THE LETTER FROM INDIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 15, 19 January 1933, Page 23

THE LETTER FROM INDIA

(By CHRISTINE COMBER.)

SHORT STORY COMPETITION

-{Tinning entry in our January short story competition. January at Arthur's always seemed ■hotter than anywhere else. After its limb over tlie encircling hills it seemed +o lie in our little village, tongue out, throat parcher, breath scorching our Becks,, our faccs > our lawns - 'It . even seemed to eat up the air in the long, low, creeper-covered house, so that Mildred, •having thrown open all the windows and doors sat beating eggs on the lawn.

Arthur and I lay sprawled under a siant puriri, watching the traffic passing, for we faced on to one of the arterial ads to Auckland. Of course, there were ihe usual volumes of "holiday reading' 1 ]yin» on the grass between us, but really we '•'ere just exchanging news, for it was Ave years since I had spent a fortnigh . with Arthur and Mildred at "Greenlea." Half sitting up and leaning on his elbow, Arthur pointed with the stem oi his pipe down the road. "There's an Indian mail in," he remarked. X stared at him. "An Indian mail! How do you know 1" I asked. "Mrs. Robins going for her letter, said Arthur, adding with some surprise, "Haven't you heard about her V' I said not that I seemed to remember Arthur sat up. He loves having a storj to tell, and one is forced to admit that ]ie does it uncommonly well. . "If you had heard about her," he "you would never have forgotten Why, she's quite a celebrityone of the •village personalities, you might say Eighty-eight last September, and still able to get about without so much as a stick. °And every three months she goes to the store and gets her lettei from her son in India. Mrs. Judd, wlic runs the store, is post-mistress, and slw lets her know when her letter arrives Anybody in the village would take it tc her,' but no, she must trudge her twe miles each way and collect it with hei own hands. And with every letter comes a money order for twenty pounds. Th< poor old soul is quite convinced thai everybody wants to rob her of her little fortune. And indeed it's -all she has tc live on, and pay the rent of hei cottage." I stared at the little bent v-nniar ■with considerable curiosity now, as she laboured up the sloping street under a burning sun. She wore a black costume ■which must have been dreadfully hot and which hung rather baggily round liei shrunken figure. Her feet were encasec in black leather boots, very low in the heel, and rather square in. the toe. Hei little black bonnet was set perkily ox her head, and carried proudly along the xoad. For did not everybody she mel know she was going to collect a lettei Jrom her son,in India? "Her son, Bob," continued Arthur "was a wild: bit of a lad. No harm ii him exactly, hut just restless. Couldn'l keep one job. Mnet be chopping anc changing the whole time. A regulai rolling stone. But to his mother he wai perfect. Even his faults were virtues and lack of them failings in the othei hoys. There was nothing she wouldn'l jdo for him, and nothing she wouldn'l starve herself to buy him if he so mucl .as looked at it." His cobber was a lad of 22 called .Xixr Sweeney. Tim was-Irish by both his iather. and mother, although he wai born in Timaru. And a straighter chaj it would be hard to find. But Mrs Eobins was jealous of Tim. There's n< other word for it. Jest plain jealous If Bob waa wild Tim was a fair younj ,devil. Every scrapa and every lark hat Tim behind it, and poor old Mrs. Kobin* used to wait in fear and trembling everj night for Bob to .come home in case he'e been taken to the lock-up. And whei she heard about the escapades they hat bfien up to she would work herself intc such a state that Bob used to get quite frightened. "It was only & bit of fun,' he would say, and his mother would tel him he would break her heart. Anc •then the next minute away she was making him an omelette or raepberrj kisses or something else he was fonc of. But she used to go for Tim dread fully.' Bob was the quietest baby ever she said, and it was nothing-but bac company that made him act so recklessly now. And Tim was the arch' offender. "You have led my boy intc the paths of wickedness," she would say ""And may the Lord forgive _ ye." Anc Tim used to look quite sheepish and' saj Bob was over 21. He wasn't a baby anj longer. And that would upeet her com' pletely. Tim was bad. There was nc doubting that. But because her sol loved Tim she had to pray for him though sometimes she added a furtive ''But couldn't you manage a job for him & long way away, dear Lord 1" And' her prayer was answered, too, sc •that she knew she had been wrong tc .ask such a thing of the good Lord. Foi this is how it came about.

