And when they wouldn't answer she persisted in following them, flitting in her restless way from tree to tree, sometimes darting ahead of them, sometimes circling round them, and never ceasing to cry inquisitively:
"Whit—Whit—Whit—What? What? What? What?"
On the very edge of the bush, however, she hesitated. She had been born in the bush, and was used only to its cool green shade, and the glare of the sun on the outside world rather scared her. So after hanging about for a time to see what the Piccaninnies intended doing, she flitted away after a large blue fly, and while she was busy Tiki and Swanki gave her the slip. They, too, had been rather dismayed at the glare of the sun and the shelterless look of the outside world, but Tiki said that the Pickled Cabbage trees were not far away; he had seen them once when he had climbed to the top of a rata tree, and a bush pigeon had told him the name of them.
So, shrinking a little and keeping a sharp look-out for enemies in case they had need to "drop dead" and pretend to be a dead stick or leaf, they ran on hand in hand, and came after a time to the edge of the swamp.
"There!" said Tiki proudly, "there are the Pickled Cabbage trees."
There were quite a number of them, tall slim trees with long bare trunks and a crown of long, narrow leaves at the top.
"We must climb to the top to find the cabbages," said Swanki; but though they had done a lot of climbing in their day, it was usually up trees with plenty of branches and twigs to help them.
They found it very hard to get a grip with their little, bare, brown knees on the long, smooth trunks, and Tiki frowned thoughtfully at his tree as he slid down for the fifth time.
"You give me a leg up first," said Swanki, "and when I'm up I'll give you one," which was rather a silly thing to say when you come to think of it.
However, you can do most things if you try hard enough, and Swanki, seeing how the last year's jackets of the cicadas, which they had quite grown out of, were clinging to the Cabbage trees with their tiny claws, slipped her hands and feet into a set of them and through this clever idea of hers was able to climb right up the trunk, followed by Tiki, who was busy all the time trying to explain that he had just been going to think of the plan himself.