There is another sad time at which many Hindu boys catch their first glimpses of the King and His followers. It is the time of famine. One night a little boy lay awake, gazing out at the sky through an opening in the house. He watched the heavy clouds break and scatter, and as the stars shone out, they brought sadness to him, not joy, for they meant that the clouds had broken and gone, and that one more night must pass without rain. As he lay he heard the sound of the priests chanting the prayer for rain at the temple, and every now and then the chant was broken by the clanging of bells that rang out on the still air. The boy thought of his father, who was spending the night there at the temple praying for rain. Then he thought of the long days of famine, and of how old his father looked; and he remembered how little that father had eaten during those days of famine, and how much he had always tried to leave to his mother and his brothers and sisters. And so the boy passed a restless night, and wondered what could come to change these awful days of famine. Then in the early morning he heard his father’s step, and as it came to the door a wail sounded from his mother within. His brother was dead. The long misery of famine had been too much, and the eldest son in the little home had died. The next days passed in a dream to the boy. He knew that his father could no longer bear the pain of watching his children die, one by one, and he heard him say that he had made up his mind to seek the nearest relief camp. He remembered that he was lifted into a passing bullock cart along with his mother and three other children, and that his father trudged beside them. The driver of the bullock cart had been a wealthy man, but his servants were gone, and he was leading the ox to a patch of prickly pear, the only green thing that was left in the whole famine land. But the bullock was as weak as the men, and the sun was high ere they reached the patch of prickly pear. They all ate the leaves greedily, and would scarcely wait to pluck out the thorns. Then he remembered lying under the bullock cart with his mother and the other children, and watching his father and the bullock driver disappear in the distance, and he remembered no more until he lay in the clean white shed that had been quickly built to be a hospital for the famine children. His sisters and brothers were there with him, but help had come too late to save the lives of his father and mother.