It was a grief to Tooni, who could not understand it; but Sonny
Sahib perversely refused to talk in his own tongue. She did all
she could to help him. When he was a year old she cut an almond in
two, and gave half to Sonny Sahib and half to the green parrot that
swung all day in a cage in the door of the hut and had a fine gift
of conversation; if anything would make the baby talk properly that
would. Later on she taught him all the English words she
remembered herself, which were three, 'bruss' and 'wass' and
'isstockin',' her limited but very useful vocabulary as lady's-maid.
He learned them very well, but he continued to know only
three, and he did not use them very often, which Tooni found
strange. Tooni thought the baba should have inherited his mother's
language with his blue eyes and his white skin. Meanwhile, Sonny
Sahib, playing every morning and evening under the peepul-tree,
learned to talk in the tongue of the little brown boys who played
there too.
When Sonny Sahib was four he could drive the big black hairy
buffaloes home from the village outskirts to be milked. Abdul
walked beside him, but Sonny Sahib did all the shouting and the
beating with a bit of stick, which the buffaloes must have
privately smiled at when they felt it on their muddy flanks, that
is if a buffalo ever smiles, which one cannot help thinking
doubtful. Sonny Sahib liked buffalo milk, and had it every day for
his dinner with chupatties, and sometimes, for a treat, a bit of
roast kid. Chupatties are like pancakes with everything that is
nice left out of them, and were very popular in Rubbulgurh. Sonny
Sahib thought nothing in the world could be better, except the
roast kid. On days of festival Abdul always gave him a pice to buy
sweetmeats with, and he drove a hard bargain with either Wahid Khan
or Sheik Luteef, who were rival dealers. Sonny Sahib always got
more of the sticky brown balls of sugar and butter and cocoa-nut
for his pice than any of the other boys. Wahid Khan and Sheik
Luteef both thought it brought them luck to sell to him. But
afterwards Sonny Sahib invariably divided his purchase with whoever
happened to be his bosom friend at the time--the daughter of Ram
Dass, the blacksmith, or the son of Chundaputty, the beater of
brass--in which he differed altogether from the other boys, and
which made it fair perhaps.
At six Sonny Sahib began to find the other boys unsatisfactory in a
number of ways. He was tired of making patterns in the dust with
marigolds for one thing. He wanted to pretend. It was his
birthright to pretend, in a large active way, and he couldn't carry
it out. The other boys didn't care about making believe soldiers,
and running and hiding and shouting and beating Sonny Sahib's tom-tom,
which made a splendid drum. They liked beating the tom-tom,
but they always wanted to sit round in a ring and listen to it,
which Sonny Sahib thought very poor kind of fun indeed. They
wouldn't even pretend to be elephants, or horses, or buffaloes.
Sonny Sahib had to represent them all himself; and it is no wonder
that with a whole menagerie, as it were, upon his shoulders, he
grew a little tired sometimes. Also he was the only boy in
Rubbulgurh who cared to climb a tree that had no fruit on it, or
would venture beyond the lower branches even for mangoes or
tamarinds. And one day when he found a weaver-bird's nest in a
bush with three white eggs in it, a splendid nest, stock-full of
the fireflies that light the little hen at night, he showed it
privately first to Hurry Ghose, and then to Sumpsi Din, and lastly
to Budhoo, the sweeper's son; and not one of them could he coax to
carry off a single egg in company with him. Sonny Sahib recognised
the force of public opinion, and left the weaver-bird to her
house-keeping in peace, but he felt privately injured by it.
Certainly the other boys could tell wonderful stories--stories of
princesses and fairies and demons--Sumpsi Din's were the best--that
made Sonny Sahib's blue eyes widen in the dark, when they all sat
together on a charpoy by the door of the hut, and the stars
glimmered through the tamarind-trees. A charpoy is a bed, and
everybody in Rubbulgurh puts one outside, for sociability, in the
evening. Not much of a bed, only four short rickety legs held
together with knotted string, but it answers very well.
Sonny Sahib didn't seem to know any stories--he could only tell the
old one about the fighting Abdul saw over and over again--but it
was the single thing they could do better than he did. On the
whole he began to prefer the society of Abdul's black and white
goats, which bore a strong resemblance to Abdul himself, by the
way, and had more of the spirit of adventure. It was the goat, for
example, that taught Sonny Sahib to walk on the extreme edge of the
housetop and not tumble over. In time they became great friends,
Sonny Sahib and the goat, and always, when it was not too hot, they
slept together.
Then two things happened. First, Abdul died, and Sonny Sahib
became acquainted with grief, both according to his own nature and
according to the law of Mahomed. Then, after he and Tooni had
mourned sincerely with very little to eat for nine days, there
clattered one day a horseman through the village at such a pace
that everybody ran out to see. And he was worth seeing, that
horseman, in a blue turban as big as a little tub, a yellow coat,
red trousers with gold lace on them, and long boots that stuck out
far on either side; and an embroidered saddle and a tasselled
bridle, and a pink-nosed white charger that stepped and pranced in
the bazar so that Ram Dass himself had to get out of the way. It
ought to be said that the horseman's clothes did not fit him very
well, that his saddle girth was helped out by a bit of rope, and
that his charger was rather tender on his near fore-foot; but these
are not things that would be noticed in Rubbulgurh, being lost in
the general splendour of his appearance.
Sonny Sahib ran after the horseman with all the other boys, until,
to everybody's astonishment, he stopped with tremendous prancings
at Tooni's mud doorstep, where she sat to watch him go by. Then
Sonny Sahib slipped away. He was afraid--he did not know of what.
He ran half a mile beyond the village, and helped Sumpsi Din keep
the parrots out of his father's millet crop all day long. Nor did
he say a word to Sumpsi Din about it, for fear he should be
persuaded to go back again. Instead, he let Sumpsi Din sleep for
long hours at a time face-downwards on his arm in the sun, which
was what Sumpsi Din liked best in the world, while he, Sonny Sahib,
clapped his hands a hundred times at the little green thieves,
abusing them roundly, and wondering always at the back of his head
why so splendid a horseman should have stopped at his particular
doorstep. So it was not until the evening, when he came back very
hungry, hoping the horseman would be gone, that he heard Tooni's
wonderful news. Before she gave him water or oil, or even a
chupatty, Tooni told him, holding his hand in hers.
'The Maharajah has sent for you, O noonday kite; where have you
been in the sun? The Maharajah has sent for you, lotus-eyed one,
and I, though I am grown too old for journeys, must go also to the
palace of the Maharajah! Oh, it is very far, and I know not what
he desires, the Maharajah! My heart is split in two, little Sahib!
This khaber is the cat's moon to me. I will never sleep again!'
Then for some reason the fear went out of Sonny Sahib. 'Am I not
going with you, Tooni-ji?' said he, which was his way of saying
'dear Tooni.' 'There is no cause for fear. And will it not be
very beautiful, the palace of the Maharajah? Sumpsi Din says that
it is built of gold and silver. And now I should like six
chupatties, and some milk and some fried brinjal, like yesterday's,
only more, Tooni-ji.'