WE START HOUSEKEEPING 



Some months later, when I got rid of that cook, 

 I made it my business to know every boy personally, 

 and to find out what they were like, and to what 

 tribe they belonged. 



Baruku took a great interest in my bungalow 

 and was quite pleased when I bought anything to 

 make it prettier. One evening we came home and 

 found two egg-cups in the centre of the dining- 

 room table, with a strange mixture of coloured 

 geraniums and some yellow flowers terrible to look 

 at, in them. However, we were grateful for the 

 thoughtfulness, and bore with the flowers to the 

 bitter end. 



Very soon after our arrival in Nairobi, plague 

 broke out in the bazaar and native villages near. 

 We were not allowed to send our boys into the 

 boma, and we talked seriously to them and told 

 them to be careful where they went. My husband 

 told his orderly he might not come out of the boma 

 to our house to do his work, but nevertheless he 

 would not forsake his master's brass buttons and 

 appeared all the same. The orderly, having only 

 lately arrived from British Central Africa, talked a 

 different language to all our boys, which made ex- 

 planations more difficult. 



Some days later Baruku presented me with 

 some flowers (I did not ask from where !), and he 

 shyly said he had a present for me ; it turned out 

 to be a duck's egg, a thing I cannot eat, but still 



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