| editor

“ Annapurna with her eyes brimming over, longed to take Tara into her lap and fold him to her bosom. Moti Babu thought that if only he could persuade the lad to stay on with them he would cease to feel the want of a son. Only the little Charu, their daughter, felt as if she would burst with jealousy and chagrin! ”

“ But Tara contented himself with a very sparing supper and refused the milk altogether. Even Moti Babu, a man of few words, tried to press the milk on him, but he simply said: "I don't care for it."
Thus passed two or three days of their life on the river. Tara of his own accord, and with great alacrity, helped in the marketing and the cooking and lent a hand with the boatmen in whatever had to be done. Anything worth seeing never missed his keen glance. His eyes, his limbs, his mind were always on the alert. Like Nature herself, he was in constant activity, yet aloof and undistracted. ”

“ Moti Babu took him into the cabin where his wife, Annapurna, and their nine-year old daughter were sitting. The good lady was immensely taken with the comely young fellow,—her whole heart went out to him. Where could he be coming from: whose child could he be: ah, poor thing, how could his mother bear to be separated from him?—thought she to herself.
Dinner was duly served and a seat placed for Tara by Moti Babu's side. The boy seemed to have but a poor appetite. ”

“ During the dry season, the villages on either bank were left in their secluded corners, to while away the time with their domestic concerns, and then in the rains the great outside World would come a-wooing, mounted on his silt-red chariot, laden with presents of merchandise, and all pettiness would be swept away for a time in the glamour of the courting; all would be life and gaiety, and festive clamour would fill the skies. ”

“ Charu had reached her marriageable age. Moti Babu was anxiously casting about for a suitable bridegroom. But the mother said to her husband: "Why are you hunting for bridegrooms, high and low? Tara is quite a nice boy,—and our daughter is fond of him, too."
The proposal took Moti Babu by surprise. "How can that be?" he exclaimed. "We know nothing of his family or antecedents. Our only daughter must make a good match."
One day a party came over from the Raydanga Zamindar's to see the girl with a view to make a proposal. ”

“ This great world, with its wide-gazing sky, with all the stir and whisper in its fields, the tumult in its water, the restless rustle in its trees, the vast remoteness of its space above and below, was on terms of the closest intimacy with the boy, and yet it never, for a moment, tried to bind his restless spirit within a jealously exacting embrace. ”

“ When the proprietor of the band of players, which he had joined, began to love Tara as a son and he became the favourite of the whole party, big and small alike,—when he found that even the people of the houses at which their performances were given, chiefly the women, would send for him to mark their special appreciation, he gave them all the slip, and his companions could find no trace of him. ”

“ In this part of the country, during June and July, a succession of fairs are held turn by turn in the different villages, and bands of players and singers and dancing girls, together with hordes of traders of every kind, journey in boats along the big and little rivers from fair to fair. Since the year before a novelty in the shape of a party of acrobats had joined the throng. Tara after leaving the ballad singers had been travelling with a trader, helping him to sell his pan. His curiosity being roused, he threw in his lot with the acrobats. ”

“ She had made it up with Charu, and they were as great friends as ever in all else, but where Tara was concerned Sonamani was afraid and cautious. So she usually chose the time when Charu was inside the Zenana, to hover near the schoolroom door. One day Tara caught sight of the retreating figure and called out: "Hullo, Sona, is that you? What's the news: how is Aunt?"
"You haven't been to us for so long," said Sonamani. "Mother has a pain in the back, or she would have come to see you herself." ”

“ But though he had made a conquest of the village, he had been unable to overcome the jealousy of one little girl; and it may be that just because he felt that this atom of femininity desired his banishment with all her might, he made such a prolonged stay in Katalia.
But little Charu was not long in furnishing fresh proof of the inscrutability of the feminine mind. Sonamani, the daughter of the cook [2] (a Brahmin woman) had been widowed at the early age of five or six. She was now of Charu's age and her closest friend. ”

“ Then Tara started to talk with the boatmen. He jumped up and took turns with them at the poles whenever the boat hugged the shore too closely. And when the steersman felt he would like a smoke Tara relieved him at the helm, and seemed to know exactly how to work the sail with the changing direction of the breeze and the boat.
A little before evening Annapurna sent for Tara inside and asked him: "What do you usually have for supper?" ”

“ Will you?" sneered Charu. "Haven't you got lessons to do? I'll tell Master masai, [4] you see if I don't!"
Undeterred by the threat, Tara went over to Dame Cook's quarters one or two evenings. On the third, Charu went one better than mere threatening. She fastened the chain outside Tara's door and, taking a small padlock off her mother's spice-box, locked him in for the evening, only letting him out when it was supper time. Tara was excessively annoyed and swore he would not touch a morsel of food. The repentant girl, beside herself, begged and prayed for forgiveness. ”