CHAPTER XIV Pickles and Puck "PICKLES" AND HER FRIENDS. "Pickles" sits with her thumb in her mouth, distrustful of photographers. "PICKLES" AND HER FRIENDS. "Pickles" sits with her thumb in her mouth, distrustful of photographers. "AMMA! Amma!" then in baby Tamil, "Salala has come!" And one of the most enticing of the little interruptions to a steady hour's work scrambles over the raised doorstep, tripping and tumbling in her eagerness to get in. Now she is staggering happily about the room on fat, uncertain feet. Upsets are nothing to Sarala. She shakes herself, rubs a bumped head, smiles if you smile down at her, and picks herself up with a sturdy independence that promises something for her future. She has travelled to-day, stopping only to visit her PrEma Sittie, a long way across the field all by herself. She has braved tumbles and captures, for her nurse may any minute discover her flight; and even now, safe in port, she keeps a wary eye on the door which opens on the nursery side of the compound. If she thinks I am about to suggest her departure, she immediately engages me in some interest of her own. She has ways and wiles unknown to any baby but herself; and if all seems likely to fail, she sits down on the floor, and first puts out her lower lip as far as it will go, and then springs up, climbs over you, clings with all four limbs at once, and buries her curly tangle deep into your neck. But if the case is hopeless, she sits down on the floor again and digs her small fists into her eyes, in silent indignation and despair. Then comes a howl impossible to smother, and at last such bitter bursts of woe as nothing short of dire necessity can force you to provoke. This is Sarala, one of the most affectionate, most wilful, most winsome of all the babies. She is truthful. She has just this moment pulled a drawing-pin out of its place, which happened to be within reach, and her solemn "Aiyo!" (Alas!) "Look, Amma!" shows she feels she has sinned, but wants to confess. Life will have many a battle for this baby; but surely if she is truthful and loving, and we are loving and wise, the Lord who has redeemed her will carry her through.
Her first great battle royal was with the new Sittie,[B] who immediately upon arrival loved the babies. The battle was about Sarala's evening meal, which she refused to take from the new Sittie because she had offended her small majesty a few minutes before by allowing another baby to share the lap of which Sarala wished to have complete possession; and the baby had crawled off disgusted with the ways of such a Sittie.
As a rule we avoid collisions at bedtime. The day should end peacefully for babies; but the contest once begun had to be carried through, for Sarala is not a baby to whom it is wise to give in where a conflict of wills is concerned. Next morning it was evident she remembered all about it. When the new Sittie (now called PrÉma Sittie by the children)[C] came to the nursery, Sarala hurried off and would have nothing to do with her. From the distance of the garden she would catch sight of her advancing form, and retreat round a corner. Sometimes if PrÉma Sittie sat down on the floor and fondled another baby, Sarala would crawl up from behind, put her arms round her neck, and even begin to sit down on her knee; but if her Sittie made the first advance, she was instantly repelled. This continued for a fortnight; and as Sarala was only a year and eight months old at the time, a fortnight's memory rather astonished us. In the end she forgot, and now there are no more devoted friends than PrÉma Sittie and Sarala.
Twins
But it was the other Sittie, Piria Sittie by name,[D] who first made Sarala's acquaintance. She and I went to Neyoor together when the branch nursery was there; and as the new nursery was almost ready for the babies, we lightened the immense undertaking of removal by carting off whatever we could of furniture and infants. Sarala has eyes which can smile bewitchingly, and a voice which can coo with delicious affection; but those sweet eyes can look stormy, and cooing is a sound remote from Sarala's powers in opposite directions; so we wondered, as we packed her into the bandy, what would happen that night. If we had known Sarala better we should not have wondered. All this child wants to make her good is someone to hold on to. She woke frequently during the night, for we were not entirely comfortable, wedged sideways and close as herrings in a barrel. But all she did when she awoke was to push a soft little arm round either one or other of us, and cuddle as close as she possibly could; the least movement on our part, however, she deeply resented and feared. A limpet on a rock is nothing to this baby. Her very toes can cling.
Sarala's private name is Pickles. Her twin in mischief is Puck, and she, too, is fond of paying visits to the bungalow. But she always comes as a surprise; she never announces herself. You are busy with your back to the door when that curious feeling, a sense of not being quite alone, comes over you, and you turn and see an elfish thing, very still and small and shy, but with eyes so comical that Puck is the only possible name by which she could be called. Seen unexpectedly, playing among the flowers in a fragment of green garment washed to the softness of a tulip leaf, you feel she only needs a pair of small wings and a wand to be entirely in character.
Puck has none of Pickles' faults, and a good many of her virtues. She is a most good-tempered little person, loving to be loved, but equally delighted that others should share the petting. She gives up to everybody, and smiles her way through life; such a comical little mouth it is, to match the comical eyes. All she ever asks with insistence is somewhere to play. Bereft of room to play, Puck might become disagreeable, though a disagreeable Puck is something unimaginable. Yesterday it was needful to keep her in the shade; and as a special policeman-nurse could not be told off to keep watch over her, she was tied by a long string to the nursery door. At first she was sorely distressed; but presently the comic side struck her, and she sat down and began to tie herself up more securely. If they do such things at all they should do them better, she seemed to think. And this is Puck all through. She will find the laugh hidden in things, if she can. Sometimes in her eagerness to make everybody as happy as she is herself she gets into serious trouble. She was hardly able to walk when she was discovered comforting a crying infant by taking a bottle of milk from an older babe (who, according to her thinking, had had enough) and giving it to the younger one who seemed to need it more. What the older baby said is not recorded.
Disgraced Dohnavur
Puck in trouble is a pitiful sight. She tries not to give in to feelings of depression. She screws her smiling lips tight, twists her face into a pucker, and shuts her eyes till you only see two slits marked by the curly eyelashes. But if her emotions are too much for her she gives herself up to them thoroughly. There is no whining or whimpering or sulking; she wails with a wail that rivals Pickles' howl. "What an awful child!" remarked a visitor one morning, in a very shocked tone, as she went the round of the nurseries and came upon Puck on the floor abandoned to grief. We wondered if our friend knew how much more awful most babies are, and we wished the usually charming Puck had chosen some other moment to disgrace herself and us. But no, there she sat, her two small fists crushed over her mouth—for we insist that when the babes feel obliged to cry, they shall smother the sound thereof as much as may be—and the visitor retired, feeling, doubtless, thankful the awful child was not hers. But Puck's griefs are of short duration. Ten minutes later she was climbing the chain from which the swing hangs, trying to fit her little toes into the links, and laughing, with the tears still wet on her cheeks, because the chain shook so that she could not climb it properly, though she tried it valiantly, hand over head, like a dancing bear on a pole. Puck's Guardian Angel, like Chellalu's, must be ever in attendance.
