strictly clean, the workers must also keep their houses and gardens in
faultless order, for the sake of the children. Nothing less than an
earthquake, an eruption, an inundation, or a desperate war, is allowed to
interrupt the daily routine of dusting, sweeping, scrubbing, and
disinfecting.



IV


Now for stranger facts:--


This world of incessant toil is a more than Vestal world. It is true that
males can sometimes be perceived in it; but they appear only at particular
seasons, and they have nothing whatever to do with the workers or with the
work. None of them would presume to address a worker,-- except, perhaps,
under extraordinary circumstances of common peril. And no worker would
think of talking to a male;-- for males, in this queer world, are inferior
beings, equally incapable of fighting or working, and tolerated only as
necessary evils. One special class of females,-- the Mothers-Elect of the
race,-- do condescend to consort with males, during a very brief period, at
particular seasons. But the Mothers-Elect do not work; and they most accept
husbands. A worker could not even dream of keeping company with a male,--
not merely because such association would signify the most frivolous waste
of time, nor yet because the worker necessarily regards all males with
unspeakable contempt; but because the worker is incapable of wedlock. Some
workers, indeed, are capable of parthenogenesis, and give birth to children
who never had fathers. As a general rule, however, the worker is truly