"Yes," replied Uncle John. "When the nut is ripe, the shuck opens gradually, and sometimes the nuts fall out.
"When people have large orchards, they spread pieces of canvas under the trees and then shake them or beat them by means of long poles.
"The nuts that do not fall out of the shucks are obtained by opening the shuck with a knife. The nuts are then dried, and are ready for market."
As soon as Uncle John had finished, Mary handed him a hazelnut. "Please tell about this one," said she.
"I have often gone hazel nutting when I was a boy," said her uncle.
"Hazelnuts grow on bushes in thickets. They are six or eight feet high and very slender. Baskets are sometimes made of them, and I have often used them for arrows.
"Sometimes the nuts grow singly, and sometimes in groups of two or three. A bur covers the nut, which sticks very closely until it is ripe.
Then the nuts often fall out.
"After I had gathered the hazelnuts, I used to spread them out on the roof of the wood house to dry."
"Nuts that look just like these are called filberts," said Helen.
"Filberts are cultivated hazelnuts," replied Uncle John; "they are larger than the wild ones."
"I would like to know how this nut grows," said Helen, handing her uncle a black nut shaped like a triangular prism.
"This," said Uncle John, "came from Brazil, and is called a Brazil nut.
Do you know where Brazil is?"
"It is in the northeastern part of South America," replied Helen.
"The great Amazon River is in Brazil, and it flows through tropical forests," said Mary.
"Much of our coffee comes from Brazil," said Frank.
Uncle John then told the children that Brazil nuts come from the northern part of Brazil and from the Orinoco valley.
Helen asked if they grow as walnuts and hickory nuts do.
"No," answered her uncle, "they grow inside of a great case or sh.e.l.l.
There are from eighteen to twenty-five in one sh.e.l.l, which is nearly as large as a man"s head."
"How are the nuts got out of the sh.e.l.ls?" asked Mary.
"When they fall, men break them open and take out the nuts," replied Uncle John. "Most of them are sent down the Amazon to the city of Para and from there shipped to the United States and other countries."
None of the children knew where Para is situated, so they all went to the library to look at the atlas. After they had located it, Uncle John told them of his visit to the city and of the wonderful things which he saw on a steamboat trip up the Amazon River.
A STRANGE CONVERSATION
One evening after I had been reading for some time, I went to the kitchen to get a drink of water. That part of the house was dark and quiet, and as I stepped through the doorway, I heard low, musical voices, apparently in the pantry. I was very much surprised, you may be sure, and I kept perfectly still, and listened.
"Yes," said a voice, which I could barely hear, "I am a long way from home indeed, and sometimes it makes me quite lonely when I think of it."
"Tell us about your home, and how you lived," said another low voice.
"Well," began the first speaker, "my name is _Pepper_. With twenty-five or thirty brothers and sisters I grew in a cl.u.s.ter on a vine. We were but a small part of the family, for there were similar cl.u.s.ters all over our vine. We were about as large as peas, and grew somewhat after the fashion of currants.
"All about were other vines to which friends and relatives were attached. Pepper vines are always anxious to get to the top, and so some of these vines climbed trees and some twined themselves about poles, which men had set in the ground for this purpose. Our vine was three or four years old when we appeared on it."
"How long did you live on the vine?" asked a voice that I had not heard before.
"Only a few months," replied Pepper. "You see, we had to make room for another set of berries. Two sets appear each year for twenty years or more.
"Under the influence of the tropical sunshine and the warm rains we grew day by day, and we were as happy as the b.u.t.terflies and birds about us.
By and by we began to turn red. All of this time a _hull_ or coat was forming on the outside of our bodies.
"Before we became entirely red, workmen came to the field, and, by rubbing us between their hands, separated us from the stems to which we lovingly clung.
"After having been picked, I was, with many others, placed upon a mat to dry. These mats were all about us, each covered with berries. After being thoroughly dried we were put into a mill and ground, and I became what I am now, _Black Pepper_."
"Are there other kinds of pepper?" asked some one.
"Oh, yes," said Pepper, "there is _White Pepper_, and _Red_, or _Cayenne Pepper_. Some of my friends were made into White Pepper. They were soaked in limewater for about two weeks, and this, of course, softened and wrinkled their hulls which had always fitted so nicely. This was bad enough, but it was not the worst."
"What happened next?" said several voices.
"They were then," continued Pepper, "trodden under the bare feet of dark-skinned men, and this rubbed off their hulls completely. After this they were ground as we had been.
"Cayenne Pepper is not a member of our family at all, although it has the same name. I have looked up its genealogy, and I find that it received its name from the city of Cayenne, in French Guiana, near which it grows. It is in the form of bell-shaped pods, and grows on low, bushy plants instead of vines.
"The pods are green at first, but red when ripe. No doubt you have seen strings of them hanging in the grocery store when you were on the shelves. People sometimes use the pods as they are, but usually they are dried, ground, mixed with yeast, and baked into flat cakes like crackers. When these cakes are ground, Red, or Cayenne Pepper, is produced. It is put up in little boxes just as we are.
"Pepper used to be regarded as a great luxury," the speaker went on.
"Until the eighteenth century the Portuguese handled almost all of it.
It was not uncommon for rents to be paid with pepper. If any of you have read ancient history, you know that when Alaric took Rome he demanded, among other things, one thousand pounds of pepper as a ransom.
"My home was in the East Indies," said Pepper, "but there are members of our family living in the Philippines, India, Mexico, the West Indies, and other tropical countries."
"Your story is a very interesting one," said a voice, "and now, if you care to hear it, I will tell something of my life."
"Yes, do tell us," said several at once.
"Very well, I will follow the example of our friend Pepper and introduce myself at once. I am known as Ginger. I have relatives living in China, in India, and in the western part of Africa, but I came from the West Indies. The Ginger family is not like that of Pepper; it has no lofty notions."
Pepper seemed a little inclined to get angry, so Ginger hastened to say: "I mean that our vines do not climb trees or poles, but run along the ground. I was a _root_ and not a _fruit_."
"When I was about a year old I, with countless friends, was dug from the ground. We were cut from the vines and put into vats of scalding water."