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! II. And then one day some one in a picnic party left a scrap of paper blowing about--you know the horrid way picnic parties have!--and a Piccaninny found it. [Illustration: "To be sure they were looking at the pictures upside down, but that made no real difference."] As luck would have it, it was a girl Piccaninny; had it been a boy he would simply have torn it up and made paper darts with it to throw at the other boys, and no harm would have been done. _But girls are different!_ [Illustration: "Teasing the great, sleepy, round-eyed morepork."] She smoothed it out and looked at it carefully, and then she called the other girls to look at it. And soon there was such a clattering and chattering that the boys came racing that way to see if the girls had found anything good to eat. You know boys! The scrap of paper was a page out of a fashion book, and there were pictures on it of horrid little smug-faced boys in sky-blue suits bowling hoops in a way no real little boy ever bowled a hoop in his life, and simpering little girls in lace frocks holding dolls or sun-shades in un-natural attitudes. But the Piccaninnies were delighted. To be sure they were looking at the pictures upside down, but that made no real difference. They decided they must have clothes too. Of course the boys said pooh they wouldn't! It's much easier to slide down a fern-leaf, or jump off the end of a branch if you haven't any clothes--everyone knows that. But when the girls, after being absent for hours, came back all in darling little crimson kilts made out of blossoms from the Christmas tree, the boys simply couldn't bear to think the girls had something they hadn't got. You know what boys are!