Number 7. Would the rice be ready?
HAPPY school days in India do not last long. At a very early age, little girls are taken from school, and are shut up in their homes. When this time comes, many of them are very glad to go on with their reading, and Bible lessons with Bible-women, whose work it is to visit and teach them. By this means many have learned to love and pray to the one true God.
I will tell you the story of a little girl, who was no longer allowed to go out of doors, and for some time had been learning at home.
Her grandmother was old and went to work in the fields, but before going, used to go to the well and draw up the water in the palmyra basket (made of one large leaf, twisted together in a very clever way). A cord was fastened to this curious bucket, and it was let down again and again into the well. Each time it was drawn up and emptied into a brass vessel, and when this was full she would lift it on her hip and carry it home.
The little girl ten years old was left to cook the rice and make the curry. This is the usual food of the people of South India.
One day, alas! the grandmother went off to work, but had forgotten to draw the water. What was to be done? The little girl was forbidden to go out. She could not cook rice without water, and there was no one in the house to draw it.
The child was very much troubled; she knew how angry her father would be, if he came home and found no food ready for him.
What would you have done in such a case? Would you have remembered the Lord’s words, “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive”?
This little girl remembered that her teacher—the Bible woman—had told her there was a God who hears prayer, and helps those who pray to Him. “Now I will see,” thought the child, “whether the Christian’s God will hear me in my trouble.” So she went into an inner room, and kneeling down and putting her hands together, as she used to do at school, she prayed to the great and loving God of the Christians.
The prayer had only just ended, when she heard a knock at the door; she went to open it, and there found a little friend who had come to see her, and ran off most willingly and quickly to fetch the water; so the rice and curry were cooked and dinner was ready in good time.
Some months after this, a missionary went into the village, and heard this story from the girl. She ended it by saying “Now I believe your God does hear and answer prayer. I always pray only to Him. I want to be His child.”
ML 04/07/1912