Edith and her Ayah and Other Stories
Edith and Her Ayah
9781465630841
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“Mamma,” said little Edith, looking up from the toys with which she was playing at the feet of her mother—“mamma, why does Motee Ayah never come in to prayers?” Mrs. Tuller was seated at her desk in the large room of her bungalow (house) in India. The day was hot; the blazing sun shone with fiery glare; but the light came into the room so much softened by green blinds and half-closed shutters, that the place was so dark that the lady could scarcely see to write. The punkah, a kind of huge fan, moving gently to and fro above her, made a refreshing air which would have sent her papers fluttering in every direction had not weights been placed to keep them down. Mrs. Tuller paused in her writing, but did not reply to the question asked by her child regarding her ayah, or native nurse. “Mamma,” said little Edith again, “does not Motee Ayah love the Lord Jesus?” “Alas, my child, she does not know him!” “But will you not teach her, mamma?” and the fair-haired girl looked up in her mother’s face with such a pleading look in her soft gray eyes, that, touched by her interest in the poor heathen, Mrs. Tuller bent down, kissed fondly the brow of her child, and whispered, “My love, I will try.” Nor did Mrs. Tuller forget her promise. Again and again she spoke to Motee of the Christian’s faith and the Christian’s God. It saddened the heart of the lady to feel that to seek to teach Motee religion was like trying to write upon water. The ayah joined her dark hands together, listened, or seemed to listen, said, “Very good, very good,” to everything that the beebee (lady) told her, but always returned to her idol, a hideous little wooden image, and performed her poojah (worship) to Vishnu, as if she had never heard of a purer religion. Mrs. Tuller grew quite disheartened about her. Sometimes the lady blamed her own imperfect knowledge of the language, and sometimes she felt almost angry with the ayah for her blindness and hardness of heart.
