FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>   >|  
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kim, by Rudyard Kipling This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Kim Author: Rudyard Kipling Posting Date: January 15, 2009 [EBook #2226] Release Date: June, 2000 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIM *** Produced by Patricia Franks, Karyl Basmajian, Nancy K. Smith, Dave Bruchie. Kim by Rudyard Kipling JTABLE 4 15 1 Chapter 1 O ye who tread the Narrow Way By Tophet-flare to judgment Day, Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray To Buddha at Kamakura! Buddha at Kamakura. He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher--the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot. There was some justification for Kim--he had kicked Lala Dinanath's boy off the trunnions--since the English held the Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very poorest. The half-caste woman who looked after him (she smoked opium, and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by the square where the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a Colonel's family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-sergeant of the Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took a post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and his Regiment went home without him. The wife died of cholera in Ferozepore, and O'Hara fell to drink and loafing up and down the line with the keen-eyed three-year-old baby. Societies and chaplains, anxious for the child, tried to catch him, but O'Hara drifted away, till he came across the woman who took opium and learned the taste from her, and died as poor whites die in India. His estate at death consisted of three papers--
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

English

 
mother
 
Punjab
 

Kipling

 
Rudyard
 
Kamakura
 
Zammah
 

Buddha

 

Project

 

Gutenberg


looked
 

whites

 

poorest

 

pretended

 
drifted
 
smoked
 

learned

 

preference

 

consisted

 
estate

vernacular
 

native

 

papers

 

tongue

 
clipped
 

equality

 

furniture

 
perfect
 

consorted

 
uncertain

square
 

Railway

 

Regiment

 

Societies

 

regiment

 
loafing
 

cholera

 

Ferozepore

 

missionaries

 
sister

anxious

 

nursemaid

 

colour

 

sergeant

 
Mavericks
 

chaplains

 

Kimball

 
Colonel
 

burned

 

family