piccanins

So, first she mended the clothes of everybody, including Meekie's ragged piccanins; then she went to the Paarl, bought a pot of green paint, and spent days of sheer forgetfulness smartening up the rusty paraffin tins and barrels, and all the bleared and blistered shutters and doors and sills of the farm, that had not known paint for many years.

Blue Aloes Stories of South Africa Cynthia Stockley