Piccaninnies

Piccaninnies, by Isabel Maud
Peacocke

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Title: Piccaninnies
Author: Isabel Maud Peacocke
Illustrator: Trevor Lloyd
Release Date: November 29, 2006 [EBook #19962]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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PICCANINNIES ***

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[Illustration: "They made strings of the scarlet nikau berries, and hung
them round their necks."]

PICCANINNIES
BY
ISABEL MAUD PEACOCKE
Author of "Songs of the Happy Isles." "My Friend Phil." "Robin of the
Round House." "The Bonny Books of Humorous Verse," etc.
Illustrated by TREVOR LLOYD

WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED
Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, N.Z. Melbourne and
London

DEDICATED
TO
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

I.
CHRISTMAS TREE. (Pohutukawa).
Long ago the Piccaninnies didn't have a rag to their backs except a huia
feather which they wore in their hair. They were the jolliest, tubbiest,
brownest babies you ever saw with tiny nubbly knobs on their
shoulders, as if they had started to grow wings and then changed their
minds about it, and little furry pointed ears, as all wild creatures have.
Only these were not wild, but very, very shy.
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.

And then People began to come about, so tiresome! They began to
make houses, sell things in shops, tear about in big boxes on wheels,
and send great, clattering, shrieking, puffing monsters rushing through
the country, dropping smoke and cinders like anything. There was such
a clatter and a chatter, such gabbling and babbling, such hammering
and banging and laughing and crying, and hurry and scurry and rush
that it was enough to drive one crazy. There was such a fuss, the
Piccaninnies simply couldn't stand it, and they fled to the Bush. Well,
wouldn't you, with all that going on?
And there they lived a long time. What fun they had swinging on the
giant fern leaves, climbing the trees, chasing the fantails, riding the
kiwis, who are very good-natured, though shy, and teasing the great,
sleepy round-eyed morepork, who is so stupid and owlish in the
daytime.
And then People came into the Bush! Did you ever!
The Piccaninnies took to the trees altogether then, and no wonder!
II.
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.
[Illustration: "To be sure they were looking at the pictures upside down,
but that made no real difference."]
As luck would have it, it was a girl Piccaninny; had it been a boy he
would simply have torn it up and made paper darts with it to throw at
the other boys, and no harm would have been done. But girls are
different!
[Illustration: "Teasing the great, sleepy, round-eyed morepork."]
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