“They have divided their labour according to their talents or habits, and daily find the advantages of such a plan. My wife was telling me how little she could get done while she had to turn from her cooking to her sewing, and from her sewing to take charge of the children when they strayed into the wood.” “It was a new sort of sewing and a new sort of cooking,” said the captain, “and I dare say it was some time before she got her hand in, as we say.” “To be sure; and it is clear that if each person had only one new method to practise, and was not disturbed when once her hand was in, the work of every kind would go on faster. My wife’s neighbours found that she used the porcupine’s quill—her new needle—and the threads of flax more handily than they; so they offered to do her other work, if she would mend their own and their husbands’ clothes. She was very willing, because she could thus keep our little girl always beside her. The child is too young, you know, to play in the wood with the others.” “And what becomes of them?” “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.”