"Germans!"
German prisoners to work on the farms were the answer to a problem serious enough.
But this answer brought other complications, as I will tell you.
* * * * * * *
Of those German prisoners, four were to be employed upon Mr. Price's farm.
One of the four was the man I had noticed as not wearing the red-banded military cap, but a sailor's, having the name of a German man-o'-war on the ribbon. All four, who came from the prison camp outside "the town," were to be brought every morning to work, and taken away every evening by the dray that came to pick them up after it had called for their comrades, who had been taken to work upon another farm about a couple of miles away.
Sybil's employers had also taken one of them, and some other people near had asked for one.
Shortly a new topic of conversation in the neighbourhood was supplied by "our German prisoners."
"Good workers they are, that nobody can deny," was Mrs. Price's verdict.
Unanimous was the chorus of praise for the way those fellows went at it, and the amount they'd get done in a day; a lot more than our own chaps, by George! (said some), and how quiet they were, and conscientious, and well-behaved! No trouble did they give; none whatsoever!