Fun and Games with Checkers the Cat! Ch. 91-120

Sheila (Seamands) Lovell is the daughter of Methodist missionaries to India, J. T. and Ruth Seamands. She is a graduate of Asbury College (now University) and the University of Kentucky. She came to Asbury Seminary in to work with David L. McKenna when he became President in 1982. She has been with the Seminary for 38 years, having served five presidents as their Executive Assistant and currently works as a Special Assistant to the President and Grants Administrator in the Advancement Office. In thinking about how to help keep her six grandchildren from getting bored and looking forward to something every day during their time of self-isolation, she began writing this diary from the point of view of her cat, Checkers, who by her own admission is practically purr-fect in every way. 

---

Chapter 91

Mommy left me hanging last night when she stopped telling the story about Mommy Ruth getting into trouble with the cops in Bombay. So tonight I could hardly wait for her to continue the story. Here’s what came next:

 The cop continued his interrogation of Mommy Ruth. “Weren’t you told not to get on this road today?”

 “No, I wasn’t. What’s wrong, officer? Why was I stopped?”

 “You were stopped because nobody should be on this road. The police have sealed off every lane and alley leading onto Marine Drive.”

 “Well, they missed one, because I didn’t see a policeman when I turned onto Marine Drive. Why did they want to seal off this road?”

 “We are having a parade of honor today, and the road was sealed off for protection.”

 “Protection? Whose protection?”

 The policeman drew himself up to his full height. “King Saud of Saudi Arabia.”

 Mommy Ruth gasped. “K–King Saud??”

 “Yes, madam, and you are holding up his parade.”

 “I’m – I’m so sorry. He didn’t – he didn’t tell me he was coming!”

 The officer looked disgusted. “I will stand guard with you here and my fellow officer will go and escort the parade.”

 Mommy Ruth gulped so she wouldn’t laugh. She had a mental picture of the King drumming his fingers on the seat of his very expensive limousine as his parade was held up by some idiot – like herself! A long procession of motorcycles and drums, black cars and the King approached. Mommy Ruth waved to him as he passed by, but he ignored her. After it was all over, the police officer told her she could go but that “I will have to report the reason for the delay to my superior office, madam.”

 “Please report it to the TOP superior office,” she told him breezily, climbing into her jeep. You see, the friend Mommy Ruth was staying with was the supreme head of the Bombay police force. He had 85,000 men under him – an army of his own. He himself was riding in the parade, in a car behind the King, but if he saw her standing beside the road, he ignored her too, sitting ramrod stiff and looking straight ahead. Mr. Modak had been the District Superintendent of Police (D.S.P.) in Belgaum for some years. His compound was right next door to the Methodist mission compound and he and his wife, Kiran, had become very good friends with Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee. He was a fine Christian man, and because of his integrity he climbed right up the police hierarchy, clear to the top. He and Kiran eventually were sent to Bombay, where they hosted her during her Christmas shopping sprees.  

 Mommy laughed at the story all over again.  Only Mommy Ruth would hold up a King’s parade! 

Chapter 92

 My mommy told me that for a long time she had always thought of Daddy Jaytee as a pretty mild-mannered man, not prone to tough sports. Oh, he played a mean game of tennis and he and his partner could beat their younger seminary student opponents, but when she learned that he loved the sport of boxing, she was very surprised. And then she heard the story of Daddy Jaytee and a boxer named Gunboat Jack. She told me the story . . .

 Sometime in 1943, Daddy Jaytee got into a second-class coach on the Madras Express from Bangalore and heaved his bags into the top bunk. The train shuddered and began to move and another passenger practically fell into the coach beside him. “Didn’t think I’d ever make this train,” he said, mopping his face. “That poor old horse pulling my tonga was half dead on his four feet.”

 Daddy Jaytee got out his water bottle and offered the man a drink. He held out his tin cup gratefully. As they watched Bangalore fade past their train windows, Daddy Jaytee looked closely at his companion. “Do I know you? Seems like I’ve seen you before. We don’t often see African American men in India. You are American, aren’t you?”

 “Sure am,” was the response. My name is Gunboat Jack and I’m a fighter. A boxer. I’m a middle-weight, and I fight good.”

 “I’ve heard of you.” Daddy Jaytee held out his hand. “My name is J. T. Seamands.”

 “Mister J.T., what’re you doing out here in India?”

 Daddy Jaytee grinned. “I’m a fighter, too!”

 Gunboat Jack looked at the skinny red-headed white man. “Well, now, it don’t seem to me like you be much of a one. Who do you fight?”

 “I’m a missionary and I fight the devil.”

 Gunboat thought about that for a while, then nodded. “Mighty tough opponent you got there, brother.”

 “Yes, he’s tough all right, but I’ve got God on my side, so we give the devil a run for his money.” He paused and then asked, “Gunboat, how are you doing these days? You haven’t been fighting much lately, have you?”

 Gunboat answered slowly, “Mister J.T, I’m not doing to well in the ring of life. I get knocked out a lot.” He went on to talk about his drinking and his running around. “I fight and win and get paid and then use up all my money and sometimes I wake up in strange places. Sometimes I don’t eat.” He peered at Daddy Jaytee. “Maybe you’re fighting’ the devil and winnin’, but I’m not. The devil kicks me around all the time and I don’t know what to do.”

 Daddy Jaytee said a silent prayer. “Gunboat, you need to make God your manager! You need to follow His rules and you’ll win life’s fights. Here’s God’s Rule Book. Take it and read it and pray and ask God to be your manager. We’re nearly to Madras. I will pray for you, Gunboat, and hope we meet again sometime.”  The two parted ways on the station platform. ( I wanted more but Mommy stopped there for the night.)

 

Chapter 93

As I was winding down my busy day watching the birds and chasing the squirrels (not! – I just watch them, too), I got tired and sought out Mommy’s lap for some love. She continued her story from the night before:

 Fifteen years later, Daddy Jaytee was preaching in his church in Bangalore about witnessing for Christ in ordinary conversations. He said the best way to do that was to talk about the other person’s interests. He used as an illustration the boxing lessons he had taken while in elementary school in that town and his interest in Gunboat Jack, who was well-known at the time. Then about his chance meeting with the boxer himself.

 After the service, one of the parishioners said to him, “I know where you can find Gunboat Jack. He sits in a big old leather rocking chair on a street in downtown Bangalore. He gives his testimony to everybody who stops to talk to him. He’s there every day except during the monsoon season.”

 Daddy Jaytee and Mommy Ruth went quickly to their jeep and drove to the spot. And there was Gunboat Jack! He was big and old and grizzled, with lines from a hard life on his face. His hair, once black and curly, was now white. A well-used Bible lay open on his lap. Daddy Jaytee came up to him, leaned in close, and said into his ear, “Mighty tough opponent you got there, brother?”

 “You! You’re that red-headed American I met on a train that day!” They grabbed on to each other’s shoulders, both of them elated to see the other.

 Jack told them his story. “After I met you, brother, I got so I couldn’t get any good fights and the devil had me on the ropes. I had no money and no food. Then I remembered what you said about making Jesus my Manager. I still had the New Testament you gave me so I began to read. Then I prayed and told the Lord Jesus, ‘I got nothin’ but I’m askin’ you to help me. Please come in and be my Manager. Help me to fight the devil, ‘cause he got me out for the count all the time.’” He went to sleep then and woke up happy. He went out and told his story to the first person he saw. That man bought him a meal and ever since, Jack said, he had managed to find work and he always told his story.

 Mommy Ruth asked him to come to a combination Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at the parsonage, as they were inviting all the Americans they knew in town. When they sat down to dinner on that evening, Daddy Jaytee asked Jack to tell his story to the group. He told about meeting the red-headed missionary in that train carriage and how the man had advised him to make Jesus his Manager. At his most desperate, he had done just that. “Managers tell you what to do,” he said. “And my new manager told me to read some Scripture and tell my story to anybody who’d listen. So that’s just what I do. I got me a big old box and started sitting on it in the street and telling my story. A man came along and said he would get me a good chair to sit in. He also told the policemen to leave me alone. That chair will be empty only when God takes me home to heaven. If you folks haven’t made Jesus your Manager, this is the time to do it. Thanks for listening to me.” And with that, he blessed the food.

 Mommy said that that was one of the most memorable Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations they could ever remember. A tough old fightin’ sinner had met Jesus and been turned into a saint. Glory-bound Gunboat Jack.

 

Chapter 94

 It was a lazy Saturday today. Mommy didn’t open the windows until late in the afternoon because it was too warm outside. But at least I got some breezes in my whiskers before bedtime. We settled in again for Mommy to tell me another bedtime story about Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee and their adventures.

 Back in 1969, they were returning to the U. S. from a long overseas trip. Finally, the last in line, they made their way to the customs officer. He had Daddy Jaytee open his small case and felt around in it. He brought out a heavy, seven-inch-long, curved, streaked light-brown object. At one end it was open and had a thick, handmade piece of rope tied to each end.

 “What is this, sir?”

 “It’s a whale’s tooth.”

 “A whale’s tooth! Did you buy this in a gift shop somewhere?”

 “No, whale’s teeth are very special in Fiji. They’re given to people that are being greatly honored. A group of ministers gave me this one. You have to have official permission to bring them out of the island. Here’s the paperwork.”

 The official gave it all back to him and told him he could repack the case. “Have you declared everything?” Mommy Ruth handed him her list. He picked up her five-foot-long bundle with a bulge at one end. It was heavily packed and tied with stout string wound round and round its whole length. “What is this?”

 “Spears.”

 “Spears? How many? Where are they from?”

 “Three spears. Two of them are fishing spears from Fiji and the third is a decorated one made out of bamboo, from New Guinea.”

 “This bundle has a big bulge at the end. What is that?”

 “That’s old Cakobau’s war club. Cakobau was the greatest cannibal chief in Fijian history. He killed all his enemies with a club just like that.”

 “Most women bring back jewelry when they go overseas. You bring back weapons?”

 “Well, I’m a missionary,” she tried to explain. “I just like spears and things. I’ve collected them for years. These are going to go on the wall in my den.” He rolled his eyes at hearing this.

 “Will you be in L.A. long? Where are you staying?”

 “We’re staying in a college dorm for a couple of days.” Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee were exhausted from their long flights and just wanted a bed for the night.

