Mother, let us imagine we are travelling, and passing through a strange and dangerous country. You are riding in a palanquin and I am trotting by you on a red horse. It is evening and the sun goes down. The waste of Joradighi lies wan and grey before us. The land is desolate and barren. You are frightened and thinking-"I know not where we have come to." I say to you, "Mother, do not be afraid." The meadow is prickly with spiky grass, and through it runs a narrow broken ...

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When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our lane. Every day I meet the hawker crying, "Bangles, crystal bangles!" There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home. I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying, "Bangles, crystal bangles!" When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school, I can see through the gate of that ...

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Mother, the light has grown grey in the sky; I do not know what the time is. There is no fun in my play, so I have come to you. It is Saturday, our holiday. Leave off your work, mother; sit here by the window and tell me where the desert of Tepantar in the fairy tale is. The shadow of the rains has covered the day from end to end. The fierce lightning is scratching the sky with its nails. When the clouds rumble and it thunders, ...

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