Lotus Buds

<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> <h3>Old D&eacute;vai</h3> <div class='cap'>SHE has been called "Old D&eacute;vai" ever since we knew her, twelve years ago; and she is still active in mind and body. "As I was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in," she would tell you with a courageous toss of the old grey head. Her spirit at least is untired.</div> <p>We knew her first as a woman of character. One Sunday, in our Tamil church, a sermon was preached upon the love of the Father as compared with the love of the world. That Sunday D&eacute;vai went home and acted upon the teaching in such fashion that she had to suffer from the scourge of the tongue in her own particular world. But she went on her way, unmoved by adverse criticism. Some years later, when we were in perplexity as to how to set about our search for children in danger of being given to temples, old D&eacute;vai offered to help. She was peculiarly suitable, both in age and in position, for this most delicate work; and we accepted her offer with thanksgiving. Since then she has travelled far, and followed many a clue discovered in strange ways and in strange company. Perhaps no one in South India knows as much as D&eacute;vai knows about the secret system by which the Temple altars are supplied with little living victims;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span> but she has no idea of how to put her knowledge into shape and express it in paragraph form. We learn most from her when she least knows she is saying anything interesting.</p> <p>When first we began the work, our great difficulty was, as it is still, to get upon the track of the children before the Temple women heard of them. Once they were known to be available, Temple scouts appeared mysteriously alert; and it is doubly difficult to get a little child after negotiations have been opened with the subtle Temple scout. How often old D&eacute;vai has come to us sick at heart after a long, fruitless search and effort to save some little child who, perhaps, only an hour before her arrival was carried off in triumph by the Temple people! "I pursued after the bandy, and I saw it in the distance; but swiftly went their bullocks, and I could not overtake it. At last they stopped to rest, and I came to where they were. But they smiled at me and said: 'Did you ever hear of such a thing as you ask in foolishness? Is it the custom to give up a child, once it is ours?'" Sometimes a new story is invented on the spot. "Did you not know it was my sister's child; and I, her only sister, having no child of my own, have adopted this one as my own? Would you ask me to give up my own child, the apple of my eye?" Oftener, however, the clue fails, and all D&eacute;vai knows is that the little one is nowhere to be found. Once she traced it straight to a Temple house, won her way in, and pleaded with tears, offering all compensation for expenses incurred (travelling and other) if only the Temple woman would let her take the child. But no: "If it dies, that matters little; but disgrace is not to be contemplated." When all else fails, we earnestly ask that the little one in danger may be taken quickly out of that polluted atmosphere up into purer air; and it is startling to note how solemnly the answer to that prayer has come in very many instances.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span></p> <div class="sidenote">The Knock at Night</div> <p>The clue for which we are always on the watch is often like a fine silk thread leading down into dark places where we cannot see it, can hardly feel it; it is so thin a thread. Sometimes, when we thought we held it securely, we have lost it in the dark.</p> <p>Sometimes it seems as if the Evil One, whose interest in these little ones may be greater than we know, lays a false clue across our path, and bewilders us by causing us to spend time and strength in what appears to be a wholly useless fashion. Once old D&eacute;vai was lured far out of our own district in search of two children who did not even exist. She had taken all precautions to verify the information given, but a false address had baffled her; and we can only conclude that, for some reason unknown to us, but well known to those whom we oppose, they were permitted on that occasion to gain an advantage over us. We made it a rule, after that will-of-the-wisp experience, that any address out of our own district must be verified; and that the nearest missionary thereto, or responsible Indian Christian, must be approached, before further steps are taken. This rule has saved many a fruitless journey; but also we cannot help knowing it has sometimes occasioned delays which have had sad results. For distances are great in India. D&eacute;vai herself lives two days' journey from us, and her address is uncertain, as she sets off at a moment's notice for any place where she has reason to think a child in danger may be saved. Then, too, missionaries and responsible Indian Christians are not everywhere. So that sometimes it is a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, and choosing immediately.</p> <div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-13.jpg" width-obs="350" height-obs="500" alt="LATHA (FIREFLY) BLOWING BUBBLES." title="" /> <span class="caption">LATHA (FIREFLY) BLOWING BUBBLES.</span></div> <p>Once in the night a knock came to D&eacute;vai's door. A man stood outside, a Hindu known to her. "A little girl has just been taken to the Temple of A., where the great festival is being held. If you go at once you may perhaps get her."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span> The place named was out of our jurisdiction; but in such cases D&eacute;vai knows rules are only made to be broken. Off she went on foot, got a bandy <i>en route</i>, reached the town before the festival was over, found the house to which she had been directed&mdash;a little shut-up house, doors and windows all closed&mdash;managed, how we never knew, to get in, found a young woman, a Temple woman from Travancore, with a little child asleep on the mat beside her, persuaded her to slip out of the house with the child without wakening anyone, crept out of the town and fled away into the night, thankful for the blessed covering darkness. The child was being kept in that house till the Temple woman to whom she was to be given produced the stipulated "Joy-gift," after which she would become Temple property. Some delay in its being given had caused that night's retention in the little shut-up house. The child, a most lovable little girl, had been kidnapped and disguised; and the matter was so skilfully managed, that we have never been able to discover even the name of her own town. We only know she must have been well brought up, for she was from the first a refined little thing with very dainty ways. She and her little special friend are sitting on the steps looking at Latha (Firefly), who is blowing bubbles. The other little one has a similar but different history. Her father brought her to us himself, fearing lest she should be kidnapped by one related to her who much wanted to have her. "I, being a man, cannot be always with the child," he said, "and I fear for her."</p> <div class="sidenote">"It"</div> <p>On another occasion the clue was found through D&eacute;vai's happening to overhear the conversation of two men in a wood in the early morning. One said to the other something about someone having taken "It" somewhere; and D&eacute;vai, whose scent is keen where little "Its" are concerned, made friends with the men, and got the information she wanted from them. Careful work resulted in a little child's salvation;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span> but D&eacute;vai hardly dared believe it safe until she reached Dohnavur. When that occurred we were all at church; for special services were being held in week-day evenings, and old D&eacute;vai had to possess her soul in patience till we came out of church. Then there was a rush round to the nursery, and an eager showing of the "It." I shall never forget the pang of disappointment and apprehension. Several little ones had been sent to us who could not possibly live; and the nurses had got overborne, and we dreaded another strain for them. It was a tiny thing, three pounds and three-quarters of pale brown skin and bone. Its face was a criss-cross of wrinkles, and it looked any age. But "Man looketh upon the outward appearance" would have been assuredly quoted to us, regardless of context, had we ventured upon a remark to old D&eacute;vai, who poured forth the story of its salvation in vivid sentences. Next evening the old grannie of the compound told us the baby could not live till morning. She laid it on a mat and regarded it critically, felt its pulses (both wrists), examined minutely its eyes and the bridge of its nose: "No, not till morning. Better have the grave prepared, for early morning will be an inconvenient hour for digging." Others confirmed her diagnosis, and sorrowfully the order was given and the grave was dug.</p> <p>But the baby lived till morning; and though for two years it needed a nurse to itself, and over and over again all but left us, this baby has grown one of our healthiest; and now when old D&eacute;vai comes to see us she looks at it, and then to Heaven, and sighs with gratitude.</p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />