The very next day, a decree was sent out across the Land that called for each man and woman and every child above the age of seven to contribute two days a week in labour to building the Palace from the finest materials available in the Land. It was explained that this would be for the good of all and that there was no choice in the matter, because the penalty for the non-observance of the law would be immediate imprisonment and forced labour. Repeated infringements would lead to expulsion.

This news caused great consternation. As things had grown so difficult in the Land, most families were feeding themselves, rather meagrely, from their own kitchen gardens. Raising all the food they needed to eat called for a lot of work as the winters could be long and harsh and the growing season was brief. As it was, they were all barely managing to make ends meet and the winter was a daunting prospect indeed. How would they be able to get all their work done if they also had to spend two full days a week working on the Palace? How would the children learn how to read and write if they had to miss two full days of lessons every week? As it was, they were spending much of the day helping to grow food rather than studying or playing. Everyone knew that the punishment for failing to observe the law was to be banished, and nobody wanted that, so it seemed as though they had no choice at all in the matter. They all knew that when the Bureaucrat-in-Chief made threats, he invariably followed through with them and that they had no option other than to obey the law as best they could.

“You will find that the State is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Seeing the dreadful difficulties that the people of her Land found themselves in now, Ruby thought about the story that she had learned from her great-grandmother twelve years earlier. She had never forgotten it and had often recounted the tale to herself. Somehow it seemed to be especially relevant in this case and Ruby felt that everyone might benefit from hearing it. Ruby thought about the lessons the story contained and decided that she knew how the people could do the work they had been ordered to do by the Bureaucrat-in-Chief and still achieve the rest of their goals. Yes, she decided, she would apply the lesson of Stone Soup to the problems facing the people. She would tell the story to the biggest audience that she could summon.