Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/88



CHAPTER III

then went to his teacher’s wife, who was sitting in the shade of a tree near the house weaving grass mats. A deer was lying beside her, while overhead a bird was making a loud noise, "Tee tee ū. Tee tee ū," while other smaller birds flew about without a care and drank water from the pools under the ashoka trees. It really seemed as if these birds and beasts were one with man. After bowing before his teacher’s wife, Utonka said, “Mother, the time of my training is finished and I have, by the help of Gurudev, become a Brahmachari. I have gained strength and now I must go into the world. Tell me now, Mother, what offering I can make you: for Gurudev told me to ask you.”

Quickly putting aside her weaving his teacher's wife said with tears in her eyes, “What! my child, are you going to leave us? Yet why 68