Baa. Baa.
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Rudyard wrote Black Sheep, I'm sure, for any child that has ever felt hurt, angry, bewildered, lonely, or frightened. |
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Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full. One for the Master, one for the Dame — None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane. |
Editor's note: I don't know why Kipling chose to put a space after some of his quotation marks, and before the first letter of the sentence – and snuggled them close on others -- but I do know that he had a reason, perhaps like his need for the absolute blackest ink ever made to write with, but definitely, these quirks are HIS choice. Therefore, I have endeavored to leave his strange punctuation the way it came published to me. |
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THE FIRST BAG They were putting Punch to bed — the ayah and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, already tucked inside her mosquito curtains, was nearly asleep. Punch had been allowed to stay up for dinner. Many privileges had been accorded to Punch within the last ten days, and a greater kindness from the people of his world had encompassed his ways and works, which were mostly obstreperous. He sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare legs defiantly.
" No," said Punch. " Punch-baba wants the story about the Ranee that was turned into a tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the hamal shall hide behind the door and make tiger noises at the proper time."
" But Judy-baba will wake up," said the ayah. " Judy-baba is waking," piped a small voice from the mosquito curtains. " There was a Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta," and she fell fast asleep again while Meeta began the story. Never had Punch secured the telling of that tale with so little opposition. He reflected for a long time. The hamal made the tiger noises in twenty different keys." Top!" said Punch authoritatively. " Why doesn't Papa come in and say he is going to give me put-put?" " Punch-baba is going away," said the ayah. "In another week there will be no Punch-baba to pull my hair any more."She sighed softly, for the boy of the household was very dear to her heart. " Up the Ghauts in a train?" said Punch standing on his bed. "All the way to Nassick, where the Ranee-Tiger lives?" |
Baa, baa, black sheep, Yes sir, yes sir, One for the master, Baa, baa, black sheep, One to mend the jerseys Baa, baa, black sheep,
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| " Not to Nassick this year, little Sa-hib,"
said Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. " Down to the sea, where
the coconuts are thrown, and across the sea in a big ship. Will you
take Meeta with you to Belait?"
" You shall all come," said Punch from the height of Meeta's strong
arms. " Meeta and the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the-Garden,
and the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snakeman."
And Papa and Mama sold the brougham and the piano, and stripped the house, and curtailed the allowance of crockery for the daily meals, and took long council together over a bundle of letters bearing the Rocklington postmark. " The worst of it is that one can't be certain of anything," said Papa, pulling his mustache." The letters in themselves are excellent, and the terms are moderate enough." " The worst of it is that the children will grow up away from me," thought Mama, but she did not say it aloud." Punch is a cheery little chap. He's sure to make friends wherever he goes." " And who could help loving my Ju?" They were standing over the cots in the nursery late at night, and I think that Mama was crying softly.After Papa had gone away, she knelt down by the side of Judy's cot; The ayah saw her and put up a prayer that the mem-sahib might never find the love of her children taken away from her and given to a stranger. Mama's own prayer was a slightly illogical one. Summarized, it ran: " Let strangers love my children and be as good to them as I should be, but let me preserve their love and their confidence forever and ever. Amen." Punch scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned a little. That seemed to be the only answer to the prayer; and next day they all went down to the sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo Bunder when Punch discovered that Meeta could not come, too, and Judy learned that the ayah must be left behind. But Punch found a thousand fascinating things in the rope, block, and steam-pipe line on the big P. and 0. steamer, long before Meeta and the ayah had dried their tears. |
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There
was no mockery in Meeta's voice when he replied, " Great is the
Sahib's favor," and laid the little man down in the bed, while the
ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the doorway, lulled him to sleep
with an interminable canticle such as they sing in the Roman
Catholic church at Parel. Punch curled himself into a ball and
slept.
