Page:Swahili tales.djvu/47

Rh the rice has got cold." "Dish up quickly, I want to go to sleep."

The woman went into the kitchen and dished up the rice quickly, and laid for her husband, and brought water for washing. Her husband washed his hands and said, "Call the children, that we may eat our food."

"Ah! my husband, have you no ears? Always the same words over and over. Are the children to sit still when the food is cooked, and wait for you when you come back from work, till one o'clock? The girls would die of hunger, but I, I cook quickly, on purpose that these girls may eat in good time and not get hungry. And then you, every day when you come back from work, call the children to eat with them. Do you want to give them food twice or three times; what does all this mean?"

"Oh, mistress, I had not heard that the children had eaten already; well, mistress, if I had heard it, should I have called them a second time? But I said they have not yet eaten, that was why I called for them; now that they have eaten, that will do. Wash your hands, and let us eat."

The woman went and washed and came back, and they ate. And she said, "It is your custom, my husband, when you come you must call the children, and say to the children, come and eat; and the usual thing in a house is first to ask the wife, it is she who [stays] in the house, and it is she who knows everything that is cooked and not cooked, and who has had enough and who is hungry, for it is the wife who knows, for she is the cook, and she it is who dishes up the food; well then, my husband, when you come it is according to the custom for you to ask me, for this is why you leave your house to me, because I understand it, and it is I who am your wife."

"Well, my wife, forgive me for what I said, and for what I was wrong in; what you say is according to the rule,