thin’, I do believe; for it hook-an’-eyed the Bay folk an’ the world. My word, though, how them natives did holler when that first steamer—the little Jane Seymour she were—come into the Bay of a windy mornin’! They’d a-seen ’em go past the Bay’s mouth often enough, to be sure; we all had; but they’d never seen one a-comin’ straight as a string for the head of the Bay in the teeth of a southerly wind. Made sure, they did, as it was Taipo a-comin’ for to carry ’em all away; an’ they let loose one yell out o’ thirty throats, an’ then up an’ away an’ back in the Bush, the quickest things on God’s round earth. They always thought as everythin’ they didn’t understand was Taipo; but, mind you, once finish their fright, an’ they’d tumble to an’ understand pretty quick. . . .
“Ever I tell you that there tale about the pigs? No? Well, it was after I was grown up, but afore I was married, an’ it was one year when we had a good lot o’ fine big pigs. We had a neighbour, too; Larry O’Neill was his name, an’ you can guess his nation; and father an’ he was partners that year in pig. Well, Larry, he wanted some pork one day, but what he didn’t want was to kill any o’ his an’ ours; so what does he do, but he hollers out a pum’kin, one o’ them long yeller kind, an’ cuts slits in the rind, two for eyes, one straight down for nose, an’ another for mouth straight across; an’ then, at night, he puts a candle inside of this here pum’kin, lights it, an’ goes, very soft, up close to the fence of the Maori pa; an’ there he begins to groan, an’ to whine, an’ to whimper, an’ to screech, an’ to make in general the most ungodly noises you ever did hear; an’ then, when the
