hold of the moon!' Now, you see, no man can do that; and what's more, when the moon's once full, it grows every night less and less, and at last goes out altogether.
All the Cobras in my grandmother's stories were seven-headed. This puzzled us children, and we would say to her, 'Granny, are there any seven-headed Cobras now? For all the Cobras we see that the conjurors bring round have only one head each.' To which she used to answer, 'No, of course there are no seven-headed Cobras now. That world is gone, but you see each Cobra has a hood of skin, that is the remains of another head.' Then we would say, 'Although none of those old seven-headed Cobras are alive now, may be there are some of their children living somewhere.' But at this my granny used to get vexed, and say, 'Nonsense, you are silly little chatterboxes, get along with you.' And, though we often looked for the seven-headed Cobras, we never could find any of them.
My old granny lived till she was nearly a hundred: when she got very old she rather lost her memory, and often made mistakes in the stories she told us, telling a bit of one story and then joining on to it a bit of some other; for we children bothered her too much about them, and sometimes she used to get very tired of talking, and when we asked her for a story, would answer, 'You must ask your mother about it, she can tell you.'
Ah! those were happy days, and we had plenty ways to amuse ourselves. I was very fond of pets: when I was seven years old I had a little dog that followed me everywhere, and played all sorts of pretty tricks, and I and my youngest brother used to take the little sparrows out of their nests on the roof of our house, and tame them. These little birds got so fond of me they would always fly after me; as I was sweeping the floor one would perch on my head, and two or three on my shoulders, and the rest came fluttering after. But my poor father and mother used to shake their heads at me when they saw this, and say, 'Ah! naughty girl, to take the little birds out of their nests; that stealing will bring you no good.' All my family were very fond of music. You know that Rosie (my daughter) sings very nicely and plays upon the guitar, and my son-in-law plays on the pianoforte and the fiddle (we've got two fiddles in our house now), but Mera Bap reh! how well my grandfather sang! Sometimes of an evening he would drink a little toddy,[1] and be quite cheerful, and sing
- ↑ An intoxicating drink, made from the juice of the palm-tree.
