Mayil, Little Peacock

Her second baby was such a lovely little fellow that she called him Mayil, little peacock; for the thought of that gorgeous bird to this colourloving people is not spoiled by foolish human talk of pride being somewhere in the heart of it. Little peacock meant just beauty, and the joy of it. Her golden boy, she called him, too, and the word was hardly too adoring, for the smooth velvet of such a baby’s skin is not just brown, indeed, hardly brown at all. It is full of warm light, like sunlight seen through water on brown stones, and the eyes with their long curled lashes, and the little red mouth, are so many several delights.

What of the scorn of the village now? It was nothing, just nothing. For six blessed months she nursed her little treasure, taking him out with her to the fields, hanging his hammock to a branch of a tree, going to him now and then as her work allowed; and he throve in the pure air and grew in loveliness every day.

Then the rainy season came, and she could not take him out with her. Kinglet, her first-born, was now two and a half, and, after doing the work of the house, she used to hang Mayil in his hammock, tie a rope to it, set a pillow on the floor, put a bowl of food beside it, and say to Kinglet: “Stay, little one, and sit there, here is rice, eat it when hunger comes to thee. If thy little brother cries, see, here is a rope, pull his cradle back and forth till he be quiet. Be good till I return.’’

And then with a heavy heart (but what else could she do?) she would go out to the fields; and from nine in the morning till six in the evening those two babies were left alone, two and a half to tend six months.

Wet to the skin and weary she would return at sunset and go straight to her poor baby. But those eight hours without food or drink left him greatly exhausted, and her tears would fall on his face as she nestled him in her arms and tried to make up to him for all he had been missing. Till the wet season was over, this was the daily routine. Nota neighbour, not a relative, offered to see to her poor little boys while she was out.

But this did not seem strange to her. ‘‘ What would you? J was not a woman of the Way, nor was I a Hindu woman.’’ And that seemed reason enough to give. Why should anyone have helped her? She was not as they. And the patience in her face was like the look one sees on the mountains, when the clouds that hang about them in the evening deepen the quiet beauty of valley and ravine.

But her poor little Mayil never quite recovered from his unmothered days. He was as frail as a flower of the heat, that grows up somehow through the red clod, but is never like the sturdy flower of the rain. He was tall and slim, and his beautiful eyes were like stars. He would never leave his mother, once he had her, without bitter crying and clinging, and she dreaded having to part with him for an hour. When he was older, and could sit by her while she did her cooking, he would play contentedly, if only he might have the end of her s@ri in his hand.

But he was as happy as a bird, and like a bird he sang his own little songs that he made for himself.

What rice to-day, mother?’’ he would ask. And she would tell him. And then he would begin to croon a line or two, to a tune of his own.

‘‘What singest thou, little peacock?’’ she would ask him.

‘*T sing a song of the rice,’ he would answer.

And then he would take three pebbles like her three cooking stones and lay a shard of pottery upon them. “‘ See, I, too, am cooking rice, I blow the fire, I fill the pot, I cook the rice: see, I cook it, and I sing to it!’’ and he would play and sing, happy to be near her, ‘‘ Without me,”’ said his mother, ‘‘he could not bear to be.’’

He did not learn to walk soon. Someone suggested planting his little feet in the earth, like two little trees. ‘‘ Plant them deep. Make the holes deep, up to his knees, and press the earth down. Then will he be compelled to stand, and finally will walk.”

But Mimosa thought it a cruel way, and instead contrived a small push-cart out of some odd pieces of wood, and he learned to walk at last.