 “Just like us, Checker,” my mommy said. “We want a bed for the night, too. I’ll finish this story tomorrow.”

 

Chapter 95

 As it thundered overhead and rained outside, I snuggled in Mommy’s lap so she could finish the story she began last night. She reminded me that Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee had been traveling for 36 hours from a trip to Fiji and New Guinea and they were absolutely exhausted.  When they got to the college dorm room where they were to stay, they had trouble getting shoes off their swollen feet.

 Mommy Ruth let Daddy Jaytee take his shower first, knowing she would want to wash and roll up her hair. She got stuff out of her makeup case and decided she wouldn’t get out any clean clothes until the next morning. An hour later she fell into bed beside her already-deeply-asleep husband.

 At 2 a.m., they were blasted out of bed by the fire alarm in the hallway outside. “Oh, no,” Mommy Ruth moaned. “What is that? I can’t – I can’t get up.”

 “Get up! Get up!” Daddy Jaytee shouted at her. “That’s a fire alarm. The building’s on fire! We’ve got to get out of here!” He grabbed his bag with the whale’s tooth. She jerked awake, snatched her purse and swung it over her shoulder, scooped some stuff from the top of the dresser into her make-up kit and grabbed that up in one hand. The package of spears wrapped up with old King Cakobau’s club stood learning against the wall by the door. She grabbed that up with her other hand. “Fire or no fire, I’m not leaving without my spears!” They ran for the stairs.

 As they bolted down the stairs on bare, still-swollen feet, in their pajamas and no robes, Daddy Jaytee holding on to his whale’s tooth and Mommy Ruth clutching her makeup and her spears, she suddenly remembered she still had her hair in rollers. (Rollers? What’s that? My mommy explained that women used to put them in their hair to make it curly.) “Oh, well,” Mommy Ruth muttered to herself, “at least nobody knows me here. I’ll never see these people again.”

 They made it outside and were milling around on the front lawn, Mommy Ruth trying to keep from poking people with her spears, when a woman’s loud voice called out from the crowd, “Why Ruth Seamands! What are you doing here?”

 Mommy Ruth squinted at her (she’d forgotten her glasses in all the excitement) and wished she could faint. There stood a smiling, beautiful woman she’d known in college and hadn’t seen for thirty years – wearing a lovely robe, no curlers in her hair, no fat feet, and no weapons in her hand.

 Mommy Ruth stammered a response, asking her friend if she were dreaming. “It’s no dream,” the other woman said, smiling, “but there’s no fire. This often happens in the dorm. The students think it’s funny to see everybody rush outside in their pjs in the middle of the night. It’s nice to see you and Jaytee. Where are you coming from?”

 “From Fiji,” Mommy Ruth mumbled. “And I wish I knew who pulled that fire alarm. I know how to use these spears!” And with whatever dignity she could muster, she turned and stumbled back up the stairs, following Daddy Jaytee on her fat feet.

 Mommy laughed heartily at the mental picture of Mommy Ruth, fierce Fijian warrior woman in her pajamas. “And yes, Checkers,” she scratched my ears, “I do have more stories about her. And about Daddy Jaytee. They were fascinating people to know. I hope you’re getting to know them, too, through these stories.”

 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Part 1)

Chapter 96

Another beautiful day in the Bluegrass, coming to an end now. Mommy and I are hanging out (hanging over, in my case, as I’m curled up in my scratching post/ birdwatching rampart). She has just come in from her walk and I’m ready to hear another story about Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee. And as usual, my mommy has plenty of them. . .

 Mommy Ruth had built her big dream house with lots of bedrooms because she wanted to have plenty of room for entertaining. People were always coming to visit or to speak at Asbury College or Seminary. She spent one weekend preparing the house for five male guests, three of whom she and Daddy Jaytee had met and two of whom were strangers. One of the strangers was a Black man from Burundi, Africa. They were coming to take part in the Missions Conference at the Seminary.

 When the doorbell rang, she opened it to see a fine-looking, nicely-dressed Black man standing there, carrying a small case. She smiled and stuck out her hand. “Are you the one we’re expecting?”

 He looked a bit surprised at the handshake, but nodded and grinned widely. “I must be!”

 “Well, your room is all ready – come on in. Do you want to bring the rest of your things in now?”

 “After a while, I will.” He stepped into the house and looked around.

 “What is your name?” Mommy Ruth knew he had an African name that would be difficult for her to pronounce and she wanted to hear him say it. Then maybe she could get it right. He mumbled something that she didn’t catch but didn’t want to ask him again, figuring she’d have plenty of time to do so. After all, the men were all staying for two days. “Where did you come from today?”

 “Lexington.”

 “Oh, then you haven’t traveled as far today as I thought you might have. How did you get here?”

 “In my van.”

 

“Where did you park it? You can leave it out front here, you know.”

 “It’s down the street. The man gave me permission to park there.”

 Mommy Ruth was beginning to get a little nervous about him. He had no car in sight and he didn’t speak with an African accent – she had met people from Africa before. About that time, Daddy Jaytee came in. She said, “Honey, this is . . . ah . . . our friend.”

 He held out his hand. “Welcome to our home. How are you? Did you have a good flight? I’ve not been in your country, Burundi, but I’ve been in Africa.”

 There was a strained silence. And my mommy left the story there to complete tomorrow night.

 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Part 2)

Chapter 97

 When my mommy left off her story last night, Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee were greeting the Black man, their expected guest, who had come to their door.

 The man wrinkled his forehead and scratched his nose. “Flight? Burundi? No, I just drove in from Lexington today. Maybe there’s been a little mistake. . . I don’t understand . . . “

 Mommy Ruth didn’t either, so she had to ask. “Aren’t you from Burundi in Africa? If this is a mistake, then why have you come here?”

 He grinned again. “I’m just here doing my job. And you are the friendliest folks I ever did see, shakin’ my hand and askin’ me to stay with you, so maybe you’d like to buy some of my cleaner. I’m not an African from Burundi, I’m am American from Lexington – and I’m here sellin’ cleaner.”

 Mommy Ruth did her best to squash down the giggle that was beginning way down in her stomach. “You’re selling cleaner? What kind of cleaner?” She pointed to the bag he was carrying. “I thought you had your pajamas in there!”

 He slapped his leg and guffawed. “My pajamas? On, no ma’am, I don’t carry pajamas with me when I’m sellin’ my cleaner.” As Daddy Jaytee stood speechless, he ran on. “Ma’am, it’s a good cleaner – it cleans everything. Look, I’ll show you how it works.”

 “Oh, I’m sorry,” Mommy Ruth was still struggling not to laugh. “I’m too busy today. We are waiting for five men to arrive to stay with us and one of them is from Burundi. We don’t know what he looks like or what his name is, so I thought you were the one coming to stay with us.”

 “You’re waitin’ for a Black man to come and stay with you? That blows my mind. Why, is this a church meetin’?”

 “He’s coming to speak during our two-day missions conference at the theological seminary where my husband teaches.”

 “Well, ma’am, if you have five men staying with you, then you’ll really need my cleaner after they’re gone!”

 “Well, okay. I’ll buy a bottle of your cleaner.”

 Daddy Jaytee paid the man, who handed over a big green bottle of clear liquid. As he turned to go, he said, “First time I ever went to a white house when they expected a Black man carryin’ pajamas. I’m a Black man and I came, only ‘twasn’t me they expected. And I ain’t carryin’ no pajamas, neither.”

 They closed the door behind him. Mommy Ruth was laughing to hard she slid down the door and ended up on the floor. Daddy Jaytee had to join her there because he couldn’t stand up any longer, either. I love to hear people laugh; I would surely have liked to have been there. I would have poked my head out from under the bed, where I hide whenever strangers come, just to have seen it.  

 

Mommy Ruth and the Queen

Chapter 98

 My mommy had told me before about Mommy Ruth’s friendship with Rani-sahib, the queen mother of the principality of Sawantwadi. Rani-sahib, dripping with jewels and wearing a sari with real gold threads   woven into it, introduced herself to Mommy Ruth at a dinner party, and they became great friends.

 When Mommy Ruth got to know her better, she said that Rani-sahib was as homelike as a tabby cat, but when displeased with one of her servants, she could be majestic with scorn. Mommy Ruth got to know her so well that she could go visit at her elegant home whenever she chose. But no one – not even her own family members – could see her any day before she had finished her bath and performed her favorite Hindu puja (acts of worship) in her own private shrine each morning at 9 a.m.

 Rani-sahib was obsessed with going to the movies and went almost every afternoon. Rani-sahib was short, standing at about five feet, handsome, loved good food, was overweight, chewed red betel nut, and – unusual in an Indian woman – smoked small cigars, which she ordered from Switzerland blended especially for her taste. Her palace was full of servants, but once Mommy Ruth found her squatting beside an open fire cooking her own chapatis (flat bread). She had Mommy Ruth sit down and have some with her, dipping them into her delicious spicy curry juice.

 She and Mommy Ruth were the only women drivers in Belgaum. They made quite the contrast: the American woman rattling around in her trusty ex-World War II jeep and the Indian queen mother driving her fancy sports car.

 Rani-sahib was unconventional in other ways. A Hindu widow is supposed to wear plain-colored saris and put her jewelry away, but she defied her own religion and delighted in bright saris and flaunted her jewels. She came by the mission bungalow one afternoon when Daddy Jaytee and Mommy Ruth were about to go to the photographer to have a publicity picture taken. Daddy Jaytee had borrowed from Rani-sahib’s son, Rajah-sahib, a gold cloth coat, matching gold turban, and a ceremonial sword tied with a wisp of gold chiffon. Mommy Ruth was dressed in a sari. Rani-sahib must have felt sorry for her, whom she thought was not so richly dressed as her husband, so she took her enormous diamond ring off and put it on Mommy Ruth’s finger for the picture. Mommy Ruth said she could only imagine the shock when their American patrons saw that picture!

 Many times, Rani-sahib dropped in at the mission bungalow unannounced, but if Mommy Ruth knew she was coming, she would have on hand two of her favorite foods – hot, raised, glazed doughnuts – and homemade ice cream, neither of which Rani-sahib’s servants knew how to make.

