung round the wall in neat rolls swung by
cords from the roof, and spread them in rows along the wall. Beside each
mat was what looked like a mummy, and beside each mummy was a matchbox
and a small bundle of rags.
Presently the mummies were unswathed, and proved to be dolls in more or
less good condition. Each was carefully laid upon a morsel of sheet, and
covered with another sheet folded over in the neatest fashion. "If we
teach them to be particular when they are young, they will be tidy when
they are old," we were informed. It was pleasant to hear our own remarks
so accurately repeated.
The matchboxes were next unpacked; each contained a bit of match, a
small pointed shell, a pebble (preferably black), and a couple of minute
cockles. "I suppose you don't know what all these are?" said Lola,
affably. "That," pointing to the match, "is a spoon; and this," taking
the pointed shell up carefully, "is a bottle. This is the 'rubber,' of
course," and the black pebble was indicated; "and these" (setting the
cockle-shells on a piece of white paper on the floor) "are bowls of
water, one for the bottle and the other for the rubber." We suggested
one bowl of water would hold both bottle and rubber; but Lola's entirely
mischievous eyes looked quite shocked and reproving. "Two bowls are
better," was the serious reply; "it is very important to be clean."
"What does your child have?" we inquired respectfully. "Barley-water and
milk, two-and-a-half ounces every two hours--that's five tablespoonfuls,
you know." "And Leela's?" "Oh, Leela's child is delicate. She has to
have Benger. Two ounces every two hours; and it has to be a long time
digested." "Do all your children have their food every two hours?" Lola
looked surprised, and Leela giggled: how very ignorant we seemed to be!
"No, only the tiny ones; our babies are very young. After they get older
they have more at a time and not so often. That child there," pointing
to another mat, "has Condensed, as we haven't enough cow's milk for them
all. It suits her very well. She has six ounces at a time; once before
she goes to sleep, and then none till she wakens in the morning. She's a
very healthy child." "How do you know the time?" we asked, prepared for
anything now. "Oh, we have watches. This is mine," and a toy from a
Christmas cracker was produced; "Leela's watch is different" (it was
indeed different--a mere figment of the imagination), "but she can look
at mine when she wants to." "Why does your child sleep with Leela's?"
(All the other infants had separate sleeping arrangements.) Lola looked
shy, and Leela looked shyer. These little matters of affection were not
intended for public discussion.
By this time the rain had cleared, so we prepared to depart, and the
further entertainments provided for us by the cheerful tribe that
evening do not belong to this story. We escaped finally, damp with much
laughter in a humid atmosphere. "Come every evening!" shouted the tribe,
as at last we disappeared, and we felt much inclined to accept the
invitation.
The kitchen is a busy place in the morning, and again in the evening,
when the fresh milk is carried to it in shining aluminium vessels to be
sterilized or otherwise dealt with. But even in the busiest hours there
is almost sure to be a baby set in an upturned stool, in which she sits
holding on to the front legs in proud consciousness of being able to sit
up. Or an older one will be clinging to the garments of the busy
workers, or perched beside them on a stool. Once we found Tara and Evu
seated on the window-sill. Ponnamal was making foods at the table under
the window, and the little bare feet were tucked in between bowls and
jugs of milk. "But, indeed, they are quite clean," explained Ponnamal,
without waiting for remark from us, for she knew what we were thinking
of her table decorations. "We dusted the sand off their little feet
before we lifted them up." The babies said nothing, but looked
doubtfully up at us, as if not very sure of our intentions. But
Ponnamal's eyes were so appealing, and the little buff things in blue
with a trellis of pink flowers for background made such a pretty
picture, that we had not the heart to spoil it. Then the little faces
smiled gratefully upon us, and everybody smiled. The kitchen is a happy
place of innocent surprises.