The Red and Gold Shoe
The Red and Gold Shoe part 1/7
"Cock-a-doodle-doo ! Cock-a-doodle-doo !" You'd think there ought to be a pleasanter way to wake up than by having the red cock Lalu split his sides crowing from under his reed basket in the middle of the floor of Amma's hut. And immediately the two foolish hens under their crate in a corner begin to fidget and cluck and knock on the wooden slats to be let out.
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"Cock-a-doodle-doo !" and "Cluck! cluck! cluck!" This is the way a day begins for eight-year-old Lata where she sleeps on a tin trunk. Old Amma gropes from her string cot for the bamboo pole she keeps handy, and she waves it about as if she would drive back the dawn, for, oh! she is tired and aged and would so like to sleep a little longer.
" Whack ! whack ! whack !" She wallops the basket under which the cock crows. That ought to keep the red devil quiet. May a plague take him! May it wither his flesh and drain his bones dry! May it lock his joints and choke him-he and his cock-a-doodle-doo ! He would bring the roof down on a tired old woman's head, would he? "Whack!"
But the signal has been given. Out from under Amma's cot comes Rakhi the goat and tweaks Lata's braids where she lies. In at the window drops Maow the wicked tomcat after another night of brawling with other cats in the fish market across the railway line, and outside the door whines Kalu the black dog who belongs to everyone in general but loves Lata and her grandmother in particular.
"Latar. Latal Get up!" shrills Amma. "Let Lalu out! Let Kalu in! Go fetch the water!"
This is the way each day begins for Lata: Let-Lalu-out-let-Kalu-in, go-fetch-the-water ! This is how the day always begins down by the railway yard, on your right as you ride grandly into the city gazing down from the height of the fine cream and blue carriages of the train called the Rani. The little lane is very crooked as only lanes can be, and the homes of the poor stand shoulder to shoulder along the slatted fencing of the railway. The houses may sag in places, but
they have bravely held each other upright for many a year now.
"Is it time, Granny?" sleepy voices call from all sides. "But the Rani hasn't gone through yet, has it? Is it late then? Or has the moon turned your Lalu's brain? And Pinto Carpenter's alarm clock-has that rung yet?"
"Cock-a-doodle-doo !" replies the red cock, but his voice is drowned in the sudden thunder of the train. It rocks the tiny shacks, clatters the tin roofs, and shakes the rows of god pictures in their gaudy frames in each home-many-armed gods and goddesses, the elephant-headed, the monkey-headed, and the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven.
Continue The Red and Gold Shoe part 2/7
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