 Rani-sahib wanted to teach Mommy Ruth how to play mah-jongg, and after Mommy Ruth refused several times, asked, “Why don’t you want to learn to play?” When Mommy Ruth finally admitted that she didn’t believe in gambling, Rani-sahib snorted, “Is that all! We don’t have to gamble when we play.” So she taught Mommy Ruth, who promptly turned around and corrupted all the other Methodist missionary wives with the game. My mommy remembers late-night mah-jongg parties in Kodai, during the time all the missionaries gathered to take their kids out of boarding for their May vacation. Mommy Ruth taught her girls to play, too, and they had many raucous games together, especially during their family reunions.

 I liked the stories about Rani-sahib. She sounds like a fascinating person to meet. I wonder if she liked small furry creatures like me? 

Mommy Ruth and the General (Part 1)

Chapter 99 

I enjoyed learning about Mommy Ruth’s friend, Rani-sahib. I remembered that my mommy said that the two fawns that had been given to them by an Indian villager had in the end gone to be part of Rajah-sahib’s small zoo on his compound. Mommy says she remembers the two royals very well. But then I learned there was even more to the story.

 Rahi-sahib put up the names of Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee for membership in the Belgaum Club, a very exclusive club for all the uppercrust society in the city. They were the only foreigners invited to join. As members of the club, they got to meet every celebrity who came to Belgaum. That is how Mommy Ruth met General Shrinagesh, Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces in India.

 During his visit to Belgaum, the General was invited to tea at the Club. Mommy Ruth was appointed to serve on the committee planning the tea, so she stood in the receiving line next to Rani-sahib, to welcome him. Daddy Jaytee was out of town on this occasion.

 The Club members stood on the veranda of the main building when the General’s escort roared in, two uniformed Army policemen on motorcycles. They wore khaki-colored uniforms and steel helmets of the same color. Feeling a little silly, Mommy Ruth whispered to Rani-sahib that those steel helmets reminded her of baby’s pots and that they would look better with handles. Rani-sahib raised an eyebrow and tried to keep a straight face while greeting the General. He wore dark trousers and a white Jodhpur coat instead of his uniform. He very graciously shook hands with all of the Club members.

 Mommy Ruth already knew his sister-in-law, since she lived in Belgaum. She had come there as a bride and had asked the missionary lady to give her some cooking lessons. When Mommy Ruth got her tea and plate, and sat down at a small table, she was surprised when the General came and sat down with her. She had read that he had just come back from a visit to America, so she got into conversation with him about it. “I especially liked the fried chicken,” he said. “Do you know how to make Southern fried chicken?”

 “Yes, I do,” she replied. “And I’ve been giving Lalti, your sister-in-law, cooking lessons.” When she exclaimed that he wasn’t eating anything, he explained that he went to so many such functions that he’d be dead if he ate at every one of them.  “I’ll bet you get tired of being on display all the time,” Mommy Ruth observed. “You must feel like a puppet sometimes, having someone scheduling something for you every hour of the day.”

 “Yes,” he agreed, “but I meet a lot of charming people.

 A year later, Mommy Ruth had had a baby, gained weight, and couldn’t quite squeeze into the yellow suit she’d had on the year before. Once again, General Shrinagesh was coming through Belgaum, this time on a farewell visit before his retirement. Once again, the Club held a tea in his honor. This time, Mommy Ruth wasn’t on the committee. Daddy Jaytee wasn’t in town then, either, so Mommy Ruth invited Ajji Seamands, Daddy Jaytee’s mother, who was visiting her.

 Once again, the General came over to her table to talk to her. When Mommy Ruth mentioned that she hadn’t given him any fried chicken yet and invited him to dinner the next night, he declined because of a previous engagement. Mommy Ruth had no idea at the time how soon she would see him again. My mommy had to stop there but promised to continue the story tomorrow. 

Mommy Ruth and the General (Part 2)

Chapter 100

 Mommy Ruth had such interesting friends! My mommy had been telling the story of her acquaintance with General Shrinagesh, the commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces. I settled on her lap to hear what happened next.

 The next morning, Mommy Ruth went to the railway station to pick up a missionary friend, Jo Evans, who was coming for a few days of vacation. At lunchtime, a messenger came to the door, bringing a letter from the secretary of the Officers’ Mess. Mommy Ruth said, “I’ve been invited to a formal dinner tonight, along with the lady who had tea with me yesterday” (that was Ajji Seamands). Ajji, however, said she wasn’t feeling too well, so Jo and Mommy Ruth went together. Both of them dressed in lovely saris. Every military officer in Belgaum would be there with his wife, with other guests besides.

 Mommy Ruth and Jo in their finery drove over in the dusty Jeep. All the military men were in spotless white uniforms and their wives all dressed in gorgeous saris. When Mommy Ruth and Jo walked in, there was dead silence. Mommy Ruth whispered to Jo that it had to be because of their stunning beauty. After the chatter picked up again, they learned that dinner was waiting on the guest of honor. Mommy Ruth didn’t have to wait long to find out who that was – the rumble of two motorcycles told the story. General Shrinagesh had arrived. It was his farewell dinner. Now Mommy Ruth understood why the sudden silence upon her and Jo’s arrival. They were the only civilians there! Everybody was wondering who in the world invited them?

 The General came in, followed by four handsome young airmen in dress uniforms and other members of his party. He made the rounds of the receiving line and then came and sat beside Mommy Ruth and Jo. Mommy Ruth said, “I’m surprised to see you here tonight.”

 “Oh, why is that?”

 “Well, you told me you were already engaged for supper tonight and that’s why you couldn’t come to my house for fried chicken.”

 “That’s right – I was coming here. So I had you invited to come too.”

 They enjoyed their dinner together. Some time later, Mommy Ruth said something about the young airmen, who, she noted, were very handsome. “Would you like to meet them?” the General asked. She learned that they were the ones who flew him around in his private plane. She teased one of them about being too young to get married but not being too young to fly the General around. The General pointed out a large photograph on the wall of him in Japan with General Douglas MacArthur. Mommy Ruth was quite impressed to be in the middle of such distinction.

 As they were eating dessert, Mommy Ruth again noticed that the General wasn’t having any. He said he really ate very little.

 “I have something in the ice box at home I bet you’d like. It’s homemade chocolate ice cream.”

 ”Really? Then I’ll come to your house after dinner!” Once again, my mommy left me hanging. What in the world was Mommy Ruth going to do with a general at her house?

Mommy Ruth and the General (Part 3)

Chapter 101

 When we left off the story last night, General Shrinagesh – the commander-in-chief of all the Indian armed forces – had just told Mommy Ruth that he would come to the mission bungalow just as soon as the dinner festivities were over.

 “You – you will?” She thought he was joking.

 “Of course I will. Do you have a piano?” When she nodded dumbly, “Good,” he declared. “I’ll play you a tune.”

 After the dinner broke up, the Indian Army band played “Marching Through Georgia” (I don’t know why that tune, either, my mommy said) for the General and then they sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and threw him in the air several times. He was a good sport about it all.

 The second officer in command that night was a Sikh, a Major whose name was Singh. He had charge of the General’s schedule in Belgaum. While the crowd was waiting for the General to leave first, as was protocol, he came over to Mommy Ruth and said, “You leave first and we’ll follow you.”

 Major Singh’s eyes widened. “Did—did he say he was going to follow you?” When Mommy Ruth said yes, he expelled a long “O-h-h-h-h.” Obviously, that wasn’t on his agenda.

 Mommy Ruth and Jo went out and got into the dusty Jeep and pulled in front of the General’s elegant car. Just as she was about to pull away, who should roar up and get in front but their two old friends, the motorcycle policemen, complete with pot-helmets without handles.

 Now remember, Checkers, my mommy said. Ajji Seamands was in bed with a cold. Her bedroom was just off the long living room. It was then 11:30 p.m. Mommy Ruth thought that the motorcycle escort knew where they were going. She started giggling and said to Jo, “If those two policemen go roaring up the driveway, can’t you just see Ma Seamands storming out of her bedroom in her nightgown, nose dripping, yelling ‘Whazza matter? Whazza matter?’ and running smack into the supreme commander of all the armed forces in India?”

 They came to a roundabout with six roads leading off it and the motorcycles took off onto what Mommy Ruth knew to be a dead end. Realizing they really didn’t know where they were going, she stepped on the gas, calling to Jo, “I’m not going to let them catch me. I’ve got to go and warn Mother Seamands!”

 Driving as fast as she dared, Mommy Ruth saw the police lights getting closer and closer. When she got to the gate of the mission compound, she slowed down just enough to screech in between the gateposts. The motorcycles, not expecting the turn, roared on past the gate at such a speed that they were well down the road before they could turn around.

 Mommy Ruth slammed on the brakes under the portico. “Go tell Mother Seamands what’s going on,” she said urgently to Jo. She waited at the front door for the General, who came up the veranda stairs laughing at the way she had evaded his escort. Ajji immediately snapped off her light so nobody could see her in her nightgown. And once again, my mommy stopped there for the night. 

Mommy Ruth and the General (Part 4)

Chapter 102

 My mommy told me that tonight she’d finish up the story of Mommy Ruth and General Shrinagesh. I was tired after a long day of watching the birds outside the window. And the squirrels – one of them climbed up on the café table out on the little patio outside my window and came nose to nose with me! My white paws just itched to grab him, but of course I couldn’t. And so Mommy began. . .

 General Shrinagesh was true to his word and played Mommy Ruth a tune on her piano.  She served him and his escort chocolate ice cream – fortunately she had made a large batch earlier in the day. (Mommy remembers that ice cream – made in ice trays from buffalo cream.) Then he wanted to see the new baby. Mommy Ruth warned him to be quiet and led him into the bedroom where six-year-old Sandy and baby Linda – redheads both – were sleeping.

 Back in the living room, they talked for a while. Mommy Ruth asked him about his retirement. He said he would be the head of a college very soon. “Won’t it be strange, Colonel,” she asked, “to be just a college president and not a VIP any more?”

 He agreed that it would be strange. She told him that any time he came back to Belgaum to come on over for some fried chicken. By then it was after 12:30 a.m. and they needed to be up early the next morning for his plane back to Delhi. He said good night and she responded, “Good night, Colonel.”

 After they left, Ajji Seamands came swirling out of her bedroom in her nightgown and her sniffles and demanded, “He’s General Shrinagesh, commander of all the Indian armies, and you called him Colonel? What is wrong with you?”

