Chapter 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!