Piccaninnies, Page 2
Isabel M. Peacocke
Someone exclaimed suddenly:
"Oh, look at that horrid brown insect. It must have come from the teatree. Fetch the brush and dustpan."
And someone else cried excitedly:
"Kill it! Kill it!"
But a third someone said quite calmly:
"Nonsense! It's quite harmless!"
Then a huge bristly thing fell upon him, and smothered and gasping hefelt himself swept along, and then flying through the air. Again he fellwith a thud upon something hard, but it was only the hardness of thegood brown earth, and the tall green grass closed protectingly over him.
You may be sure he lost no time in scuttling back to the bush, and hedidn't hunt tuis again for many a long day.
~Bush Babies~
KOWHAI BLOSSOM.
_The Bush Babies lie In cradles of gold; They haven't a stitch, But they never take cold; For the golden flowers, And the golden sun, And the golden smiles Upon everyone-- Keep the world warm and bright And flooded with light For the Bush Babies In their cradles of gold._
The Bush Babies come out of the kowhai flowers. They are the prettiestlittle things--fair as lilies with golden ringlets, and little goldenpeaked caps, bent over like a horn upon their heads. I don't think theywear anything else much, just an odd little fluff of green here andthere, like stray feathers that have stuck to them.
"They haven't a stitch, But they never take cold."]
The Piccaninnies love to play with them; indeed, they're favourites witheveryone, and it's the prettiest sight in the world at early morning, tosee each Bush Baby crawling out of its cradle flower on its littletummy, yawning or smiling or stretching, or blinking at the light withround sleepy eyes.
But you would never get up early enough to see that.
They tell a story in the Bush about a Bush Baby and a Piccaninny--andlaugh about it to this day. The Piccaninny told the Bush Baby that hewould find some honey for her. Now the Bush Babies love honey betterthan anything else in the world, so she put her hand in his sweetly andoff they set.
They came to the edge of the swamp where the tall branching flax flowersgrow (the flax is not in flower when the kowhai is, but I can't spoil mystory for that), and every flax flower was alive with birds, dipping,and sipping the honey, so the two little creatures wandered off again.
The Piccaninny led the Bush Baby to several other flowers, but at everyone some bird or insect would edge them away, crying out:
"We got here first!"
"The Bush Lawyer, the most spiteful plant in the bush."]
At last the Bush Baby began to cry. They are very young and tenderthings, these Babies, and this one had been caught and scratched by theBush Lawyer, the most spiteful plant in the Bush, and had nearly falleninto a creek, and the peak of its cap was dangling into its eye, and itwas a long way from home.
To comfort it the Piccaninny put his little brown arms right round itand loved it, and they both sat down on a fallen tree to rest while hewiped its eyes with a soft green leaf--they didn't know about pockethandkerchiefs yet.
_Oh!_ The next moment out of a hole in the tree flew a swarm of angrybees, with humming wings and large fierce eyes and tails curved down tostrike.
The Bush Baby was so astonished that she fell off the log, and there shelay face down on the green moss, so still that the bees took her for afallen kowhai blossom and droned away from her.
But the Piccaninny ran for his life, with all the bees after him, andwhen the noise of their angry buzzing had died away, the Bush Baby gotup and had a rare feast of honey, and went back home very sticky andblissful and contented.
As for the Piccaninny, who had escaped the bees, by lying down andpretending to be a Tea Tree Jack (they call that camouflage now), heonly sniffed when they told him about it, and said:
"Pooh! I knew that honey was there all the time. I said I'd find hersome and I did!"
_How like a boy!_
_When the tree of gold Turns a tree of green, The dear Bush Babies Are no more seen. To fields of gold They have gaily run, And are lost in the light Of the golden sun; Or caught in the mist Of gold that lies Like a net of dreams On Day's sleepy eyes. But behold! next year They are here! They are here! They come trooping back Down the wander-track, Like rays of light In the forest old, And the green tree turns To a tree of gold._
HOHERIA BLOSSOM.
