NGAROPI A small portrait of a typical Maori child with all her simplicity yet artfulness, her humour and charm, and the environment from which she springs. by B. L. TURNER Illustrated by Evelyn Clouston I was at the back door bashing the tops off old apple cases to make some rickety but nevertheless efficient seed boxes, and, considering myself unobserved, was holding a rather silly and mostly one-sided conversation with my very small daughter. There was a bang at the water-tanks and I jumped about two feet in the air. “What you doing, Mis' Thomas?” It was Ngaropi, from the most notorious house of the row opposite—(it was whispered that there were seventeen children in the house; but not all of the one family, of course). “I'm making some boxes to grow seeds in,” I replied. This was met with a non-committal grin. “That lady says she can get puha,” said Ngaropi. “Who is it?” I squinted at the bent figure digging at the lawn with a knife. “That's all right. She knows she can get some when she wants it”. “Are you having a holiday, Ngaropi?” I asked her sarcastically. “I've got a sore tummy”, she replied. “You don't look very sick, shouldn't you be in bed?” “Oh, I'm not going back to school, I've left”. “How old are you, then?” “Fifteen,” replied this small eleven-year-old. I regarded this as wishful thinking and ignored it. “Can I have a ride on you fellas' bike?” she asked. “All right, as long as you don't go too far”. And that was the last I saw of her for an hour or so. I was hanging out a line of my child's innumerable panties when Ngaropi panted up the path wheeling the bicycle. “Did you go far?” I asked her. “Way round Taheke”, she answered. She put the bike down right where it was most in the way and sauntered into the wash-house-cum-bathroom that graces our modest home. “Beauty bathroom”, she sighed. My eye wandered over the thin and patchy paint to the grey smoke smudge on the wall above the kerosene lamp and I sighed also. “What's that?” she asked, pointing to the wringer. “A wringer. Haven't you fellas got one over there?” I slipped into the dialect as I usually do after a few minutes' conversation with the local children. “Oh, we just screw the things in our hands, eh,” said Ngaropi. I carted the last of the washing out, pegged it up, chased the baby to rescue various soggy bits of clothing which she filched from the basket and went inside to find Ngaropi making a tour of inspection of the house. “You and Mr Thomas sleep ther, eh?” she said, admiring our bed. “Yes,” I answered.