“Kate goes with them to take care of them; and while she watches their play, she plats dry grass to make hats for us all. She is a neat and quick hand at this, and it is a work which can be done as she goes from place to place. By the time the sun shines out again after the rains, there will be a large light straw hat for each labourer—a very good thing in such a climate.”
“I wondered,” said the captain, “what made Robertson steal away into the wood so often, so steady a workman as he is; and I thought it was a new fancy in him to have some pretty wild flower in his hat or his breast when he came again.”
“I dare say the lovers do not turn off less work on the whole,” said Mr. Stone, “for these few moments’ chat during the day. Did you not observe that he is the first man in the settlement who has had a straw hat?”
“I did. Well: who undertakes the cooking?”
“Mrs. Prest; whose husband helps her with the management of the oven and the more laborious parts of her business. Then little Betsy and her mother are our housemaids. They stay behind when we leave the cave in the morning, and sweep it out, and strew fresh rushes, and pile the wood for the night fire. And between this division of labour and the little contrivances to which it gives occasion, we are certainly better waited on and taken care of by our wives and companions than if each had to do all the offices of one household.”
“True: and as long as we cannot have the comfort of a private home to each family, such a division is wise in every way. But it will not be long before the state of things will change.”
“Even then,” said Mr. Stone, “it will be desirable to continue the same plan till labour becomes less precious than it will be to us for months to come. When each family has a house, let each family eat in private; but why should not the cooking go on as at present? There will soon be baking to do in addition, and an increase of labour in proportion to our increased means of comfort: so that we must spare labour to the utmost till we can get a stock of labourers who do not require to be fed and taken care of.”
“You mean machines.”
“I mean, in the first place, the tools which will soon be on their way from Cape Town, and which will be our simple machinery and, in the next place, the more complicated machinery which those tools will make. When we get such a fund of labour as this at our command, we may begin to indulge in the luxury of having everything within our houses done for us by those we love best, and according to our own fancy. Our society must be much richer, one and all, than now, before I think of having one of my wife’s Dorsetshire pies, made by her own neat hands, and baked in an oven of our own.”
“There must be an extensive division of labour,” said the captain, “before even that single dish can be prepared. To say nothing of what has already been done in our fields in fencing, ploughing, sowing, and trenching, there is much work remaining in reaping, threshing, and grinding, before you can have the flour. Then the meat for your pie is still grazing, and must be brought home and slaughtered and cut up. Then the salt must be got from the lake yonder; and the pepper,—what will you do for pepper?”