The babies are searched before they come to
school, and all toys, bits of string, old tins, and sundries are removed
from their persons. But there are ways of evading inquisitors. Chellalu
knows these ways. She now produced a long wisp of red tape from
somewhere--she did not tell us where--and proceeded to tie her feet
together. This accomplished, she curled herself up on the bench like a
caterpillar on a leaf, and to all appearances went to sleep. Why was she
not awakened and compelled to behave properly? asks the reader, duly
shocked. Perhaps because on that rather special morning the teacher
preferred her asleep.

[Illustration: ARULAI AND RUKMA, WITH NAVEENA.]

The story finished, the children were questioned, and they answered with
unwonted gravity. "What did Isaac say to his father as they walked alone
together?" An awed little voice had begun the required answer, when
Chellalu suddenly uncurled, sat up, and said in clear, decided Tamil:
"He said, 'Father! do not kill me!' _Yesh!_ that was what he said."

When first the babies heard about Heaven, they all wanted to go at once,
and with difficulty were restrained from praying to be taken there
immediately. There was one naughty child who, when she was given
medicine, invariably announced, "I will not stay in this village: I am
going to Heaven! I am going now!" But they soon grew wiser. It was our
excitable, merry little Jullanie who summed up all desires with most
simplicity: "Lord Jesus, please take me there or anywhere anytime; only
wherever I am, please stay there too!" Some of the babies are carnal:
"When I go to that village (Heaven), I shall go for a ride on the
cherubim's wings. I will make them take me to all sorts of places, just
wherever I want to go."

The latest pronouncement, however, was for the moment the most
perplexing. "Come-anda-look-ata-well!" said Chellalu yesterday evening,
the sentence in a single long word. The well is being dug in the
Menagerie garden and is surrounded by a trellis, beyond which the babies
may not pass, unless taken by one of ourselves. As we drew near to the
well, Chellalu pointed to it and said: "Amma! That is the way to
Heaven!" This speech, which was in Tamil, considerably surprised me, as
naturally we think of Heaven above the bright blue sky. The yawning gulf
of the unfinished well suggested something different.

But Chellalu was positive. "It is the way to Heaven. _I_ may not go
there, but _you_ may! Yesh! _you