One morning, a few weeks after our Willeroo scare, Bett-Bett came scampering up from the creek as fast as her thin little legs would carry her.

“Missus! Missus!” she shouted, “Topsy bin catch newfellow piccaninny boy, Topsy bin catch newfellow piccaninny boy,” and she sank down in a little breathless heap beside me.

Fast on her heels came some of the camp lubras bringing me an invitation to the christening party.

“You eye,” they gasped, “him bin catch him alright,” and then they told me that Topsy, Sambo’s lubra, wanted me to come and see it, and christen it with a white man’s name. “Topsy bin talk, spose Missus come on, give piccaninny whitefellow name.”

Of course I went at once, taking a good supply of “chewbac” and a big red handkerchief, for we did not have a christening every day. Besides, I was curious to see this baby, for I had not yet seen a very tiny piccaninny.

Sambo met us at the creek, grinning widely with delight. We gave the proud father a new pipe and some “chewbac,” and he tried hard to grin a little wider in thanks, but found that even a blackfellow’s grin has its limits. Topsy was sitting among the lubras, and looked round when she heard us approaching, On her knee was her eldest son “Bittertwine,” a chubby little rascal about two years old. Beside her lay a coolamun, nearly filled with fresh green leaves and grass. As I came nearer she lifted up some of the leaves and showed me the tiniest, tiniest atom of a baby lying sound asleep; cool, and safe from flies, in its pretty leafy cradle.

I stood for some minutes, too astonished to speak, for instead of the shiny jet-black piccaninny I had expected, I found one just about the colour of honey.

“What name, Topsy?” I asked at last. “Him close up whitefellow, I think.”

“No more, Missus,” she answered, touching the little sleeping baby lovingly. “Him blackfellow alright. Look, Missus, him blackfellow alright,” she added, showing me one thin jet-black line running right round the mouth and others round the eyes and nails.

Then the lubras all joined in, and explained that a little black baby when it is first born, is always of a very light golden brown but with thin black lines, just as this baby had. They said that steadily and surely these lines would widen and spread till in a few days he would be like all other shiny black piccaninnies.

“All day likee that, Missus,” they assured me in chorus, so I put a handful of tobacco in the baby’s cradle, and spread a big red handkerchief on top. I said he was a man baby and Mr. Thunder Debbil-debbil would be delighted to see he had a nice red handkerchief. The lubras laughed merrily at this, and the old men smiled on the Missus with approval.

Then Topsy asked for a “whitefellow name” for her baby, and I said he should be called “Donald.”

“Tonald!” cried Topsy. “Tonald! Him good-fellow name, that one.”

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Every one repeated “Tonald” after her, and then called to each other. “Missus bin talk Tonald,” and the whole camp agreed it was a “goodfellow name alright.” For some reason, best known to themselves, the name pleased them.

Topsy said that her baby had a kangaroo’s spirit, and Jimmy was very pleased and important about it.

You see, Jimmy was head man of the Kangaroo-spirit family, and it would be his duty to see that “Tonald” was properly brought up, for he must be taught all the laws of his Totem, as well as how to throw his boomerang and use his throwing-stick. Jimmy was a sort of godfather to him, and Tonald would have to obey him even more than his own father and mother.

“By and by me make him grow, Missus,” said Jimmy, meaning that he would perform some very important ceremony to make the Debbil-debbils keep away so that Tonald could grow into a strong wise blackfellow. It was Jimmy’s duty to do this, and a blackfellow always does his duty to his tribe.

After the christening I passed round some “chewbac” and every one’s pipe was filled, and Tonald’s health was smoked. Every now and then an old blackfellow would nod his head and chuckle.

“Tonald! Him goodfellow name that one.”

But Donald slept peacefully on, and Bittertwine sat on his mother’s knee, looking from me to the piccaninny, with big wondering eyes. Every little while he took his mother’s pipe out of her mouth, and put it in his own for a few sucks—smoking Donald’s health, I suppose.

Bittertwine was a wild little nigger boy or “myall,” and terrified of white men, but I don’t think it was the white man’s fault. I fancy his mother used to tell him that the white man would catch him if he were naughty. Just as some white mothers say “the black man” will catch their piccaninnies.

When we called on “Tonald” next morning I found that Sambo was wearing his handkerchief and that his friends had smoked his tobacco.

Topsy was very proud of her piccaninny. “Look, Missus,” she said. “Him close up blackfellow now.” So he was, and a day or two afterwards he was black all over, all excepting the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. These would be a pale grey all his life.

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There was a visitor in the camp, quite a civilized blackfellow called Charlie, who was a great authority on christenings, for he had once been in a Catholic Mission School. He told us that when a white piccaninny got a name that “whitefellow chuck em water longa piccaninny.” He had been christened himself once, and water had been “chucked” on him, and he seemed to think he knew all about it. The priests used to tell a great joke about him. Charlie had been taught that he must not eat meat on a Friday, but one Friday he was found with a piece of beef.

“Charlie,” said the priest sternly, “you are eating meat.”

“No more,” said Charlie, seriously. “This one fish alright.”

The priest then said it was very wicked to say what was not true, but Charlie insisted that h............