(Pickled Cabbages).
ittle 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.
Anyhow, there they were, skinning the soft yellow pulp, which does took nice, off the hard inside of the berry with their sharp little white teeth, and throwing the hard part at a kiwi wandering about below their tree, and thinking it great fun to watch his surprised face as he tried to dodge the berries.
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.
"Oh, Tiki, aren't you sick of eating the same old foods for ever and ever!"
"But what else could we eat?" he asked, "There isn't anything else!"