Tim's mother, who had 'been a widow •then for close on 15 years, died suddenly of heart trouble, and Tim wrote to his tinele in Benares to see if he could do .anything for him in the way of a job. .And Bob begged him to put in a word for him, too. Tim's uncle was quite a ■big noise in Benares, it seemed, and Tim Was pretty hopeful. Meantime he hadn't > cent to 'bless himself with, having been .out of a job for the last five months. He had lost his job in the grain store for sending a box of mice and young rats to the boss' daughter. The girl had gone into hysterics or something and cost the boss a pretty penny for her .and her mother to go for six weeks to Rotorua till her nerves got settled again. ■That's the kind of thing Tim was always ,<loing. Arid he usually had to pay the penalty for it, where Bob could do -things and get away with it every time. But Tim, in his light-headed fashion, "hadn't saved any money, and nothing -"was left after his mother died. Martha jSweeney had never run up an account in her life, and Tim had been about as much hindrance as help. He was the "walking likeness of his father, old Eddie ;Sweeney, with the same lovable nature, and improvident, happy-go-lucky way ,of living. Between them they were a jßore trial to poor ohi Martha. As soon as Mrs. Robins heard about Tim losing his mother, she said to him: •"Well, my boy, you are Bob's friend, and 'Martha Sweeney was a good woman, so, although I think you have no heart of grace, you must come and stay with Ujj till you either hear from your uncle or get another job." And she said to herself: "Perhaps the Lord will answer my prayer "and give Tim a job in India eo that my Bob will be sensible and contented as he used to be when he was a little hoy." The letter from Benares was a gord while coming, and Tim was with Bob and Mrs. Robins for upwards of four months. And Mrs. Robins treated him if he were her own eon. [What Bot

had, he had. And if she didn't manage i to make a missionary or at least aChristian of him, it wasn't for want of! trying. "I believe all you say," he told her. "My mother used to talk to. me just the way you do. But it never bothers me. I believe God's iu His heaven all right, but I don't see He call be interested in every little trouble of every wee mortal—Chinese, Hindus, Africans, Australians, Frenchmen, Italians, Germans and everybody. Millions of 'em. But don't you worry about me, •mother 1 o' mine." He always talked like that to her, and I think she would have got to like him for his very wildness if it hadn't been for Bob. Always Bob had first place, and Tim was a danger to Bob. But 6he got fond of him, all the same, and even began telling the minister and the elders that Tim was nothing like as bad as he wa.< painted.

And then the letter came from Benares. The uncle had got busy and could offer both Tim and his friend job'., provided they could sail right away. He sent Tim his fare and a nice little bit over in case his friend was short, and told liim to came by the Urania and ho would meet him at the dock.

The two lads were excited at this! chance of adventure and of seeing a bit of the world, but Bob was by far the more excited of the two. He had begun packing- in a frenzy of impatience before it dawned on him that his mother was nearly heart-broken. Her only eon, and he was leaving her! I remember her that day. I was just in my early twenties then, but she came to see my mother and she nearly cried her eyes out. "You get things in India," she said, "malaria and snake bites, and there are wild animals. I'm sure there are wild animals."

But Bob got round her all right. He] talked to her as only Bob could, telling her how he would send her money to make up for his wages he lad always given her. And his wages out in India were going to be double what he earn here for many a long day. And he might get promoted, and be a rich man before he was 30. She wouldn't want to stand in hie light, would she? And she dried her tears and set about sorting out his clothes. Soon she found that it gave her a position of importance in the village having a eon going away to a foreign place like India. Goodness only knew where Benares was, but certainly it was very far away and very dangerous. And most surely snares lay thick there for the unwary. Bob was presented with no less than four Bibles and three Testaments by the worthy villagers, and a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress/' And when they got there they found that their job was to be at Bombay.

Well, that's about all there is to the story. Bob wrote to hie mother every three months in his laboured printing. He never was much of a hand at letter writing, but somehow he always managed it. And in every letter he sent her £20. You never saw a prouder woman. Her Bob was a good boy. Her sou had been specially praised by his boss. Her son was a careful hoy, and kind to hi* mother. She never heard from young Sweeney after the first twelve months. She used to say that lie was an ungrateful young man. Not that she hau thought ingratitude would have been one of his failings, but there you were. You were never sure of the young peop'.? these days. And as time went on Tim gradually assumed the shape of the villain and her eon the Christian of John Bunyan's creation, whom everything had tried in vain to coax from the path of virtue.

Mrs. Robins is one of the few remaining people who can neither read nor write, so she conies to Mildred to have Bob's letters read and the reply written. She posts this herself, too, to make sure he isn't disappointed. "He might think I'd forgotten it," she says. I went out to India myself, as you know, a, few years ago, and I had promised to see Bob if it was at all possible. So I wrote beforehand, and his mother sent a message too, asking him to meet me when we berthed. Tim turned up, but there was no sign of Bob. Tim tried to put me off with a cock-and-bull story about extra, work, and Bob having such a responsible position. But Tim was never a good liar. In the finish I got it all out of him, how Bob had been killed in a drunken row with a native twelve months after they had got there, and how he hadn't thought there was much use in tellirfg the old mother, after she had been so kind to himself an' all, and her so near the grave anyway. And that was ten years ago, and the secret is safe with us. "But what about the letters?" I asked. "And the money?"

"All sent by Tim Sweeney as regular as clock-"work," said Arthur. And the j poor old soul praying every night tliat the good Lord will bless her boy and keep him safe, and adding a rider that He will make Tim see the light and keep him from leading her son into evildoing. , It's a funny old world, sure enough. Devilish funnv. And now what about a spot of lunch ? And later on old Mrs. Robins herself will'toddle in with her letter, and you'll hear all the latest news from Bombay for yourself. And there's poor old Tim stuck out there in India as long as she's alive, and him aching to come back to New Zealand to get a breath of a. respectable climate.