 Mommy Ruth was not too tired to be uncomfortable with what she had done. And she had done it twice! “Well,” she muttered, “he must like me all right – he didn’t correct me and he’d never have asked us to his retirement dinner if he didn’t.” She began to giggle. “I bet it’s been a long time since anybody called him ‘Colonel’. It ought to keep him humble.”

 “That’s the worst thing I ever heard.” Ma Seamands was disgusted. “I bet he thinks you’re crazy. You’d embarrass the whole American government if the word got spread around.”

 “Well,” Mommy Ruth said, matter-of-factly, “if he knew me better, he’d just have expected it. You know that I wanted to impress your mother [Daddy Jaytee’s grandmother] and I fell through her fancy Indian chair before we were married. And that time that I forgot to take the bobby-pin curls out of my hair in front of that big church that is supporting us in Los Angeles. So now I want to impress an Indian General with what a friendly American I am and I call him Colonel.”

 By this time, Jo was laughing so hard she fell off the couch. Mommy Ruth continued gloomily, “I suppose our government would just sort of forget I’m an American if they do hear about this?” Probably, she thought to herself, the American government should give missionaries some lessons on military protocol.

In any case, she smiled to herself, she could just see it: General Shrinagesh coming to the mission bungalow and her handing him a plate and saying with a big smile, “Would you like to have a gizzard, Sergeant?”

 

Mommy Ruth and the Congressman (Part 1)

Chapter 103

 My mommy has told me lots of stories about the mission bungalow and her life there in Belgaum when she was growing up. You must remember, Checkers, she told me, that when you are the only Americans living in a place like Belgaum, many of the visitors coming through town want you to give them a place to stay. Tonight she told me another story about Mommy Ruth and a V.I.P and his wife who came to visit. At the time this happened, Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee had fairly recently arrived in Belgaum.The mission bungalow had several sets of double doors leading on to the veranda, which was on two sides of the house. There were no screen doors on them, as screens were still hard to get at the time, which was just after World War II.

 One day, a man came to the front veranda door and stood there clearing his throat (that’s the Indian version of the doorbell). A tonga driver stood there, his cart and old nag standing under the portico. “I have brought you two guests from the station, madam,” he said in Kannada. Mommy Ruth was confused – she wasn’t expecting her guests until the next day, but there they were.

 A portly man stepped forward. “I’m Congressman Charles Crow and this is my wife, Susan. I know we’re a day early – we caught an earlier plane.”

 “Of course. . .  please come in. I’ll have the ayah see that your room is ready. In the meantime, please sit here in the living room and we’ll have some tea.”

They were hungry and thirsty and enjoyed the Indian tea, made with milk and sugar and cardamom seed flavoring, washing down the home-made oatmeal cookies. As Mommy Ruth was pouring a second cup of tea, an enormous black-faced, white-whiskered monkey loped from the guest room through the corner of the huge living room and out the front door. Susan Crow screamed, her eyes bulging, her hand covering her mouth and her feet held off the floor. She gasped, “Do – do they live here with you?”

 “Not with my permission. Don’t worry about that monkey, Susan. He’s probably just as scared of you as you are of him. We don’t have any screens yet and they like to sneak into the bathrooms when the outside doors are open. They like to eat the soap.”

 “Eat the soap! I thought that monkey had rabies,” Charles said. “He was foaming at the mouth!”

 “No, they just like to eat soap. I really don’t know why. You’ll probably find teeth prints on your new bar of soap in the bathroom. Just keep your outside bathroom door closed and they won’t bother you.”

 “M-m-maybe it’s not such a good time to visit India, Charles,” Susan quavered.

 He patted her shoulder and tried to buck her up. “We’ll face it together, dear.”

 “Don’t worry,” Mommy Ruth assured her. “It’s a good time to come here. It’s usually a pretty quiet place.”

 Suddenly there was a great crash and a yell coming from behind a wall. Then there were whacking sounds and more shouts. Susan pulled up her feet again and this time sat cross-legged on the couch. “Wha – what was that?”

 

Chapter 104

Mommy Ruth and the Congressman (Part 2)

 My mommy snuggled me in her lap and continued the story about the visit from Congressman Crow and Susan, his wife. She had left it off with a terrific crash and a yell.

 The Congressman jumped straight out of his chair. “Don’t worry,” Mommy Ruth sighed. “It’s just my husband. He’s in the storeroom,” she pointed, “killing rats with a hockey stick.”

 “Rats?” Susan shuddered. “You – you mean big rats?”

 Mommy Ruth nodded and Susan quivered in her cross-legged position. Charles’ mouth fell open. He repeated dully, “He’s in the storeroom – killing rats with a hockey stick.”

 Mommy Ruth couldn’t help but giggle. “He’s good too. They can’t get away. We can’t keep them out of the storeroom. They drive us nuts banging the cans around in there.” Seeing their blank looks, she went on. “We have big cans with tight-fitting lids made in the bazaar. We keep our food like cheese and flour and sugar, and also our nylon things in there – panties and bras and slips. Rats will eat anything and they really love nylon.” To make her guests feel at home, she went on talking. “Those rats eat all the labels off the food cans, too, so we never know when we open a can what we’re going to have for dinner.”

 Just then the storeroom door opened and Daddy Jaytee emerged, holding aloft his hockey stick and grinning. “Got six this time.” He stopped when he saw the flabbergasted guests. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know we had company. Let me clean up and I’ll shake your hands. But first we need a basket for the dead.” He went to the side door and called, “Mali!”

 “Sahib,” came the answer.

 “Bring in that basket,” Daddy Jaytee requested in Kannada, “and pick up these dead rats.” Susan covered her eyes with a dainty handkerchief and leaned her head back against the couch, as the barefoot, wizened gardener silently appeared, wearing a bright red turban on his head and a once-white dhoti tied around his skinny hips. He carried a huge round basket. He disappeared into the storeroom and soon reappeared, lifting the basket on top of his turban and then padding silently out.

 Charles had watched Mali’s every move. When Daddy Jaytee came back, having washed his hands and stashed the hockey stick, he gulped and asked, “The rats – what will he do with them? Bury them?”

 Daddy Jaytee shook his head. “Oh, no, we don’t bother to bury them. We believe in nature’s own disposition.”

 “How does nature do that?”

 “We just throw them out by the fence. The crows eat them.” The Honorable Congressman Crow turned white, and his wife moaned and fainted dead away.

 True or not, I thought it was a wonderful story. I could have helped Daddy Jaytee with the rats. And they wouldn’t even have had to waste them on the crows.

 

Chapter 105

Mommy Ruth and the Coca-Cola Caper (Part 1)

 My mommy had already told me about her love of Coca-Cola and how Cokes were so precious when she was growing up in Belgaum. Well, Mommy Ruth loved Cokes, too. Of course, they had Cokes when she was growing up also. As my mommy had a Coke for supper tonight, it reminded her of a story Mommy Ruth loved to tell her family.

 Mommy Ruth sat down and wrote a letter. It was to the president of the Coca-Cola bottling company in Lexington, Kentucky. She told him she was tired of washing down her kitchen cabinets and that it was all his fault for not flipping his lid right!

 She went on to explain exactly why. That Monday she had picked up a six-pack of Coke in cans from the friendly neighborhood IGA store. She took one out at suppertime and dutifully read the directions, where it said to pull the tab up and back. It would make a hole in the can through which she could drink her beloved Coke.

 She pulled the aluminum tab back – and it broke off in her hand. No hole. So she got a can-opener and when she punctured the can with it, a stream of Coke sprayed all over her cabinets. She lost about a quarter of the can’s contents and her temper. Daddy Jaytee asked her solicitously, “What’s the matter, honey? Can’t you open a simple tab?” She growled at him and washed and polished the cabinets.

 About an hour later, he got thirsty and went for one of the cans of Coke. He carefully read the instructions and pulled the tab – which broke off in his hand. No hole. Out came the can-opener and this time Mommy Ruth had to wash the kitchen window over the sink.

 The next night a couple, friends of theirs, came to stay overnight. They were offered something to drink and she opted for a Coke. Mommy Ruth told her to open her own can, since she was having trouble doing so. “And besides,” she said, “my arm is sore from washing cabinets.”

 “Anyone can open a can of Coke,” the wife observed archly. She took the can from the now four-pack. That time Mommy Ruth cleaned and polished the cabinet on the other side of the sink. She wasn’t feeling too friendly at the time.

 The husband sniggered. “What’s the matter with you women? Anybody can open a can.”

 Mommy Ruth ground her teeth. “Come over here and aim this can down toward the sink!” He tried, and this time she had to wash both the window and the cabinet to the side.

 “So you see, sir,” she wrote to the bottling company president, “I still love Coke but you can just bet I will never buy it again in one of your aluminum cans. I’ll buy it in bottles from now on and quit washing down my kitchen every day!”

 Several days later, Mommy Ruth was busy at her typewriter when the doorbell rang. A huge red-and-white Coca-Cola truck was parked out front. The company representative was friendly and had her letter sticking out of his shirt pocket. “Are you the lady who can’t open our cans?”

 

Chapter 106

Mommy Ruth and the Coca-Cola Caper (Part 2)

 Mommy gathered me up in her lap to finish the saga of Mommy Ruth and her battle with the Coke cans. I really don’t understand what all the fuss it about – I sniffed at my mommy’s glass of Coke one day and I didn’t like it at all. It tickled my hose and made me sneeze. Anyway, she continued talking about the friendly Coca-Cola man who had come to her door, driving his huge red-and-white truck. He wanted to know if she were the lady who couldn’t open their cans.

 “I am. Come in, please. You’re just the person I want to see. I still have a two-pack in my fridge and I want you to read the directions and show me how to open your cans. Meanwhile, I’ll get a sponge and some soapy water ready. I’ll need it.”

 He laughed. She led him back into the kitchen and handed him one of the cans. She stood back, out of reach, and watched him pull the tab – which broke off in his hand. No hole. “Well, I’ll be. . . “ he cussed. “Sorry, ma’am. Let me see the other can.” Same thing happened. “Well, I’ll take these two cans back to the plant and see what they say.”

 “Call a meeting of the board and give each one of them one of those cans. I’ll bet they have a sticky time around their table.”

 “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.” He headed for the door. “I guess I owe you a little Coca-Cola to make up for what you lost.”

 “Give me two or three and I’ll call it square – bottles, please!”

