Little 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. [Illustration: "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!" "Of course there is--lots and lots," answered Swanki. "There's mince pie and ham sandwiches and jam tarts and vinegar and plum duff and cakes and pickled cabbages." [Illustration: "So they all ran off and collected puriri berries."] Tiki stared at Swanki in amazement; he had never even heard of these foods, and thought she must be wonderfully clever to know all about them. Sly little Swanki did not tell him that she had lately been hidden in a hollow tree stump near a picnic party which had come into the bush, and that she had heard the people offering these strange foods to one another, and they sounded as though they might be more interesting than just berries--berries--berries--roots--roots--roots. And that is always the way,--something we haven't got always seems more worth having than the things we have. When Tiki had recovered from his surprise he remembered one familiar word in Swanki's list of things to eat, and as he was always ready to please, he said: "Swanki, I don't know where the mince pie and plum duff and--and vinegar trees grow, but I can show you the pickled cabbage trees all right." "Oh, Tiki, can you?" cried Swanki. "Then let's go at once. I'm longing for some pickled cabbage." "It's a long way," said Tiki, doubtfully, "a long, long way to go;" (though he'd never heard of the popular song, which shows how easy it must be to write those songs). But Swanki said it didn't matter how far it was; the sooner they started, the sooner they'd be there, which was true in a way. They slid down the tree, and having persuaded the kiwi to give them a lift, which was pretty cool of them, considering, they set off and travelled in fine style for some way.