Do you know the Lovely Ladies of the Bush? They swing onthe tips of the Hoheria tree, with their floating white gowns andtossing silvery ringlets, and are so light and graceful that they floaton the wind as they swing. If you could _only_ see the Lovely Ladiesdancing! But very few have been lucky enough for that!
They dance on the wind, holding to the tips of the Hoheria and theirwhite gowns flutter and swirl, and their ringlets float and sway, andsometimes in the joy of the dance a Lovely Lady lets go of her branchand comes fluttering down to earth.
Then she can dance no more, but lies very still. It is rather sad,because once she has let go she may not go back and dance on the treefor a whole long year, and it is looked on rather as a disgrace to bethe first to fall.
However, she has not to wait long for company. For one by one, theLovely Ladies, wild with the joy of the mazy dance, the soft rush ofthe wind and the laughing and clapping of the little leaves, loose theirhold, and drift to earth light as thistle-down, and that is the end oftheir dancing for that year. Where do they go to while the year goes by?I have never found out, but I think it most likely that they go to theplace they came from.
The Lovely Ladies have a song which they and the wind sing together asthey dance, and the way it is sung makes everyone that hears it, mad todance too. This is it:
"_The wind is shaking the Hoheria tree, Cling, Maidens, cling!" "I'll dance with you if you'll dance with me, Swing, Maidens, swing!" "So up with a windy rush we go, Floating, fluttering, to and fro," "Sing for the joy of it, Maidens, Oh! Sing, Maidens, sing!_"
The Piccaninnies simply love to watch the Lovely Ladies dancing, andlong to be able to dance in the same way. When they hear the song, theirlittle brown toes go fidgeting among the moss and leaves, and theirheads nod-nodding to the air.
"They dance on the wind."]
"They began working themselves up and down like mad."]
Once they found a Hoheria tree after all the Lovely Ladies had left it,and now, they thought, was their chance. They swarmed all over the tree,clutched the tips of the delicate branches, and began working themselvesup and down like mad.
It was great fun, but with their chubby little brown bodies, short legs,and shock heads, it did not look quite the same thing, and three BushBabies riding that way on a good-natured kiwi, laughed so much (and eventhe kiwi, which is a grave bird, looked up and smiled) that thePiccaninnies, feeling rather foolish, dropped to the the ground and ranaway and hid in the fern.
THE GREAT RED ENEMY.
One day one of those tiresome picnic parties came againto the bush, and after a great deal of stupid and rather terrifyingnoise, during which every Piccaninny and Bush Baby and all the otherbush folk lay hidden away in utter silence, the people all went awayagain, and the Wee Folk were free to come out of their hiding places andturn over curiously the few things the party had left.
There was an empty meat tin which flashed so brightly that thePiccaninnies took it for a helmet, and each in turn tried to wear it;but it was so big that it simply hid them altogether, so veryregretfully they had to throw it away. Then there were a few crusts ofbread which quite by accident one of the boys discovered to be good toeat. They finished every crumb of the bread and enjoyed it, but on thewhole agreed that fern root tasted nicer. There was an empty bottlethat nobody dared go near, for they thought it was some kind of gun, anda baby's woollen bootee, which the Piccaninnies found most useful as anenormous bag to be filled with berries. But most mysterious, andtherefore most interesting, though a little frightening, was a largeheap of grey smoking ashes where the picnic fire had been.
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The Piccaninnies circled round and round this queer grey pile wonderingwhat on earth it could be. One boy venturing a little nearer than theothers trod on a live cinder, for the fire was not as dead as it oughtto have been, and jumped back howling and hopping round and round on onefoot, holding the other.
When they crowded round him asking what had happened he cried in fear:
"The Red Enemy bit me. He lives under that grey mound, and I saw his redeye flash as I went near. That is his breath you see rising up throughthe trees."
