y thoughts
about sequence or sense, and when she forgets the words she calmly makes
them up. And I cannot help thinking that Chellalu is very like her song;
here is an intelligible bit, a line or two in order, then a cheerful
tumble up, and an irresponsible conclusion. The tune too seems in
character--"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing"; the swinging
old Jacobite air had fitted itself to a nursery song about the brave
fire-lilies, and something in its abandon to the happy mood of the
moment seems to express the child.

It is not easy to express her. "If you had to describe Chellalu, how
would you do it?" I asked my colleague this morning, hoping for
illumination. "I would not attempt it! Who would?" she answered
helpfully.

"Chellalu! Oh, you need ten pairs of eyes and ten pairs of hands, and
even then you could never be sure you had her"--this was her nurse's
earliest description. She was six months old then, she is three and
three-quarters now; but she is what she was, "only more so."

Before Chellalu had a single tooth she had developed mother-ways, and
would comfort distressed babies by thrusting into their open mouths
whatever was most convenient. At first this was her own small thumb,
which she had once found good herself; but she soon discovered that
infants can bite, and after that she offered rattle-handles. Later, she
used to stagger from one hammock to another and swing them. And often,
before she understood the perfect art of balance, she would find
herself, to her surprise, on the floor, as the hammock in its rebound
knocked her over. She felt this ungrateful of the baby inside; but she
seemed to reflect that it was young and knew no better, for she never
retaliated, but picked herself up and began again. These hammocks, which
are our South Indian cradles, are long strips of white cotton hung from
the roof, and they make delightful swings. Chellalu learned this early,
and her nurse's life was a burden to her because of the discovery.

"She could walk before she could stand"--this is another nursery
description, and truer than it sounds. Certainly no one ever saw
Chellalu learning to walk. She was a baby one day, rapid in unexpected
motion, but only on all fours; the next day--or so it seems, looking
back--she was everywhere on her two feet. "Now there will be no place
where she won't be!" groaned the family, the first time she was seen
walking about with an air of having done it all her life.