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 PIVI AND KABO

birds were men, and men were birds, Pivi and Kabo lived in an island far away, called New Caledonia. Pivi was a cheery little bird that chirps at sunset; Kabo was an ugly black fowl that croaks in the darkness. One day Pivi and Kabo thought that they would make slings, and practise slinging, as the people of the island still do. So they went to a banyan tree, and stripped the bark to make strings for their slings, and next they repaired to the river bank to find stones. Kabo stood on the bank of the river, and Pivi went into the water. The game was for Kabo to sling at Pivi, and for Pivi to dodge the stones, if he could. For some time he dodged them cleverly, but at last a stone from Kabo’s sling hit poor Pivi on the leg and broke it. Down went Pivi into the stream, and floated along it, till he floated into a big hollow bamboo, which a woman used for washing her sweet potatoes.

‘What is that in my bamboo?’ said the woman. And she blew in at one end, and blew little Pivi out at the other, like a pea from a pea-shooter.

‘Oh!’ cried the woman, ‘what a state you are in! What have you been doing?’

‘It was Kabo who broke my leg at the slinging game,’ said Pivi.

‘Well, I am sorry for you,’ said the woman; ‘will you come with me, and do what I tell you?’

‘I will!’ said Pivi, for the woman was very kind and pretty. She took Pivi into a shed where she kept her fruit, laid him on a bed of mats, and made him as