Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the
child’s work then or later; but, that evening,
a stroll through the garden brought me unawares full
on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads,
dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap dish into
confusion past all hope of mending. Next morning,
I came upon Muhammad Din crying softly to himself
over the ruin I had wrought. Some one had cruelly
told him that the Sahib was very angry with
him for spoiling the garden, and had scattered his
rubbish, using bad language the while. Muhammad
Din laboured for an hour at effacing every trace of
the dust bank and pottery fragments, and it was with
a tearful and apologetic face that he said, ‘Talaam,
Tahib,’ when I came home from office.
A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad
Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted
to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the
child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan
of an edifice which was to eclipse the marigold-polo-ball
creation.
For some months the chubby little eccentricity revolved
in his humble orbit among the castor-oil bushes and
in the dust; always fashioning magnificent palaces
from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth
water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers
pulled, I fancy, from my fowls—always alone,
and always crooning to himself.
A gaily-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close
to the last of his little buildings; and I looked
that Muhammad Din should build something more than
ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor
was I disappointed He meditated for the better part
of an hour, and his crooning rose to a jubilant song.
Then he began tracing in the dust. It would certainly
be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two yards
long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the
palace was never completed.
Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of
the carriage-drive, and no ‘Talaam, Tahib’
to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed
to the greeting, and its omission troubled me.
Next day Imam Din told me that the child was suffering
slightly from fever and needed quinine. He got
the medicine, and an English Doctor.
‘They have no stamina, these brats,’ said
the Doctor, as he left Imam Din’s quarters.
A week later, though I would have given much to have
avoided it, I met on the road to the Mussulman burying-ground
Imam Din, accompanied by one other friend, carrying
in his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all that was
left of little Muhammad Din.
THE FINANCES OF THE GODS
The evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat’s
Chubara, and the old priests were smoking or counting
their beads. A little naked child pattered in,
with its mouth wide open, a handful of marigold flowers
in one hand, and a lump of conserved tobacco in the
other. It tried to kneel and make obeisance to
Gobind, but it was so fat that it fell forward on
its shaven head, and rolled on its side, kicking and
gasping, while the marigolds tumbled one way and the
tobacco the other. Gobind laughed, set it up
again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he received
the tobacco.
Copyrights
The Kipling Reader from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
