After getting rid of No. 2 our real troubles began, and we had eight changes in ten months. At the time we were living in wooden huts about two miles from a village which was a summer resort for rich people from Buenos Aires, and this caused a dearth of servants during the summer months, as the place was full from the beginning of December to the end of March, and people who came up for the summer and rented houses usually were willing to pay anything to get servants, with the result that we outside would get none, or only the cast-off ones. Nos. 3 and 4 stayed but a short time. My fifth attempt was a terrible girl, too dirty for words; and though apparently willing to learn, too utterly lacking in intelligence to ever learn anything. She used to get herself into the most awful grimy condition, and one incident during her time with me is worth mentioning. I had with great difficulty one day got her to understand that a wood floor could not be properly cleaned with a grass broom dipped in cold water and just swished about over it, and, by going down on my knees with a scrubbing brush and hot water and soap, and giving a practical demonstration of how a floor should be washed, had started her away to clean it, and judged that I might safely leave her, to attend to the other household duties in the kitchen. I must tell you that the day previously I had given her a practical lesson in black-leading a stove by doing it myself while she looked on. Well, after an hour in the kitchen I returned to see how she was getting on, when I found to my great pleasure that not content with scrubbing the floor, she had also attacked the stove with hot water, soap, and scrubbing brush, with the result that my hard work of the previous day was all undone and the whole room well sprinkled with black specks and the stove a mass of rust. Two weeks of similar experiences finished our acquaintance, and she gave place to No. 6. After I had spent three weeks teaching No. 6 cooking, she quietly informed me that she was leaving at the end of the week to take up a place as cook in Rosario, as she now knew enough cooking for the position; so I had not only wasted all my time in teaching her, but had paid her into the bargain for learning enough to leave me.