Page:Masani - Gandhi's story.pdf/19

Rh saw the sun. Mohan often stood staring at the sky wait ing anxiously for the sun to appear. As soon as it broke through the heavy black clouds, he would rush in to call his mother, but often by the time she came the sun had gone behind the clouds again. Mohan would look crestfallen. “Never mind,” his mother consoled him cheerfully, “God did not want me to eat today,” and with that she would return to her household duties.

As soon as Mohan was old enough he was sent to school, for his father wanted him to study hard and be a learned man.

When Mohan was seven the family moved to Rajkot, a nearby town, and he was sent to a new school there. Mohan was a very shy and timid child. He did not make friends easily and kept very much to himself at school. As soon as the lessons were over he would gather his books quickly and rush home. But in spite of this everybody liked him. He was a very truthful boy. He tried hard never to tell a lie or do anything deceitful. Once when the inspector was visiting the school he set a spelling test for the boys in Mohan's class. The teacher wanted to show the inspector what clever boys he had. He tried to tell the boys how to spell the words and made signs to them when the inspector was not looking to copy from each other's slates.

Mohan did not understand what the teacher was