THE COCONUT TREE
Moro was always up to tricks. I noticed that he was whispering
something to Filippa who was laughing.
"Tell it out," demanded Filippa's mother.
"The bad boy said the coconut, which we are trying to break, is a
hairy monkey's head dried."
"Let me see it," I demanded.
Surely enough, there was plainly marked a monkey's eyes and mouth
and hair and nose.
"We'll soon settle this," said Fil, who dashed the coconut on a stone,
broke the hard shell, wasted half the sweet milk,--exposing the white,
fragrant meat.
"Did you know that the coconut furnishes cloth, mats, roofs, fuel,
soap oil, candy, puddings, cups, dyes, lamp oil, butter, candles, axle
grease, ropes, brushes, furniture, shade, food, drink, and liquor to
intoxicate," asked Filippa's mother, who was as wise as Fil's father.
"Please go slowly," I remarked, "for you are making me think that
these islands are Paradise; that you touch some button, and every
wish comes true, as in the fairy stories. In our country, a tree
furnishes only lumber; or sometimes nuts or sugar in addition, but
never over two things at once. Now you would have me believe that
one slim tree with only a tuft of leaves at the top, furnishes you
twenty useful and rich products. This is really too much to believe,
though I ask you to forgive me for being so frank."
Filippa's mother replied: "These are the gardens of the sunny Equator;
and you can, therefore, expect wonderful things. The rough covering
of the shell is woven into mats, brushes, ropes, and bags. The
fibers of the leaves make a fine cloth. The dried leaves make a
roof-thatch. The trunk makes foundation poles. The coconut itself
is fruit and drink. When the white meat is dried, it is shredded
for pastry and candy. When the coconut meat is pressed, the oil
extracted is used for fuel, light, hair pomades, butter, candles,
and grease. It is used also in making the best hand soaps; in fact,
it makes the only soap that can be used with salt sea water."
"Please let me tell all its other valuable qualities," said Fil.
"If you cut a coconut in half, you have two cups, or dishes. You can
draw the milk through a small hole, plug the hole, and use the shell
as a float. If you burn the shell, you can make a deep dye from the
ashes,--a dye that will not fade or wash out."
"I'll tell you more about it," Moro eagerly intruded. "The oddest use
for a smoothed half of a coconut shell, is to use it as a rat-guard,
to shed off rats from our strings of dried fruit hanging from the
roof. As the rat comes down the rattan rope, the halved coconut shell
tips, and down he falls from its smooth surface, to the floor, and
misses the hanging fruit.
"If you climb up the high coconut tree, and cut a hole in the flowering
stalk, the juice will run out. This is called the delicious 'tuba'
liquor, and we catch it in cups made from half of a coconut shell."
"And if you ferment and distill that liquor," said the Padre, "you
have the cocoa wine which is much used for medicine in America."
Filippa's mother then remarked: "I have seen coconut oil, placed
in a coconut shell, burning along a coconut wick, as a lamp, in a
house built out of coconut stems and leaves, under a coconut grove;
and the Filipino family were eating coconuts, and drinking coconut
'tuba' juice, at a table made from coconut stalks."
"That must have been in Coconutville, when a coconut clock was
striking, under a coconut moon," laughed Fil, who sometimes was full
of smart wit.
"But what I have said is exactly and solemnly true," replied his
gentle mother.
"I understand it now," I replied, "and I see how one coconut tree would
make me richer than a whole forest of poplar or oak trees at home."
Hungry Moro remarked: "I wish that this moment I had coconut shredded
over some Bebinka cakes."
"What are Bebinka cakes?" I inquired.
"They are pancakes made from fermented corn and rice dough,
mixed. Every Filipino is fond of them," explained Filippa's mother.