Shall I Be Offended with You?

But the children’s long illness had drained her resources, and there came a night when once again there was no food to give them.

She remembered the refused two rupees. She would not risk man’s rebuff again. “It will be enough, I think, if I tell my Father,” was the word that lay deepest within her. But the noontide hour passed foodless; there was not a grain of rice or a single little green vegetable in the house. It was a time when it was impossible for her to go out to work.

She drew her little sons beside her. She had taught them that their Father would never forsake them, she had taught them to pray; from their babyhood they had knelt with her on their mats and followed her simple petitions. She had taught them to thank God before food, in the Christian way, for she had, in that one afternoon long ago, seen her sister do so. “We have praised our God when we had food,” she said to the boys as they looked up hungrily and rather tearfully. “Now let us praise Him when we have none.”

Then they knelt together. “O God, O true

God, O Father, we worship You, we praise You.” And she asked that contentment might be given to them, and sleep.

The boys lay down, and they fell asleep; but the mother could not sleep. Hour after hour she knelt before her God, holding out her saz in the old way, and, remembering her father’s proverb, these were the words she said:

“If the gardener has to water a great many plants, will he not sometimes forget one little plant? My children and I are Your plants. You have the whole world to look after; I think perhaps You have forgotten us to-night. But never mind. (The word is half apologetic. Who am I that I should mention it?) Shall I be offended with You? Only I ask You to be as the hen with her little chickens. Gather us under Your wings.”

It was now near midnight. The house was far too poor to keep a light burning; the little boys had prayed in the dark, and gone to sleep in the dark; and these words and many more — for she knelt there for a long time — were spoken in the dark. The darkness is full of demons to the people of the South. I have gone out in cholera time down the unlighted streets of the village of Dohnavur, tapping at the doors of the houses where the worst cases lay, and I have never known the door open without a cautious minute “SHALL I BE OFFENDED WITH YOU?” 119

of frightened question from the inside. “We were afraid of the demons,” would be the apology as at last the door opened and let me in.

Now through the dark streets, lighted only by the stars, came the sound of footsteps. They stopped at her door.

Sister |”

She knew the voice and opened quickly. There, standing against the velvety star-sprinkled sky, she saw that same cousin who had been sent to her before. She had carefully kept the knowledge of her circumstances from him, for he was not a believer in her God.

“Hast thou any food? Have the children any food?” he asked.

What could she say? She knew her God had sent him, and throbs of joy shook her so that she could hardly speak. He had not forgotten; the Gardener had not forgotten His little plants.

But His honour was concerned in this matter, and she was very jealous for the honour of the Lord her God; so she hesitated for a moment.

“See,” she said, pointing to the sleeping boys, as the starlight coming in through the door showed them on their mats. “We are happy. That is the chief thing, even more important than food. The children cried a little at first, but see, they are asleep. Our God has comforted them. Is not contentment more precious than food?”

But the cousin would not be denied.

Then she lighted a wick floating in a saucer of oil, and woke the boys. In the yellow flicker those wondering children saw a brass vessel piled with white rice, and a joyful heap of the nice curried vegetables their little souls had yearned for, set on the top of the heap. The cousin could not explain why he came. All he knew was that he could not go to sleep, something in him kept on wakening him and stirring him to take that food at once, till at last he yielded, went to the place where the rice over from the evening’s meal was kept, and, filling the brass vessel, brought it to them.