 He went out to his truck and came back carrying two cases of cans – 48 of them! Mommy Ruth gulped. “Oh, no! All those cabinets I’ll have to wash again. Oh, my goodness! You don’t owe me all that!”

 “No, but we want to show our appreciation because you brought our attention to a faulty product – and in such a great way. Other people would have cussed us out, but you made us laugh. And don’t worry – the cans in these cases are from a different manufacturer. These work. See?” He opened one of the new cans and the tab worked perfectly. There was a hole in the can where it was supposed to be and the Coke stayed inside. Mommy Ruth drank it, while resting from all her kitchen washing and polishing.

 His secretary called Mommy Ruth later. “You see,” she explained, “during a recent truck strike our company bought a load of cans from a new company. We didn’t realize that they were manufactured incorrectly and the tabs were all turned sideways. No telling how many people have been furious about these cans and we never knew about it until we got your letter. Thanks for your help.”

 A question formed in the back of Mommy Ruth’s mind. How come the Coca-Cola bottling company never opened one of their own cans? Oh, well, she shrugged mentally, at least we have a lot of free Cokes to drink. And best of all – she could put away her cabinet polish.

 My mommy laughed and put me down, muttering something about a squeaky wheel. I didn’t quite understand the reference, but I think she meant that when Mommy Ruth wanted something, she went after it – and with her own unique sense of humor.

 

Chapter 107

Visiting at Jyothi’s House

 When Mommy gets ready to tell me another one of her stories, I never know where she’s going to be taking me in her memory. She tells me about India, about the farm in southern Kentucky, and about Wilmore. It’s funny how something will spark a memory for her. Cats don’t have that kind of memory. We remember where our food and water is and where to find the litter box, but other than that, we don’t remember much about our kittenhood. Mommy says sometime maybe she’ll collect her memories into sections in a book and put them into their proper places, but in the meantime she’s having a grand time just letting them lead her anywhere she pleases.

 Tonight she told me some more about her ayah, her Indian nursemaid. Her name was Jyothi, and she was the wife of the head cook at the mission bungalow in Belgaum. My mommy remembers her ayah as being a big woman who yielded authority over her. It wasn’t until years later that Mommy realized that Jyothi was actually quite a tiny lady, outgrown by all her American charges.

 Jyothi didn’t speak English, only Kannada (when Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee first went to India it was called Kanarese, but when the three sisters went back to India after a 50-year absence, everybody called it Kannada). That’s why my mommy grow up bilingual, speaking Kannada to Jyothi and her family and English to her own family. (When the family came back to America in 1959, Linda, the youngest sister, was just two years old. She spoke mostly Kannada, though she understood English, and when asked why she did so, she said because it was easier than English! It was only when she began to notice that her little playmates would ignore her Kannada orders that Linda switched over to English.

 Jyothi and Joseph and their three kids, Victoria, Raji, and Shamu, lived in a two-room house connected by a walkway to the back of the mission bungalow. Jyothi would take her little charges to her house frequently, especially when she needed to cook meals for her own family. Jyothi had had another daughter who had died and my mommy thought it was so sad that she kept a photograph of the little girl in her coffin, garlanded with flowers.

 Jyothi cooked wonderful things – curry and rice and chapattis. Her family usually had coffee and chapattis for breakfast; it was where Mommy got her first taste of coffee. The coffee was full of grounds and had milk and some bella – coarse brown sugar – boiled right into it, and Mommy thought it was delicious. Big sister Sylvia loved Jyothi’s food so much and ate so much of it that she would take some of her allowance to Jyothi to pay her for what she ate.

 Mommy would watch Jyothi cook her meals in a curved pan over a simple stove made of three good-sized rocks with a fire laid in between. She used a large black rectangular rock, flattened on top and bottom, as a mortar and a rounded smaller length of the same black rock as the pestle. She would place her spices on the mortar rock, add a sprinkle of water, and crush them together, using the pestle as an American cook would a rolling pin. The spices would then go into the curry or, if mixed with some coconut, become a chutney to eat alongside the curry. The sisters would sit alongside their Indian friends cross-legged on a well-worn piece of carpet on the stone floor, eating with their fingers (right hand only!) using a piece of chapatti to close around the curry and rice or to sop up the remains of the juice. Occasionally Jyothi would have some chicken to put into the curry, but mostly it was vegetable curry. It was hot of course – Jyothi used lots of red chilies – but lip-smacking good. A good belch after the meal was the polite way to show appreciation to the cook – and the girls got really good at it. Mommy tells me it’s very impolite to do this in America. Things seem to be pretty different between countries!

Chapter 108

America Goes to War

 My mommy loves July 4th. When she was in India, she was always in Kodai in July. At those days, most of the students and staff were from America, so it was a big celebration day. There were always fireworks in the evening on the lower playing field and lots of good food. Now that she’s here in the States, she always reads the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, and sometimes the Constitution of the United States, too. America doesn’t always live up to her ideals, she says, but we keep trying.

 Mommy’s been telling me a lot of stories about Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee, but up to now she hasn’t told me much about how the World War II years affected them. She began on those stories tonight:

 In the first week of December, 1941, the two of them took the train from Bangalore to the mission hospital in Kolar. Mommy Ruth was within weeks of having her first baby. In India, you didn’t wait until you went into labor to go to the hospital. You went to the hospital and stayed there until the birth. They had just settled into their guest room on the hospital grounds when on December 7th they heard on the radio about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and that America was at war.

 Immediately, they began to hear from the American Ambassador that all Americans were to evacuate India and return home. But they were unable to travel at that time and so stayed where they were. On the day after Christmas, baby Sylvia was born. Of course, they thought that no one had ever had a more beautiful baby.

 The Ambassador kept writing them, detailing when an American evacuation ship would sail from Bombay. He told them that each family must make up its own mind, but that those who chose to leave should plan to be in Bombay by mid-June, 1942. But God had called Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee to be missionaries to India. What should they do? Ten thousand miles from home, with a war on, and with a new baby!

 Then the Japanese bombed Ceylon (now Shri Lanka) off the southern tip of India and the Andaman Islands to the north and east. Bangalore, where Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee were living, had several airplane factories, and expected to be bombed at any time. In fact, the newspapers quoted the Japanese as saying the bombing would begin in June! Many missionaries lived in Bangalore at that time, and they got together and prayed fervently for wisdom. Some said they would leave and others opted to stay. Daddy Jaytee was in the middle of starting a Bible school. “if the Japanese come here,” he said, “I can simply disappear into the villages. I know the language and the people and I can carry on my work there.”

 But Mommy Ruth couldn’t do that. There were no doctors in the villages and how could she ensure the safety of her baby? If Daddy Jaytee wanted to stay, how could she leave and live without him?

 With the Japanese bombing all around India and winning everything they went after, fear grew in Bangalore. The Indian government gave orders that bomb trenches should be dug in every yard. They were in the shape of a Z, each section to be 7 feet deep, 4 feet wide, and 5 feet long. They had to be able to hold several people at the same time.

 Mommy Ruth was going crazy with indecision. To go or to stay? She even tried the old trick of letting the Bible fall open and pointing to a verse with her eyes closed. The verse was out of Jonah: “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from out of the fish’s belly.” What kind of guidance was that?  

Chapter 109

America Goes to War (Part 2)

 Tonight, Mommy continued her story of Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee and their separation during World War II. . .

 Mommy Ruth made her decision to take her baby and go back to America. Daddy Jaytee agreed with it, but their hearts were broken at the thought of being apart. So in the middle of June 1942, she carried six-month-old Sylvia up the gangplank of what was once a luxury liner now turned troop ship, stripped to the bare necessities. Standing beside her at the railing were women and children who had made the same decision she had – to leave the husbands and fathers waving goodbye on the dock below.

 The ship was capable of carrying 5,000 troops and it was jammed. In Mommy Ruth’s cabin were fourteen women and baby Sylvia. Each night before dusk, the portholes were locked and sealed, shutting out all light and air. All flashlights were confiscated, so there was no light in the cabins or in the bathroom. There was only a faint red glow out in the hallways. These precautions were necessary, of course, because of submarines prowling the oceans. Any beam of light could have given away their position and left them vulnerable to attack.

 They had to wear their lifejackets at all times and twice a week were given lectures on how to abandon ship. Baby Sylvia was too small for her own lifejacket so Mommy Ruth had to tie her inside her own. There was just one other nursing mother on board ship. She and Mommy Ruth made a pact together that if either one of them died the living one would take the other’s baby and nurse it until she could deliver it to relatives back in the States.

 Sylvia no doubt felt the tension and stress all over the ship, because she woke up twice each night for feedings. She probably wasn’t getting enough to eat. It was so black in the cabin that the women couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. Mommy Ruth did all the feeding and changing for baby Sylvia in total darkness, doing everything by feel.

 The first night out to sea was so bad that everybody had the same idea. They carried their bedding topside and slept on the deck. The next day orders came down from the captain that there was to be no sleeping on deck, so back to the cabins they went.

 The ship’s course was to go south from Bombay to the tip of South Africa, then around it and sail north. On the east side of Africa, they knew, the sea would be full of Japanese submarines. One evening they passed a convey of six American ships going north. The passengers whistled and waved to show their support. Within half an hour of passing them, their ship’s radio received an S.O.S. Three of those American ships had been torpedoed and sunk – in the same place they had just sailed over. The captain could not go back to pick up survivors because he was commanding an evacuation ship with mostly women and children.

 The ship sailed in a zigzag fashion all the way to South Africa – seven minutes going southeast, seven minutes southwest, repeated endlessly. After rounding the tip of the African continent, they continued the zigzag pattern, this time going seven minutes northeast and then seven minutes northwest, day after stifling day, during which they crossed the equator twice. The reason for this zigzagging, they were told, was that it took a torpedo submarine seven minutes to get a fix on a ship above and shoot at it.

 

Chapter 110

America Goes to War (Part 3)

 Mommy continued the story of Mommy Ruth and baby Sylvia and their perilous journey across the ocean from India to New York on a troop ship in 1942.

