CHAPTER V

COCOA AND COFFEE

The next morning Filippa's mother refreshed us all with a cup of fragrant cocoa, so that we might begin the day in good spirits. As I was sipping it, the Padre remarked in good humor:

"Did you Americans seize the Philippines merely for a cup of cocoa?"

I replied laughingly: "This cup of cocoa is so good, that I certainly would try to seize the Philippines for it."

Filippa's mother and father both bowed and said I was complimentary, like a diplomat.

Then I continued: "I am glad the Philippines are now ours, and yours too, because our money can help to develop the wonderful tropical products which do not grow in our colder America. I wish you would explain something about cocoa and coffee, which we prize very much and which we send our ships a long way to secure."

Fil's father, who was a planter of wide acres, replied:

"The cocoa bean and the coconut are two very different plants. Do not confuse them. The cocoa bean, out of which you grind cocoa powder and chocolate for a drink, for bonbons, and for puddings, comes out of a fruit shaped like a large red cuc.u.mber. This fruit grows on a tender bush, which must be shaded by a thick banana palm. In each fruit are twenty of these seeds, or cocoa beans.

"They have hard skins, and are very bitter and stimulating. When eaten, they excite the heart, and thus make a person feel active and alive. Soldiers and athletes eat them, to relieve fatigue. As soon as the fruit is gathered, the beans must be dried in the sun, or be roasted. The cocoa bean is very oily. To make cocoa, the oil is extracted, when the beans are ground into a paste. To make chocolate, the oil is not extracted."

"I never ate a cocoa bean which was sweet; but a chocolate-drop is sweet," said Filippa, who had bought chocolate-drops in the candy stores.

Her father explained: "We add sugar and vanilla, to the brown cocoa bean paste."

"Just think of practically growing chocolate bonbons on a tree, beneath the window of your nipa huts, in these wonderful Philippine Islands,"

I added, and every one smiled.

"It is really true, when one adds the sugar," remarked the Padre.

"Now tell me please about coffee, also," I begged.

Fil's father continued:

"The coffee comes from another low bush. You choose a hillside, for, although the plant likes our heavy rains in the Philippines, it does not like to keep its roots long in water. It wants to drain them and to feel the warm sun. The leaves are long and glossy; the blossoms are waxy white. The fragrance is richer than rose sweetened with sugar. The fruit is like a scarlet cherry; each contains two seeds. These two seeds are the coffee bean of commerce and of the breakfast table. They are ground in a small mill, as you know."

"How were the beans first discovered?" I inquired.

Fil's father smiled and told this story: "One day a shepherd noticed that his goats, which had eaten the cherries off a coffee bush, danced about in high excitement as though they, instead of their master, were going to a fiesta. Then the shepherd ate the berries, too, and felt stimulated himself. That is how coffee in time came to our breakfast table. Instead of eating the berry, we grind it and steep it, and drink the liquor."

"But, father, the seeds are light colored, and not deep brown, when you open the fruit," said Fil.

"I know," replied Fil's father. "We roast the seeds in an oven, to get rid of the moisture and to preserve and ripen the stimulating oils."

"Thank you all;" I exclaimed, "now I will behold a whole tropical story of geography and commerce, every time I look into a grocer's window at home."

CHAPTER VI

HEMP AND SUGAR

"However, the richest products of our Philippine Islands are abaca (ab'aca) and sugar," said the fatherly Padre next morning, when I met him under the shade of the bamboos and the madre trees.

"I am sure you do not know what abaca is," laughed Filippa.

"I guess from its name that it may be a cousin of tobacco; it sounds like it: abaca,--tobacco."

"Names are sometimes misleading," replied the Padre. "The manila hemp, or abaca plant, is a nearer cousin of the banana palm. You cannot make a sail or tie up a bag of potatoes, without using our manila hemp, or abaca. It is the strongest fiber known; it does not weaken in water. The great hawsers that are used to pull the great ships, are made out of it. It all comes from the leaf of this Philippine palm."

"Wonderful and beautiful and useful islands," I confessed. "But how do you make a leaf into a cord, a hawser, a sail, or a bag?"

The Padre continued: "This big plant with leaves taller than a man, grows on a hill. We do not let it flower. The huge leaves are cut near the root, and new leaves grow up at once. All through the leaf run long tough ribs. We drag this over a big rough knife that is fastened in a board; and thus we sc.r.a.pe away the soft pulp without breaking the fiber. The wet fibers, we hang over a fence in the sun, to dry.

"Then we press the fibers all together, and ship them to you in big heavy bales, in the bottom of a ship. You weave the bales of fiber into bags, cloth, hawser ropes, canvas, tents, and cordage. We Filipinos, also, split the fiber and weave it into many kinds of cloth. Sometimes we mix silk or cotton with the abaca hemp."

"I am sure our friend would like to learn about sugar," remarked Fil, who had a sweet tooth for candy.

Fil's father took up this part of the story, and said:

"Sugar of course comes from a sweet cane, which is grown on high land. The cane is cut down. A pony or a water buffalo is harnessed to a roller. We feed the ripened cane into the rollers. As the animal drives this roller around, the sugar cane is pressed through. The sweet juice is caught and put into kettles. This juice is heated several times, and stirred, and purified by bone charcoal. The white crystals separate from the dark mola.s.ses sirup. We sometimes feed the mola.s.ses to cattle and pigs, to make them fat for market."

Fil's eyes looked very longingly as he listened to this tale of good things; so I pa.s.sed him a penny or two.

"Is not sugar made also from very sweet, dark beets?" I inquired.

"Not in these islands," replied the Padre. "We find that the sugar cane gives a sweeter and a more nutritious product. The beet sugar is made in Europe and in the western states of America."

"What do you do with the pressed sugar cane?" I inquired.

"We spread it out in the sun and dry it in large yards. It still contains much sugar. We use it for fuel, to light the fires under the kettles."

"What a waste!" I exclaimed. "You should use oil or gas for fuel, and should press every drop of sugar out of that valuable cane. Waste not; want not, is as good a maxim for a nation as for a boy."

"If you are always that serious, like a lecturer, the children may not like you so well," remarked the gentle Padre.

"Not at all," replied Fil and Moro and Filippa and Favra, who perhaps remembered the pennies I had given to them. Then I hummed as we went home to have lunch, or "tiffin," as they call it:

"All lectures and no candy or fun Make Moro and Fil dull boys."

CHAPTER VII

THE COCONUT TREE