As she opened the gate, one of the boys stepped up to her.

In the darkness she could not make him out.
"What name ?" she asked sharply.

"What name belong you ?" "Me Aroa," he said.
She remembered him as one of the two sick boys she had nursed at the hospital.

The other one had died.
"Me take 'm plenty fella medicine too much," Aroa was saying.
"Well, and you all right now," she answered.
"Me want 'm tobacco, plenty fella tobacco; me want 'm calico; me want 'm porpoise teeth; me want 'm one fella belt." She looked at him humorously, expecting to see a smile, or at least a grin, on his face.

Instead, his face was expressionless.