 As Mommy Ruth had said, there were no lights in the cabins all night. Bunks were stacked four high. Some time later, she felt ill in the night and made her way to the bathroom. She passed out on the floor there. Her cabin mates heard her fall and managed to get her back to bed. The next morning, she had a raging fever and was really sick. Fortunately, there were two missionary doctors on board. Dr. Corpron diagnosed Mommy Ruth as having a severe bout of malaria. For days she drifted in and out of consciousness. Two of her roommates, wonderful missionaries from Burma, took care of her. When it came time for Sylvia to nurse, they just put her in bed with her mommy. The Lord was taking care of them both, as Mommy Ruth was able to produce milk for her. By the end of a couple of weeks, Mommy Ruth was able to crawl out of bed but it took her months to get her strength back. She lost 14 pounds during her illness.

 After she was able to be up for a while, real tragedy struck. Word raced through the ship that Dr. Corpron was very ill. He had developed acute appendicitis and needed to have emergency surgery. But the ship was nearing the tip of South Africa and hit a terrible winter storm. No one could go on deck and the ship was tossed in huge waves for several days. The other doctor on board, Dr. White, sent a message through the ship’s loudspeakers: “Dr. Corpron is gravely ill. I need to operate, but I cannot do it under these conditions. If I can’t operate by 10 a.m. tomorrow, he will most likely die. We must pray!”

 The ship was filled with mostly missionary women and children, and some older couples going home to retire. A 24-hour prayer chain was quickly arranged all over the ship and everyone began to pray for calm seas. They went to bed still praying, but the next morning they awoke to waves as big as before. By 9 a.m. nothing had changed. Dr. White came over the loudspeakers again: “Surgery is impossible. Dr. Corpron is still alive, though in much pain. But nothing is impossible with God. Remember that Jesus spoke to the storm and calmed the waves. He is still Lord of the seas. Let’s have faith that Jesus will calm these waves and Dr. Corpron will be saved.”

 Suddenly, God answered their prayers. Shortly before 10 a.m. the ship sailed into a sea that was smooth as glass! Dr. White shouted, “Thank you, Lord!” He rushed Dr. Corpron into the ship’s surgery and took out the appendix, which burst on its way out. But Dr. White was able to finish up the surgery and save his old friend. Almost as soon as Dr. Corpron was safely strapped back into his bunk, the dreaded storm started up again. But somehow, that storm didn’t seem as frightening as before. Jesus was still in the business of stilling storms!

 The ship rounded the Cape of South Africa and started north on the other side of the continent. This time the danger was from German submarines. Every day news came about ships being lost in those waters.

 They stopped off in Bermuda to take on two hundred soldiers and sailors who had been on ships that had been torpedoed. As the tattered, half-dressed men climbed up the outside stairs onto the deck, one red-headed Irishman with no teeth said in a voice that carried, “Well, I’ve just had two ships sunk under me and I don’t expect to reach America on this one!”

 

Chapter 111

America Goes to War (Part 4)

 I made myself comfortable in my mommy’s lap and waited for her to finish her story of Mommy Ruth on the troop ship. . .

 The red-headed Irishman not expecting to make it home on this ship either had a real story to tell. He had been taking a shower, his false teeth on a shelf, when his last ship had been torpedoed out from under him. The next thing he knew, he was swimming in the sea, minus his clothes and his teeth. Someone pulled him into a life boat and gave him some clothes, but he had to sail back to New York without his teeth.

 From Bermuda to New York, because of the increasing danger of German U-boats, their ship was assigned a destroyer and two airplanes flying in front of and behind them as their escort. Those next few days were a nightmare, Mommy Ruth said. Nobody slept much. Measles had broken out among the children onboard and the stench belowdecks was just awful.

 The day after they had taken on the escort, Mommy Ruth was lying in her cabin with baby Sylvia when the entire ship shook with an explosion of some sort, then another. At once, the captain came on the loudspeakers: “All passengers proceed to your lifeboat stations. Go now!” Mommy Ruth grabbed up her baby and tied her into her own life jacket and made her way onto the deck. Lifeboats at the ready swung in their davits, but the order to “abandon ship” was not yet given. Time seems to stand still. Everyone stood pressed together on the deck in the broiling sun, waiting for the captain’s voice. One white-haired couple clasped hands and leaned close together. She said to him in a half-whisper, “I won’t leave you. I’ll stay with you ‘til the last.” There were tears and prayers. Even God seemed to hold his breath, Mommy Ruth recalled. Finally, the loudspeaker blared, “Danger aborted. Go back to your cabins.” And the order to the crew, “Full speed ahead!” The passengers later found out that the destroyer escort had spotted a German submarine lying in wait and had fired two torpedoes at it. Their ship had been so close to it that they had felt the shock of the explosions. The only sign of the submarine was a little oil on the water.

 The next night at midnight, Mommy Ruth was in her bunk but wide awake. They were to land in New York the next day and six weeks of nightmare sailing would be over. She was lying there reciting Psalms in her head and thanking the Lord for His protection when suddenly the quiet was shattered by screams on deck! Finally, some people came below and told everyone the story.

 Several hundred people had been sitting on the deck, waiting to see the lights of New York appear. All was pitch blackness around them – not even a slice of moon. Only the dark, camouflaged ship zigzagging through a black ocean, with two planes flying overhead. Suddenly, and without warning, one of the planes dropped a flare directly in front of the prow of the ship. Right in their path another huge ship loomed up – a minesweeper! The people had cried out, sure that the two ships were going to collide. The pilot of the plane overhead could see the phosphorescent glow of the ocean water churned up by each ship zigzagging toward the other. He could see that they were on a collision course and the only way to prevent that was to drop a flare directly between them. Immediately the engines were thrown into reverse, the ship shuddered, and a collision was very narrowly averted. The ships were so close to each other that a great wave was churned up onto the passenger liner’s decks.

 The next morning the ship sailed past the Statue of Liberty, with everyone, even the soldiers and sailors, weeping at the sight. God had brought them safely home!

 

Chapter 112

Love on Hold

 I was so relieved when I heard the end of Mommy Ruth’s story and that she had made it safely to the U.S. with baby Sylvia in the summer of 1942. She had gone first to stay with her mother, Grandma Pearl, in Illinois. Grandpa Henry had gone out to California to help build destroyers. Then in the fall she moved back to Wilmore. Thatha and Ajji Seamands had been home on furlough from India and hadn’t been able to return because of the war. They had their own miracle story of deliverance to tell.

 They had been scheduled to sail on a Dutch ship from Bombay in early November 1941. When they arrived in Bombay, they found that the ship had been put in dry dock for some repairs. Their sailing date was set back by two weeks. Finally on November 20th they set sail for America. They went around the southern tip of India and began sailing east across the Pacific. They stopped for a few days to take on supplies and more passengers in Surabaya, Indonesia. On the morning of December 7th, while the ship was still in port, the captain met Thatha on deck and told him about the bombing of Pearl Harbor earlier that morning. Many Americans had been killed and many ships sunk in the harbor, he said, and now America was at war and the Dutch were joining them.

 “Pearl Harbor!” exclaimed Thatha. “Isn’t this the very day we were supposed to be arriving there?”

 “Yes,” the captain said. “If it hadn’t been for the repairs, we would have been right in the middle of it.” Then he made announcements to the rest of the passengers: The ship was now on a wartime footing. They would not be able to follow their original course eastward to Singapore, Hong Kong, Hawaii, and finally California. All portholes would be sealed at night. Blackout conditions would be observed. Turn in any maps you may have. The ship would not be announcing either its departure date or its planned  course.

 They stayed in port two more days and then departed on December 10th. They sailed steadily south for many days and then turned east. Thatha determined that they were sailing under Australia and New Zealand and headed toward the tip of South America. When they reached the southern tip of Chile, they turned north and finally reached Los Angeles. A two-month voyage of 20,000 miles, but they made it safely!

 Ajji and Thatha  invited Mommy Ruth to come to Wilmore and let them take care of Sylvia while she took some classes at Asbury Seminary. She was so very lonesome for Daddy Jaytee that she was happy to have something to occupy her mind and took them up on their offer. At that time, Asbury Seminary consisted of just one building, Larabee- Morris Hall. The building housed the classrooms, offices, the library, the chapel, a cafeteria, and some dorm rooms. Mommy Ruth and baby Sylvia had their room at the top of the curving staircase on the north end of the building. Many years later, when the Seminary renovated Larabee-Morris into the headquarters of the Enrollment Management Team, Mommy Ruth’s first question about the renovation plan was, “Did they keep the curving staircase?” (They did.)  

 After two years and seven months apart, on December 20, 1944, Mommy Ruth received a telegram from Los Angeles. “Landed today. Am hurrying to you. Can’t wait. I love you. J.T.” He had found passage on a troop transport! Four days later, he got off the midnight train in Lexington. They fell into each other’s arms and their world was right again. The next morning, Sylvia, now three years old, had to get acquainted with this strange man who had come to live with them. He lay down on the floor to get close to her, and after crawling all over him, she looked up and asked, “Mommy, is this the only daddy I’ve got?” 

 

Chapter 113

Feeling the Heat

 Mommy went back to the office this morning. She says she’ll be going a couple of days a week now. I guess I’ll have to get used to a quiet house in the morning, at least sometimes. I’m trying to be good while she’s gone, but sometimes those wires underneath the TV set are just too tempting. Maybe she won’t find out I’ve been chewing on them again – at least not for a while. But she continues telling me stories at night, so that’s good.

 My mommy told me that Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee stayed in Wilmore for eight months while he finished up a master’s degree at the University of Kentucky. Then the mission Board sent them to Hartford School of Mission for a year, and that is where my mommy was born. When she was nine months old and Sylvia was four, they once again went aboard ship bound for India.

 Since World War II was over, hundreds of missionaries were returning alongside them. After they left New York and landed at Cairo, they had to transfer to another ship. That meant going by train from Cairo to Port Said. Practically the whole shipload of passengers tried to squeeze onto one train. Seven of them, including Daddy Jaytee and his family, were jammed into one small compartment made for four. Even in October, Cairo was scorching hot.

 The train stopped a few miles from Cairo and a group of Muslim women tried to get into their apartment. As crowded as they were, the missionaries inside yelled at them to stay out. Of course, they couldn’t understand a word being said, so the women kept trying to get in the door and even to climb in through the half-open window.

 One missionary lady who was sitting by the door had very big feet. She kept one foot propped up against the lock of the door so the women couldn’t open it. Suddenly, as if by a signal, the Muslim women all turned and ran away. “They’re afraid of your big foot!” the other passengers teased her.

