Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
96 
employ about the station were residents of the 
village. This seemed to satisfy the authorities 
and all promised well. 
At noon I went out to the cookhouse to see 
how my chef was getting on. He had taken 
off his coat and shirt, but was still sitting down, 
playing an accordion to an audience of a dozen 
young women, all more or less in a state of 
deshabille —even for Niue women. They fled 
wildly the moment I appeared. 
“ Moemoe, who are those girls ? Why did 
you let them come in here ? ” 
Oh, they were cousins of his, he said, and 
had come to see him make bread. And he 
wanted to begin work at once. And would I 
mind if some of the girls helped him in the 
kitchen ? Minea was good at cleaning knives, 
Toria wanted to mend a hole in the floor mat, 
Kahe said she would like to help him peel the 
yams and taro, and Talamaheke—the girl with 
the wreath of orange blossoms—wanted to wash 
up the plates ; the others were willing to make 
themselves generally useful. Here he was 
interrupted by a face, apparently his double, 
appearing at the kitchen window, and the angry 
exclamation of “ Liar ! ” 
