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   Name: Ghulam Mustafa Name of Institute: Pakistan Shorthand Institute (Ghulam Mustafa) Personal Assistant in Women Development Department, Punjab Civil Secretariat Lahore.

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700 Common Words Exercise No. 18 Longhand

This is the story which my friend sometimes tells on a long summer evening, as we sit together by the open window, finding pleasure in the sweet clear air after the still heat of the day. In those days I was an even better walker than I am today, and as you know I still very much like a good, quick walk. Well, on that particular August morning I set out quite early, before the day was too warm for easy walking. I carried with me enough food to meet my small needs and was therefore able to keep away from towns of any kind. I was healthy in the way that the young are healthy, and I walked with quick easy steps, covering the first eight miles of the road in just under two hours. But with the increasing warmth of the day I found that I was doing very little more than two and a half miles an hour. Even the small additional weight of the food I was carrying troubled me, and as it was by this time several hours since my last meal it seemed reasonable that I should look out for a place where I could rest and have a meal in peace. After a time I reached a point where the road comes very near to a small river, and I was pleased enough by that time to walk across the field and to find near the water some undergrowth high enough to offer me some cover from the full light and heat of the open countryside round about. I took water from the clear, quick-running river, and built a small fire upon some stones, and so made my simple meal. Such was the heat of the day that it was as much as I could do to keep my eyes open, but, using all my will-power, I was about to clear away the rest of the food when I saw standing before me a little old woman. So lined was her face that it seemed to me there was no room left upon it for any personal expression or feeling, and her dress was as old as her face. Standing there, she appeared to me to be not of this day, not of yesterday, and not of tomorrow, but to represent Time itself. But when she began to speak I found her words were common-place enough. Sir, she said, Could you give me some bread and perhaps some milk? I immediately began to clean up the piece of ground which had served as a table for me, making a place for the old woman to sit. I saw, however, that she took almost nothing of the food and drink offered to her, and as she sat without speaking I watched her face. Tell me, old woman, I said, to my own complete surprise, were you always as you are now or were you once young and beautiful? Had you once a home and a family, or have you always walked these roads and fields? The old woman turned her head and looked at me for a long time without speaking. The lines on her face grew even deeper, and her old blue eyes were serious as she answered: Young man, I cannot remember. For long eggs I have walked these roads and these fields. I have walked other roads and other fields. Always I have walked and always I shall walk. I am old, and perhaps I have never been young. I am plain, and perhaps I have never been beautiful. But you, you are young and you are beautiful. You are strong and you have health. You have all the qualities of the young. Because of these things I am speaking to you now. Shall I tell her to go away? I thought, She does not know what she is talking about anyway. I will stand up and get my things together and continue my walk. I moved, but immediately the voice of this strange old woman came to me again, No, do not go. You must hear what I have to say. Yes, I thought. I will wait and hear what she has to say, for if she is as wise as she is old her words may be of some use to me in the future. But the seconds passed and no words came. I looked again and no one was there. Not feeling very pleased with myself at the thought that I must have been weak enough to fall off for a few minutes, and believing that these had not really happened, I began to clear up what was left of my meal. And then I knew that the old woman, had been there, for my bread was gone and in its place was this. At this point in his story my friend opens his hand, and on it rests a lovely clear blue stone, in a beautiful setting of gold. I always carry this about with me now, he adds, and I know that someday I shall see that old woman again, and find out what it was she had to say.