 Then an Egyptian man tried to get in. The lady kept her foot against the door and they all waved him off. The man tried to force the door, yelling in his language, but he couldn’t get in. He turned and walked away quickly, tearing at his hair and talking loudly to himself.

 Then someone else came pounding down the platform, yelling in English this time. It was the American Express man, in charge of their traveling party. He beat his fists against the door and shouted, “Get out of this compartment! It’s on fire and blazing underneath you!!”

 Down came the foot, the missionaries heaved open the door, and babies, suitcases, diapers and all went out through the windows and the door. As soon as it was empty, the blazing carriage was shunted off to a siding. After that, there was no room for them on the train except in the baggage compartment. Once their party was all ensconced high on top of all the luggage in the car and the fear wore off, somebody giggled. Before long, the whole group was shrieking with laughter, envisioning that big foot propped against the door while the carriage blazed merrily underneath. No wonder they were so hot – and they had thought it was the Cairo weather!

 

Chapter 114

The Old Oaken Table

 It was a pretty quiet day today. Mommy worked all morning at her laptop. I helped by coming by frequently for a neck scratch. Then I helped her play with one of my favorite toys — a paper clip — by dropping it off her desk so she could pick it up for me. We had great fun. Then we took a nap together while Pandora played her favorite classical tunes. Yup – pretty much a purrfect day.

 She told me a story then about Mommy Ruth’s mommy – Grandma Pearl. She and Grandpa Henry were married in 1915. Grandma Pearl was a young widow with a little girl, Helen. Her first husband had been killed in an electrical accident in a coal mine. Together, Pearl and Henry would have three other children – Ruth, Arthur, and Irene.

 When Pearl and Henry married, they acquired a large rectangular oak table; it had two extra leaves that would extend it out to accommodate their growing family. The table was polished, with sturdy legs carved in fat spindles and it had four sharp corners.

 For years Grandma Pearl endured those sharp corners bruising her thighs as she hurried from the coal stove to the cabinet to the sink, making three meals a day for her family. Finally, she voiced her complaint at dinner to Grandpa Henry. “Henry, I just despise this table!”

 “Despise this table? What are you talkin’ about, Pearl?”

 She flipped up the oilcloth tablecloth. “See how sharp these corners are? I have bruised thighs all the time from runnin’ into those corners. So why don’t you cut them off this table for me?”

 “Cut the corners off? You’re crazy. It’d ruin this oak table!” He got busy with his biscuits and sorghum molasses and that ended the discussion.

 A week later, Grandma Pearl shooed Ruth and Art over into the corner of the kitchen and dragged the table into the center of the room. She retrieved Grandpa Henry’s saw from the big pantry, along with his folding ruler and a pencil. She carefully measured a two-and-a-half-inch long pencil line away from each sharp corner. Without hesitation, she took up the saw, positioned it at the beginning of one of the marks, and went to work. Soon four triangular-shaped pieces of polished wood had fallen to the floor for the kids to play with. She recruited them to help her sandpaper the rough edges and put back the oilcloth over the table.

 If Grandpa Henry noticed the lack of sharp corners, he never mentioned it.

 My mommy said that she thinks Mommy Ruth got her feistiness from Grandma Pearl. She also told me that that table, which Mommy Ruth had at the time, went with her and Daddy Jim when they moved to the farm and for several years after they moved back to Wilmore. Then it went back to Aunt Rene and eventually ended up with Jessica, who has it today in the basement of her home. It is still in use for family gatherings, as the serving table for numerous potluck and birthday celebrations. That table is well over 100 years old now. If it could talk, it would tell a lot of stories about the Childers-Seamands-Lovell-Frick-Bowers families.

 

Chapter 115

Arrival in Belgaum (Part 1)

 Mommy and I had a very restful day today. She cleaned up the house a bit, read some, and even took a long nap. As night settled in, it was story-time again. She never tires of telling me about life in Belgaum. She had told me a lot of her own memories of the mission bungalow. This time she told me about Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee’s arrival there after the war. In the fall of 1946, they were posted to Belgaum to live on the mission compound there.

 Mommy Ruth said that when she first walked into the house, she felt like crumpling up on Daddy Jaytee’s shoulder and bawling, “I want to go home!” She was looking at huge rooms that were supposed to be furnished, but actually contained very little. As she went inside the doors off the front veranda, she stepped into a huge hall that was the living and dining room – 65 feet long! It was about 17 feet wide inside of four round fat pillars, with an additional 6 feet outside them. No windows in that room, but ten double doors opening onto the veranda and various  interior rooms. Altogether there were five bedrooms and five bathrooms, an outsized kitchen the size of a two-room apartment, with the wide stone veranda on the front and one side. Besides that, there was a small alcove that Daddy Jaytee set up his office in and yet another room off the veranda that became the tent room.

 Each bathroom was just a room. Nothing else in them except a cold-water faucet about waist high in the wall. In one corner of each bathroom was a one-brick high wall, about five feet square. This was the bath square. With perennial water shortages, this was the way that the Indian people saved water. They stood in the bath square, poured water over themselves, soaped up, and used the rest of the bucket to rinse off. An open pipe through the wall took the used water outdoors.

 There were no toilets. In the last bathroom, the farthest one from the front door, were two tin pots set in stands, with lids. Twice a day, a “sweeper woman” came to empty them into a big toilet used by other people on the compound. When guests came to stay at the mission bungalow – which was often, they had to share the pots.

 No missionary had lived in the house for eight years, and it was looking very disreputable. It looked a bit better when they unpacked and scattered their things around the house. Friends from America had bought Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee a Frigidaire refrigerator, which was much appreciated. They had brought their own beds from home and a wood-burning cook stove.

 There were no screen doors on the ten double doors. While sitting in the living room, they watched with amazement the procession parading through the house. Stray dogs, a cat pursuing one of the rats playing on the floor, monkeys peering in the doors and the skylights that went around three sides of the living room, bats flying through – it was far too hot to keep all the doors shut, so Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee kept a pile of rocks to throw at the creatures who came in and strayed too close to their two girls.

 My mommy was just nine months old and slept in a screened-in bed that they had brought with them. Everybody else slept in beds built with frames to hold up the mosquito nets which were tucked underneath their mattresses every night. Of course, the doors and windows were closed every night.

 Mommy wrapped up her story for the night. I was glad I didn’t have to worry about other creatures wandering in during the night, but it sure would  have been fun to go after one of those rats!

Chapter 116

Arrival in Belgaum (Part 2)

 My mommy was happy today because she had lunch with part of her family and went swimming with another. She told me all about while I curled up on her lap, and then she continued the story of the family’s arrival in Belgaum.

 Mommy Ruth sent an SOS to her brother-in-law, Brownie, asking him to send her some rolls of no-rust screen wire by the next ship. Brownie had a friend in the hardware business, and when he heard the tale of woe from India he looked until he found some to send to her (it was a scarce commodity because of the war). Months later the shipment arrived, and Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee helped the carpenter make screen doors and put them up. She used some of the screen wire on the windows, too. After that, she said, the jungle retreated.

 In February of 1947, Daddy Jaytee drove back from Bombay in the newly-renovated ex-Army Jeep he had ordered – with two new flush toilets nestled together in the trailer! It was Christmas all over again for Mommy Ruth. She was tired of sharing her tin pots with guests. They decided to put one in their bathroom and one in a guest bathroom. Of course, that meant putting in septic tanks for each one. Since they had no idea how to do that, they asked Thatha to use his civil engineering skills to draw up blueprints for them. Then they had to hire coolies to do the digging for the tanks.

 The coolies were digging by hand and it took several weeks to complete it. The coolies couldn’t work very fast and they had no idea exactly what they were digging. Then the toilets would have to be put inside the rooms in exactly the right places, put in the pipes, seal them somehow, and hook the pipes up into the tanks. Mommy Ruth said this was a really big deal for them, since they knew nothing about building.

 Daddy Jaytee stayed with the job until the tanks were completed. When it came time to put the toilets in place, he declared, “I’m going out to the villages. It’s time I made a tour, and now I have a vehicle to do it with.” As Mommy Ruth began to protest, he went on, “No, I’m going on tour today. I wasn’t sent to India to put in toilets. I was sent here to preach the Gospel, and that’s what I’m going to do!”

 So Daddy Jaytee called to the younger kitchen servant, who would go with him, to help him load up the trailer. He took a camp stove, charcoal, camp cot, mosquito net, cooking pans, and provisions for a week. The village people would also feed him, but it was most important for him to have his cook along especially to see that his drinking water was boiled. When all was ready, he told Mommy Ruth goodbye and said, “I’m sorry to leave you with this half-done job, but I know that you can do anything you put your mind to, so you can finish it.” The green jeep then rolled down the curved driveway and was out the gate and gone.

 In her faltering Kannada, Mommy Ruth instructed the coolies to set the toilet in the guest bathroom and then called the goundie to come with his basin of cement and secure the outgoing pipe in its place. While they waited for the cement to dry, she gave the coolies tea and biscuits. Then it was time for the test. The coolies were greatly interested to see what would happen. She drew a bucket of water from the wall tap and poured it into the white porcelain thing. The water glugged its way down. With no leaks. The coolies looked at it in astonishment, and asked Mommy Ruth, “But, madam, what do you want that for?”

 My mommy said that they never did connect up the regular flushing apparatus, as water was always scarce. So everyone heaved their own bucketful, or sometimes even less. But at least they didn’t have to share their litter box any more. I would have hated that, too, just like Mommy Ruth!

Chapter 117

Leila’s Story (Part 1)

 I wanted to hear my mommy tell me more about life in Belgaum. After all she had already told me, I felt like I knew the mission compound pretty well. But even so, there were more stories for me to hear.

 The mission compound held two hostels where children of Christians in surrounding villages could come and live and get an education. Belgaum was quite an educational center, with several colleges, and also a Christian elementary and high school. Coming to boarding school gave the children a chance at a future.

 The boys’ hostel was situated behind the mission bungalow, while the girls’ hostel was across the maidan (open field) and back in its own little cluster of buildings. Mommy Ruth gave oversight to the boys’ hostel, though both hostels had their own resident house mothers and fathers. My mommy told me about watching the students walking to school. The girls usually went first, with the smaller girls dressed in blue school uniforms and the older ones in their graceful saris. They would walk in a double line across the field, down the dirt road around the bungalow, take the curving driveway to go out the gate, and up the road to school. The boys would follow in their wake, dressed in their blue uniforms, too.

