“They are,” she said. “Most of them have had a bad start. Now things are going well for them. They know that we love them. That is all they need to know.” She paused, and looked out over the water. “In fact, Mma Ramotswe, that’s really all that a child needs to know—to know that it is loved. That is all.”

Again, thought Mma Ramotswe, that was true.

“And if there’s bad behaviour,” Mma Potokwane went on. “If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love. That always works, you know. People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself. And what’s the point of that?”

“Love,” mused Mma Ramotswe; such a small, powerful word.

Mma Potokwane’s stomach grumbled. “We must eat very soon. But, yes, love is the answer, Mma. Let me tell you about something that happened at the orphan farm. We had a child who was stealing from the food cupboard. Everybody knew that. The housemother in charge of that cupboard had seen the child do it. The other children knew.

“We talked to the child and told him that what he was doing was wrong. But still the stealing went on. And so we tried something different. We put a lock on the cupboard.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “That seems reasonable enough, Mma.”

“You may laugh,” said Mma Potokwane. “But then let me tell you what we did next. We gave the key to that child. All the children have little tasks that they must do. We put that boy in charge of the cupboard.”

“And?”

“And that stopped the stealing. Trust did it. We trusted him, and he knew it. So he stopped stealing. That was the end of the stealing.”

Mma Ramotswe was thinking. At the back of her mind there was something that she thought she might say to Mma Makutsi about this. But her thoughts were interrupted by one of the housemothers bringing them a large tin plate on which several pieces of fruit cake had been laid, along with a number of syrup sandwiches. The housemother handed the plate to Mma Ramotswe and went back to the children.

Mma Potokwane glanced at her friend. “I think that is for both of us, Mma,” she said anxiously.

“Of course,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Of course.”

They ate in silence, and contentment. The children, their mouths filled with syrup sandwiches, were quiet now, and again they could hear the birds.

“What we are trying to do with these children,” said Mma Potokwane suddenly, “is to give them good things to remember. We want to make so many good memories for them that the bad ones are pushed into a corner and forgotten.”

“That is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe.