You are doing a great deal of good in the place where you are. The head cook tells me that you are always up in good season, neat and tidy, quick and obliging, and that it is a great comfort to her to have so capable and good a girl to help her. And I do not suppose there is a person in the whole company that does more good than you do, or contributes more to the comfort and enjoyment of the whole family.
And it is God, my dear child, who put you in your lot, and he it is that requires you to be obedient to those that have rule, and to be cheerful, industrious and content with your lot. Think of these things when you feel troubled, and go and pray to God to help you put away all proud, and envious, and discontented feelings, and then I am sure you will never feel or look so troubled about this matter again.
Now Sarah was a good, and generous, and grateful girl, and when the minister talked so kindly to her, she told him she had been feeling wrong, and that she would try to follow his advice. And then when he shook hands with her, and gave her his blessing, she told him that he was the best and kindest friend she had in the world.
And so she went in to her work, and soon the good man heard her chatting and singing with her friend Emily, as cheerful and busy as a bee.
Difficulties experienced by the shipwrecked company, and how these were remedied.
In the following letter I shall tell you of some trouble that these shipwrecked persons met, in following out their new plan of life.
After they had spent several months in doing up the work which past neglect had made needful, and after the harvest was gathered in, the good minister found many evils coming upon them, for want of enough work to keep them all busy. Idleness is the parent of a thousand evils and vices, and therefore something he saw must be devised, in order to keep all hands employed.
The company came together to talk over this matter. At this meeting it was stated that their clothing and furniture were going to destruction even with careful use, and that as more must be provided soon, this might afford employment to idle hands. It was then urged by some of the company that they should take what wool they could get from their sheep, and what flax they could raise, and make a kind of coarse and strong cloth called _linsey woolsey_, and then all might dress alike, and thus there would be no more trouble about some having better clothes than others. But it soon was shown that this would not remedy the difficulty about employment. For such coarse and strong clothing would last so long, that all those who now had employment in making and mending and refitting and in doing fine sewing, would be thrown out of employ.