Page:Brown·Bread·from·a·Colonial·Oven-Baughan-1912.pdf/21

 naughtily. Is it a good thing or not, that two of the Colonel’s old flannel shirts, Mrs. Cameron’s knitted petticoat, and Miria’s thickest dress, all of them upon her person at that moment, have no tongues? “Nobody give kai (food) even. What you got in your big kit?” she asks coaxingly. “Plenty big kit!”

“Ah, nothing at all. Only air. It’s just cramful of emptiness,” says the girl, sadly shaking her head. “What you got on your back in the bundle there? Plenty big bundle!”

It is useless, of course, to deny the existence of so plain a fact as that pumpkin. Why had not Pipi had the wit to hide it in the fern?

“On’y punkin,” she says, with a singular grimace, expressive at first of the contemptibility of all the pumpkin tribe, then changing instantly to a radiant recognition of their priceless worth, for her mind has been

“He fine punkin, big, big punkin,” she cries, and then, munificently, “You give me coat, I give you this big, big punkin!” She exhibits her treasure as one astounded at her own generosity.

The pakeha, however, seems astounded at it, too.

“Why!” says she, “my coat is worth at least three thousand pumpkins.”

Perhaps it is? Pipi tries to imagine three thousand pumpkins lying spread before her, with a view to assessing their value; but, not unnaturally, fails. Ah well! Bold bargaining is one weapon, but tactful yielding is another.