in a wrapping of closely fastened blanket. The nurse rummaged in her pocket and brought out a pair of scissors. She snipped away the stitches which held the blanket tightly sealed. She peeled the blanket away and revealed a bright aluminium container. ‘Well I never!’ she exclaimed. A close observer might have thought her less surprised than she sounded. The old man was no close observer. He showed not the slightest interest. Using the blanket to protect her hands the nurse carefully opened the container. An appetising smell permeated the ward. ‘My!’ The nurse sniffed, appreciately. ‘Well, of all the things for that Maori woman to bring you!’ She sniffed again, a Bisto sniff. ‘Well, I never!’ Odour, sniff and exclamation aroused the old man's faint curiosity. ‘Show me?’ he demanded. He raised himself slowly and weakly on his elbows. The nurse held the container down, low, where he could see it. Steam rose from it. A delicious smell, doubly delicious to the old man, emanated from it. On a plate inside the aluminium container lay a steaming hot mixed grill; a small piece of steak, a piece of kidney, half a sausage, a small cutlet, all swimming in rich, steaming gravy. ‘Try just a weeny-teeny bit,’ coaxed the nurse. ‘It looks lovely.’ Slowly the old man shook his head. He lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes. The nurse looked at him, puzzled. Tears coursed down his sunken cheeks, but there was a smile on his lips, the first she had seen since he came into the ward. He looked different, somehow. Calm and peaceful and, somehow, triumphant. Even as she watched he fell sound asleep, still smiling. ‘I believe the old Maori gentleman's taken a turn for the better,’ she reported to the ward sister. The first annual poukai to be held outside the Waikato took place at Kokohinau Pa, Te Teko, last January. Close on 2,000 people, including Princess Piki, were present.

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