breeze blowing is no easy matter. My assistant is an old coloured 

 woman who has worked for me for nearly twenty years. She 

 cannot read, so it is useless to label the bags in which she 

 collects the seeds, but a series of strange marks seems to convey 

 something to her, and she never makes a mistake. She cannot 

 count beyond ten. Some of the precious seeds are sold per 

 thousand, so I had to devise a system of counting with ten 

 small cigarette boxes and ten big ones, and it works out all 

 right. Once she embarks on a job of the sort, nothing short 

 of the dinner bell distracts her attention. She never looks up, 

 but just goes on until the job is finished. I asked her one day 

 if she liked doing the job on which she was engaged ; she 

 looked up in wonderment and stated simply, " What Madam 

 tells me to do, I do ". 



We cannot get far in conversation : her English is limited 

 and my Afrikaans does not amount to much. I once enquired 

 how old she was, and she replied, " Thirty-seven ". I knew 

 that her son was about forty so had to conclude that confusion 

 was caused by her lack of education in elementary mathematics. 



18 