 One day, as Mommy Ruth stood on her veranda, waving to the girls processing by, one of the high schoolers broke from her place at the end of the line and ran up the veranda steps toward her, weeping so hard she stumbled. “Why, Leila,” Mommy Ruth opened her arms to her. “What in the world is wrong?”

 “Oh, mem-sahib,” Leila wept some more. Mommy Ruth took her inside and comforted her until she could talk.

 “You must have a very big problem. Did you tell your housemothers about it?” (They were two American lady missionaries who had charge of all the girls.)

 Leila shook her head. “No, I was afraid to tell them because they might make me do what I cannot do!”

 “Let me get you some tea. And if it’s all right, I’ll have my husband come and hear it, too. I’m sure that whatever it is, he can help us.”

 Leila nodded. When the three of them were seated together, she began her story. “When I was two years old and didn’t know anything about it, my parents married me to a boy about 18 years old. They gave his parents a gift for his dowry and we had a pukka (genuine) Hindu wedding ceremony. The boy tied the tali (wedding necklace) around my neck. I was to live with my parents until I passed puberty and then I would have to go live with him and be his wife. But not long after that, my parents both died in a plague. I nearly died myself, but a lady missionary found me and brought me here to this Belgaum girls hostel. I had the tali around my neck. It was so filthy that she took it off and threw it away. She didn’t believe in child marriages and she wouldn’t even tell me about it. She had no intention of letting me be married to someone I didn’t even know. Then she went to America and didn’t come back.

 “I have stayed in the hostel since then. The missionary ladies have taken such good care of me. Someone – probably someone from my old village – told them about the tali. That was several years ago. I was very frightened, but they said they didn’t know what happened to the man I was married to. So I was very happy in the hostel, until . . .” She broke down weeping again.

Chapter 118

Leila’s Story (Part 2)

 I wanted to hear more about Leila, so I jumped up onto Mommy’s lap so she could continue the story.

 “Yesterday,” Leila went on, “as I was walking to school with the other girls, a small boy ran up and pushed a paper into my hand. I didn’t read it until I got to school. The paper was from the village writer. It said, ‘Your husband, Omani, has directed me to send this to you. Now that you are finishing high school, you must come and live with him. He has another wife and three children but she is now sick and you are ordered to come and be his wife and care for the first wife and the children. You know the law. You must come within four days. If you do not, he will send the police after you.’”

 She pushed the paper into Mommy Ruth’s hand. “If the police say that I have to go and live with this man, I will not go. I will jump into a well. I do not know him. He is Hindu and I am Christian. He cannot read or write and he wants me to be like a slave. I cannot live like that. I am now prepared to be a teacher, but by law I am supposed to do what he says. But I will die first!”

 Mommy Ruth tried to comfort her. “Leila, I don’t believe for a minute that you have to do this. We will take him to a court of law if we have to.” She gave the paper to Daddy Jaytee.

 He looked at it. “Leila, please don’t cry any more. And forget about jumping into any well!” He knew that that was a common way of committing suicide in India. “I am going to see this man. I think all he wants is to be paid some money and he will sign a paper of annulment. I have dealt with men like him before. So dry your tears. We will take care of this. I will take Mr. Reddy with me to go to his village.”

 “But, sahib, I have no money to give him!”

 “I know, Leila, but God has a way of providing. Trust God and trust me. You will not have to go live with this man.”

 Daddy Jaytee went to Mr. Reddy and told him the story. Soon they were on their way in the jeep. Mr. Omani’s house was like many another in the village. He owned two water buffalos which were inside the house, along with a goat and a few chickens. In a house like this, the animals are kept inside for protection. The room farther on is the main room, with one corner given over to cooking. Three large stones with cow-dung cakes broken between them kept a small fire burning. Because the man’s wife was sick, they were not offered any tea. They sat cross-legged on a mat outside under a tree.

 Mr. Reddy opened the conversation, telling Omani why they were there. “Leila does not want to be your wife. She does not know you. She is Christian; you are Hindu. A Christian wife cannot live with a Hindu husband. So we are here to offer you some money to sign this paper of annulment and let Leila go free.”

 Omani pondered this, chewing his betel nut. Then he said, “I might put my thumb print on such a paper for a payment of five hundred rupees.”

 The other two men laughed. “Five hundred rupees!” Daddy Jaytee snorted. “No woman is worth five hundred rupees. I am prepared to give you forty rupees.” He had exactly one hundred rupees in his pocket.

 Now it was Omani’s turn to snort. And so the bargaining began. 

 

Chapter 119

Leila’s Story (Part 3)

 Leila’s story continued. . .

Omani said, “Any woman is worth more than forty rupees! All right, I will take four hundred and seventy-five rupees.” The bargaining continued. Daddy Jaytee went up by tens each time, while Omani came down by fives. Knowing that he would not get Leila as his wife, he was determined to get all the money he could.

 As for Daddy Jaytee, just the past week a letter had come from a friend in America and with it a check for thirty dollars. The letter said to use the funds “in the Lord’s work.” When the check was cashed, it came to one hundred rupees at the current exchange rate. Daddy Jaytee had put the funds into his safe.

 Omani seemed to have hit a plateau and wouldn’t budge further. Daddy Jaytee was tired of bargaining with him and saw that he would have to leave soon in order to get home before dark. “Omani,” he said, “one more time. I will give you one hundred rupees to sign this paper. If you do not want one hundred rupees, I am leaving right now.” And he got up and began to walk away.

 Omani thought about that for a minute or two. He had never in his life had one hundred rupees in his pocket. And it was walking away! He got up and ran after the two men. “All right, all right! I will sign for the one hundred rupees. Come with me to the village writer’s house and I will make my thumb print.” The paper, which Daddy Jaytee had brought with him, was signed with Omani’s thumb print and witnessed by Mr. Reddy and the village scribe. One hundred one-rupee notes were handed over. Leila was free!

 Daddy Jaytee wrote to his American friend. “You told me to use the money for the Lord’s work. Well, I have bought you a girl – now what do you want me to do with her?” The answer came back: “Find her a husband!”

 Not long after that, Jacob, one of the hostel boys, came to see Daddy Jaytee. “Sir,” he said, “I have graduated and have secured a job as a policeman in a village. But I need a wife to help me. I cannot live in a village alone. I am an orphan and have no one to make marriage arrangements for me. Can you help me find a good Christian wife among the girls on the compound?”

 Daddy Jaytee appeared to think that over. “Have you thought of anyone in particular? How about Shimla?” No, she wouldn’t do. “What about Prema? Do you know her?” Yes, but… “Well, then, how about Leila?”

Jacob’s face beamed. Leila would do very well.

 Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee later called Leila to come to the house. “Leila. You are now free and you can begin thinking about finding the right husband. I know you have no relatives, so we are prepared to help you. Several of our hostel boys are graduating and want to find a Christian wife. Can you talk about this?” She said she was ready. “Do you know Naresh?” Yes, but he’s too loud. “What about Ashok? He’s quiet.” She thought she’d like someone else. “Leila, what about Jacob? He just got a new job as a policeman in a village. He would like to marry you if you will have him.” She smiled. Yes, she’d take Jacob.

 And so Leila and Jacob were married in a simple village wedding. In the village where Jacob was a policeman, she taught in the village school. All for thirty dollars – a hundred rupees and a thumb print!

 

Chapter 120

I Get a Lesson In Finance

 Mommy told me that tomorrow she has to log in her work hours so that she can get paid. I wasn’t sure what that was all about, so she explained that when a person works for an employer, that employer regularly pays a certain amount to the person and then that person uses that money to purchase goods and services from other people, who in turn get paid  and – it all sounds pretty complicated to me. I don’t get paid for my work – chasing the birds and the bugs, ignoring the squirrels, chewing on wires, carrying around my favorite red paper clip, getting my mommy up and telling her when it’s time to go to bed – phew! I’m getting tired just thinking about all that I do.

 I don’t have to worry about where my favorite chicken bits and Friskies come from, but I guess it’s a good thing that my mommy does. I know she has money. She even has money from other countries. She showed me some coins that she brought back from her India trip with her sisters ten years ago. She has some annas and some paise. She told me about managing her money when she was growing up in India.

 The Indian rupee, she told me, apparently has a long history. India was one of the first civilizations in the world to issue coins, according to the history books, beginning around the 600s B.C. Eventually coins were joined by paper money and the Indian money system became rupees and annas – 16 annas to one rupee.

 When Mommy was in boarding school, she would get an allowance of so many rupees a month. The housemother would dole out the bills and coins on a certain day and that would have to last as spending money until the next month. Of course, all Mommy’s housing and food were taken care of through fees Mommy Ruth and Daddy Jaytee paid to Kodai School. So the allowance money was for candy and other luxuries. Once a week, the housemother held “candy days” out of a little storeroom at the top of the stairs in Boyer Hall, Mommy’s dorm. The girls would line up to spend part of their allowance on sweets. Other times their sweet tooth would take them to the “candy man” who set up a little portable stall just across the street from Boyer. While the girls weren’t really supposed to buy from him – his cleanliness was certainly suspect – they did it all the time, buying delicious squares of halva and other homemade goodies.

 In 1957, the Indian government changed over its money system. They went on the decimal system, so the original 16 annas per rupee became 100 naya paisa. (Now the coins are known as just paise.) As you can imagine, Mommy told me, the changeover couldn’t happen overnight. The naya paise were introduced gradually and so for some years people carried around coins of both types. They also carried around a small card that translated annas into naya paise, so customers and merchants would have an easier time making change. My mommy remembers having that very important card in her pocket and carefully counting out her coins. Some merchants were suspicious of the new coins and insisted on having annas, but eventually, of course, all the annas disappeared from use. Using the decimal system for money is much easier, Mommy said. Now only the older folks even remember that annas were ever used.

 America under the British used the pound, shillings, and pence, Mommy said. Then in 1792 (that was the same year Kentucky became a state, she told me) and after America had won its independence from Britain, America went on the decimal system. Britain did the same eventually, but not until 1971.

 After all this teaching about finance and coinage and money systems, I just had one question for my mommy: How come I don’t get an allowance? 

See all articles

---