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Ebook has 152 lines and 8724 words, and 4 pages

Illustrator: Trevor Lloyd

PICCANINNIES

ISABEL MAUD PEACOCKE

Illustrated by TREVOR LLOYD

WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED

Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, N.Z. Melbourne and London

DEDICATED

MY LITTLE GOD-DAUGHTER

JOAN LUSK

TE KUITI, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

If your heart is pure, and your eyes are clear, And you come the one right day of the year, And eat of the fruit of the Magic Tree The wee Bush Folk you will surely see.

In the green and woody places, Thickets shady, sunlit spaces, Have you never heard us calling, When the golden eve is falling-- When the noon-day sun is beaming-- When the silver moon is gleaming? Have you never seen us dancing-- Through the mossy tree-boles glancing? Have you never caught us gliding Through the tall ferns? laughing--hiding? We are here, we are there-- We are everywhere; Swinging on the tree tops, floating in the air; Hush! Hush! Hush! Creep into the Bush, You will find us everywhere.

If you would see, First bathe your eyes, In dew that lies On the bracken tree.

If you would hear Our elfin mirth To Mother Earth Lay down your ear.

A-many have come with their bright eyes clear, And their young hearts pure, but--alas! Oh dear! They've made a mistake in the day of the year.

Piccaninnies

CHRISTMAS TREE. .

Where did they live? Oh, just anywhere--all about; among the fern, in the long grass, down on the sands, in all the places babies love to roll about in.

The Piccaninnies took to the trees altogether then, and no wonder!

And then one day some one in a picnic party left a scrap of paper blowing about--you know the horrid way picnic parties have!--and a Piccaninny found it.

She smoothed it out and looked at it carefully, and then she called the other girls to look at it. And soon there was such a clattering and chattering that the boys came racing that way to see if the girls had found anything good to eat. You know boys!

The scrap of paper was a page out of a fashion book, and there were pictures on it of horrid little smug-faced boys in sky-blue suits bowling hoops in a way no real little boy ever bowled a hoop in his life, and simpering little girls in lace frocks holding dolls or sun-shades in un-natural attitudes.

But the Piccaninnies were delighted. To be sure they were looking at the pictures upside down, but that made no real difference.

They decided they must have clothes too.

Of course the boys said pooh they wouldn't! It's much easier to slide down a fern-leaf, or jump off the end of a branch if you haven't any clothes--everyone knows that.

But when the girls, after being absent for hours, came back all in darling little crimson kilts made out of blossoms from the Christmas tree, the boys simply couldn't bear to think the girls had something they hadn't got. You know what boys are!

After laughing at the girls in the hopes they'd throw away their pretty little frocks, the boys went off together. They simply had to think of something, and it would never do to copy the girls. They came back later with the quaintest little breeches, made out of broad flax leaves, stitched together with the points downwards. It was clever of the boys! They had also stuck some of the red-brown flowers in their hair. The girls were vexed that they hadn't thought of that, but they went one better. They made strings of the scarlet nikau berries and hung them round their necks.

And that was how Fashions came to be started in the Bush.

CLEMATIS.

Of course fashions change, and no one need be surprised to find that crimson kilts were soon "out," while the Piccaninny girls were to be seen walking about in pretty little white, frilly petticoats made out of clematis blossoms, and sun hats of the same flowers.

The hats were rather silly, because the Piccaninnies lived so deep in the Bush that the sun couldn't hurt them, but then fashions are absurd.

For some reason the boys didn't like the girls' change of frocks. Of course, they said, the girls would never play with them now, but the girls said oh yes, they would. The boys said:

"You'd be scared to play berry fights like we used to."

But the girls said, as brave as could be:

"Would we?"

And the boys answered:

"Let's see you then!"

So they all ran off and collected puriri berries, big purply red ones, rather squashy. Then the boys all yelled in chorus:

which means something very warlike, and the girls answered shrilly:

They said that because they had heard that someone had said that sometime about something, and it means "we will fight for ever and ever."

But they didn't! At the very first volley the berries stained their dainty frocks, and the girls fled, screaming angrily:

"You horrid things! You've ruined our frocks!"

And the boys grinning delightedly, and rolling their black eyes, thumped their little brown heels on the ground, and beat their little bare, brown knees and chanted all together:

And of course you all know what that means! You don't? Well, I'm not quite sure myself, because I couldn't find it in the dictionary but it really doesn't matter.

CABBAGE PALM.

Little Swanki, the Piccaninny girl, and Tiki, the Piccaninny boy, were up in a karaka tree eating the pulp of the ripe berries. When I was young I was told I would die if I ate the karaka berries, but I suppose Piccaninny tummies are different.

Swanki had just eaten her fourteenth berry and was reaching for the fifteenth, when she sighed discontentedly.

"Oh, Tiki," she said, "aren't you sick and tired of eating the same old foods for ever and ever? Berries--berries--berries! Roots--roots--roots! And only a few leaves that are worth eating."

But Tiki was a contented little boy, and he couldn't think of anything nicer to eat than a handful of ripe puriri berries, or the root of a young fern.

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