The reminder was
quite unnecessary.
There was also a message from Mine Host. "I'm sending a few cuttings for
the missus," it read. Cuttings he called them, but the back of the
waggon looked like a nurseryman's van; for all a-growing and a-blowing
and waiting to be planted out, stood a row of flowering, well-grown
plants in tins: crimson hibiscus, creepers, oleanders, and all sorts. A
man is best known by his actions, and Mine Host best understood by his
kindly thoughtfulness.
The store was soon full to overflowing, and so was our one room, for
everything ordered for the house had arrived--rolls of calico heavy and
unbleached, mosquito netting, blue matting for the floors, washstand
ware, cups and saucers, and dozens of smaller necessities piled in every
corner of the room.
"There won't be many idle hands round these parts for a while," a
traveller said, looking round the congested room, and he was right, for
having no sewing machine, a gigantic hand-sewing contract was to be
faced. The ceilings of both rooms were to be calico, and a dozen or so of
seams were to be oversewn for that, the strips of matting were to be
joined together and bound into squares, and after that a herculean task
undertaken: the making of a huge mosquito-netted dining-room, large
enough to enclose the table and chairs, so as to ensure our meals in
comfort--for the flies, like the poor, were to be with us always.
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