During that week she got to know her family, from the usual wards’ distrust of anyone outside their tight circle to their inherent thrift. Yes, thrift. Thrift was something they all eventually achieved. House-mothers and house-fathers perforce preached it—they had to. Every cent saved meant more wards, or more care for the existing ones, it was pumped into the children as soon as they arrived and every day after. Paddy smiled fondly and knowledgeably when she saw the pickaback soap. No wastage when a cake of soap grew thin, the thin wedge was pressed on to a new cake. It was always thus. She was looking at the three colours of the present soap when Magnus David strolled in one morning. Whatever else he had come to say was brushed aside. ‘What in Betsy is that?’ he demanded. ‘Pickaback soap.’ ‘Pickaback soap! A new product?' ‘As old as the hills,’ Paddy assured him. 'The hills here are very old, the terrain has been established as the oldest in the world.’ Then still as old, for I guess there were orphans at the time of the first Java men.’ ‘And they economized with pickaback soap?’ ‘Yes.