The Piccaninnies looked frightened and backed away from the grey mound,but all the rest of that evening they came again and again to stare uponthe Red Enemy, and each time they came his red eyes seemed to flashbrighter, his thick white breath to grow denser as it wound up throughthe trees, and he seemed to be purring and growling to himself.
"All the rest of the evening they came again and again tostare upon the Red Enemy."]
When the Piccaninnies went to bed that night they were very uneasy andcould not sleep well. The sound of the Red Enemy's breathing seemed tofill the bush with a low roaring, and his breath stole in and out of thetrees like a reddish mist; the air was very hot and dry. One of thePiccaninnies, a brave little fellow, said that he would go and see whattheir strange new enemy was doing, and sliding down his sleeping-tree heset off.
He had not gone far before the heat and the stifling air drove him hack,and rushing back to his friends he cried:
"Run for your lives! Quick! Quick! The Great Red Enemy is coming. He isroaring with anger and tearing the trees down as he comes. None of uscan hope to escape him, for he has a million bright red eyes which hesends flying through the bush in all directions to find us, and hisbreath is so thick that we will be lost in it if we don't run now. Run!Run!"
The Piccaninnies did not wait to be told twice. Without waiting to packup they slid down the trees and started to run through the dark bush,and soon there were hundreds of little bush creatures all joining in therace for life.
On, on they ran in fear and excitement, hearing the angry roaring of theGreat Red Enemy behind them, feeling his hot breath scorching them as itwrithed and twisted through the trees in reddish-black billows. Some ofhis millions of angry, red searching eyes flew or drifted past them, butthey never stopped for a moment. And now they had left the trees behindthem and were running over clear ground, and before long they reachedthe edge of the swamp, lying dark and cool before them.
In their haste and fear they all plunged in headlong and found the waterso fresh and cool and delightful after their heat and hurry, that theyburrowed deeper into it, only leaving their little black heads stickingout.
All that night they lay and watched the Great Red Enemy in his wrathworrying and tearing their poor trees to pieces, and all next day andthe next it lasted, and then nothing was left of their beautiful bushbut a few black, ugly stumps and a great grey waste of ashes.
And from the ashes rose the smoking dense breath of the Red Enemy, andevery now and then he flashed an angry red eye. The Piccaninnies who hadlived in that part of the bush could never again return to the coolgreen shades of the forest, never slide down a fern leaf, or swing onthe branches, or pick puriri berries, or pelt the morepork in thedaytime.
What could they do? Where could they go? Poor, poor little Piccaninnies!
Well, this is what they did. Having no home to go to, and finding thewater very delightful they decided to make their home in it. At firstthey would only stay timidly near the edges where the water was notdeep, but by-and-by through living entirely in the water they grewwebbed-toes (you try it!) and became as much at home in the swamp as anyother water-creature. Some of them even grew elegant little tails(believe me or not, as you choose!) and they became known in the swampas the Teenywiggles, and some day you may hear something more of thedoings of the Teenywiggles.
* * * * *
Charming Booklets by Isabel Maud Peacocke (illustrated by Trevor Lloyd)
Piccaninnies
a bewitchingly fanciful and humorous fairy story in a setting of NewZealand plant and bird life. 1/6
Bonny Books of Humorous Verse
These two booklets of amusing verses on topics peculiar to childhoodwill delight both young and old. 1/6
Miss Peacocke's quaint humour is delightfully engaging, and Mr. Lloyd'sdrawings are no less droll and pleasing.
* * * * *
Dainty Booklets by Edith Howes (illustrated by Alice Poison)
Wonderwings, and other Fairy Stories
Three entrancing fairy stories by New Zealand's popular author ofjuvenile literature. 1/6
Little Make-Believe
a companion booklet to "Wonderwings," also containing three delightfulfairy stories. 1/6
Miss Howes's stories are at once entertaining and uplifting. Every oneis written with a lofty purpose.
