No More Learning

" Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had
now gathered all his shirt round his neck, string-wise, and the yell
subsided into a sob. The two set off for the door. "His name," said Imam
Din, as though the name were part of the crime, "is Muhammad Din, and he
is a budmash. " Freed from present danger, Muhammad Din turned round,
in his father's arms, and said gravely:--"It is true that my name is
Muhammad Din, Tahib, but I am not a budmash. I am a MAN! "

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did
he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the compound,
we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was
confined to "Talaam, Tahib" from his side and "Salaam Muhammad Din" from
mine. Daily on my return from office, the little white shirt, and the
fat little body used to rise from the shade of the creeper-covered
trellis where they had been hid; and daily I checked my horse here, that
my salutation might not be slurred over or given unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the
compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands
of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down
the ground. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six
shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that
circle again, was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick
alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a
little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea for
the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did
not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work then
or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought me
unawares full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads,
dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past all
hope of mending.
Next morning I came upon Muhammad Din crying softly to
himself over the ruin I had wrought.

Some one had cruelly told him that the Sahib was very angry with him for
spoiling the garden, and had scattered his rubbish using bad language
the while. Muhammad Din labored for an hour at effacing every trace
of the dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful
apologetic face that he said, "Talaam Tahib," when I came home from the
office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that
by my singular favor he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased.
Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an
edifice which was to eclipse the marigold-polo-ball creation.

For some months, the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble
orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning
magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth
water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I fancy,
from my fowls--always alone and always crooning to himself.

A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of his
little buildings; and I looked that Muhammad Din should build something
more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor was I
disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, and his
crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in dust. It
would certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two
yards long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was never
completed.

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage-drive,
and no "Talaam Tahib" to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed to
the greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day, Imam Din told me
that the child was suffering slightly from fever and needed quinine. He
got the medicine, and an English Doctor.