The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1894-01-20
Rudyard KiplinE, in Harper's
Weekly.

IL Is IL queer lli1AlS, ia
admitted; land none Of u family have
ever borne it; but, you see, he is the
first mar to u.s.
So he was called Adam, and to that
world about him he was the first OF
men-a man-child alone. Heaven sent
him no Eve for a couparion, but all
earth, horse and foot, was at his feet.
AS soon as he was old enough to ap-
pear in public he held a levee, and
Strickland's sixty policemen, with their
sixty clanking sabers, bowed to the
dust before him. When his fingers
closed a little on Imam Din's sword
hilt they rose and roared till Adam
rOared too, and was withdrawn.
Nov that was no cry of fear said
Imam Din, afterwards, speaking to his
companions in the police lines. "He
was angry-and so young! Brothers,
he will make a very strong police OH
GER"
Does the Memsahib gave him the
beast?' said a new Phillour recruit, the
dye smell not yet out Of his yellow
cotton uniform.
"Ho!' said an up-cOuntry Naik, scorn-
fully. "It has not been known for more
than ten days that my women suckles
him." He curled his mustache as fond
~ as eve IN inspector could afford to
do, for he knew that the husband of
the foster mother of the son of the dis
trict superintendent Of police was a
man of consideration.
II am glad,' said Imam Din, loosen
ing his belt. Those who drink Our
blood become Of our own blood, and
l have seen in these thirty years, that
the som of the Sahibs once being born
here return when they are men. Yes,
they return after they have been to
Belait." (Europe).
And what do they in Relait?" asked
the recruit, respectfully.
"Get instruction-which thou hast
not" returned the Naik. Also they
drink Of belaitee-panee (soda water)
enough to give item that devils rest
lessness which endures for all their
lives. Whence we of Hind have
trouble"
My fathers uncle" said Imam Din,
slowly, with Importance. was Ressal-
dar Of the Longcoat Horse; and the en-
press called him to Belait in the year
that she had accomplished fifty years
of rule. He said land there were also
other witnesses that the Sahibs there
drink only common water, even rs we
do; and that the belaitee-panee does
not in all the rivers"
He also said that there was a Shish
Mahal-a glass palace-half a koss in
length and that the railgharri ran under
the roads, and that there are boats big
ger than a village. He is a great talk,
er." The Naik spoke scornfully. He
had no we'll born uncles.
He is a nan Of good BIRTH. said
Imam Din, with the least possible en-
phasis on the first word, and the Naik
was silent.
"Ho! Ho!" Imam Din reached out
to his pipe, chuckling till his fat sides
shook again. strickland Sahib's fos.
ter mother was the wife of an lerain
in the FerOZepur district. I was a
young man then. blowing while the
English fought. This child will also be
sucked here, and he will have double
wisdom, and when he is a police officer,
1t will be very bad for the thieves in
this illakha district. Ho! Ho!"
There will be no English in the
land then. They are asking permission
Of clerks and low-caste men to continue
their Raj ever now" said the Naik.
"All but foolish men-such as those
clerks are-would know that this ask.
ing is but an excuse for making trouble,
and thus holding the country more
strictly. Now, in an investigation, is
it not I'll custom to permit villagers to
talk loosely and give us abuse for the
little time? Then do W. not grow hot,
and walk them to the thana two by
two-as these clerks will be walked
Thus do l read the new tayk."
80 do not L." said the Naik, who
borrowed the native newspapers.
Because thou art young, and vast
born In time of peace. / saw the year
that was to end the English rule. Men
said it was ended, indeed, and that all
could not take their neighbours cattle.
This I saw blowing, and I was minded
to fight too, being a young man. My
father sent me to Gurgaon to buy cat
tie, and I saw the tents of Van Corlin
Sahib in the wheat, and i saw that he
was going up and down collecting the
revenue, neither abating nor increasing
it, though Delhi was all atire, and the
Sahibs lay dead about the fields. /
have seen what l have seen. This
Raj will not be talked down; and he
who builds on the present madness of
the Sahib-log, which, o Naik, covers
great cunning, builds for himself a
lookup. My fathers uncle has seer
their country, and his son after him.
Naik, have they named him yet?'
''The butler spoke to my household,
having heard the talk at table, and he
says that they will call him Adam
and no jaw-splitting English name. I'd
dam. The dadre will name him at
their church in due time"
"WhO can tell the ways of Sahibs
Now Strickland Sahib knows more OF
the faith than ever I had time to learn
prayers, charms, names, and stories
of the Blessed Ones. Yet he is not
Musalman," said Imam Din, thought
fully.
For the reason that he knows as
much of the gods of Hindustan, and sc
rides with a rein in each hand. ~Remem.
Der that he sat under the Baba Atall
a faquir among faQuirs, for ten days
whereby a man came to be hanged fol
the murder of the dancing-girl on the
night of the great earthquake" said the
Naik.
'True-it Is true. And yet. =. . they
r day so wise, the Sahibs, and an
other so foolish. But he has named
the child well: Adam. Huzrut Adam
Ho! no! Father Adam we must cal
him"
And all who minister to the child
said the Naik, quietly, but with mean.
Ing, will come to great honor"
Adam throve, being prayed over be-
fore the Gods of at least three creeds,
in a garden almost as fair as Eden.
There were gigantic clumps Of bamboo
that talked continually, and enormous
plantains on whose soft paper skin he
could scratch with his nails; green
domes Of m~ango-trees as huge as the
dome Of ST Panl,S. full of narrOta ls