r. The road
was muddy, the river in flood, the field under water in
ceaseless rain.
Greater than all the troubles of the crowd was a little boy's
trouble--he had not a farthing to buy a painted stick.
His wistful eyes gazing at the shop made this whole meeting of
men so pitiful.

77

The workman and his wife from the west country are busy digging
to make bricks for the kiln.
Their little daughter goes to the landing-place by the river;
there she has no end of scouring and scrubbing of pots and
pans.
Her little brother, with shaven head and brown, naked, mud-
covered limbs, follows after her and waits patiently on the
high bank at her bidding.
She goes back home with the full pitcher poised on her head, the
shining brass pot in her left hand, holding the child with her
right--she the tiny servant of her mother, grave with the
weight of the household cares.

One day I saw this naked boy sitting with legs outstretched.
In the water his sister sat rubbing a drinking-pot with a handful
of earth, turning it round and round.
Near by a soft-haired lamb stood gazing along the bank.
It came close to where the boy sat and suddenly bleated aloud,
and the child started up and screamed.
His sister left off cleaning her pot and ran up.
She took up her brother in one arm and the lamb in the other, and
dividing her caresses between them bound in one bond of
affection the offspring of beast and man.

78

It was in May. The sultry noon seemed endlessly long. The dry
earth gaped with thirst in the heat.
When I heard from the riverside a voice calling, "Come, my
darling!"
I shut my book and opened the window to look out.
I saw a big buffalo with mud-stained hide, standing near the
river with placid, patient eyes; and a youth, knee deep in
water, calling it to its bath.
I smiled amused and felt a touch of sweetness in my heart.

79

I often wonder where lie hidden the boundaries of recognition
between man and the beast whose heart knows no spoken language.
Through what primal paradise in a remote morning of creation ran
the simple path by which their hearts visited each other.
Those marks of their constant tread have not been effaced though
their kinship has been long forgotten.
Yet suddenly in some wordless music the dim memory wakes up and
the beast gazes into the man's face with a tender trust, and
the