Aunt Martha's corner cupboard

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AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD.

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AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD.

A Storp for Little Hops and Girls.

BY

MARY ann ELIZABETH KIRBY,

AUTHORS OF “THE WORLD AT HOME,” ‘‘ THE SEA AND ITS WONDERS,”

ETC,, ETC,



LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YORK,

1875.











Il.

Ill.

Iv.

v.

CXontents.

THE CORNER CUPBOARD,

THE STORY OF THE TEA-CUP,

HOW THE TEA-CUP WAS FINISHED,
THE STORY OF THE TEA, °*

THE STORY OF THE SUGAR,

. THE STORY OF THE COFFEE,

. THE STORY OF THE SALT,

THE STORY OF THE CURRANTS, ...
THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE,

THE STORY OF THE COTTON,

. THE STORY OF THE RICE,

THE STORY OF THE HONEY,

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AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD,



CHAPTER I

THE CORNER CUPBOARD.

gor,

f- AM afraid that Charley and Richard
® Knight gave their master a great
(eX deal of trouble.

: The school they went to had just
broken up for the Christmas holidays, and
neither of them had won a prize. Indeed,
they were never likely to do so, judging
from the way in which they went on.

They were good-tempered lads, and
favourites with their playmates. If they
had a cake sent them from home, they








10 IDLE BOYS. -

always shared it with the rest of the school.
And they were first and foremost at every
game that was played. Their blue eyes
were always twinkling with fun; and if
they had been sent to Mr. Birch’s Academy
merely to enjoy themselves, it would have
been all very well.

But it is of no use mincing the matter :
they were the most idle lads in the school.
Nobody could make them learn their lessons
—not even Mr. Birch, though he was very
strict, and now and then gave them a
caning.

It was a pity they were so idle. Their
papa was a learned man, and wished them
to follow in his steps. It made him very
unhappy when they came home without a
prize ; and always, by the next post, a long
letter from the schoolmaster to complain
that he could not make them work.

Their mamma tried to excuse them, and



GOING TO AUNT MARTHA’S. 11

said it was “time enough yet.” But their
papa was of another opinion, now that
Richard had turned twelve ; and he used
to shake his head, and look very sad.

This cold, snowy Christmas the boys
were not going home. It was a promise
that they should spend the holidays with
their Aunt Martha; and her old-fashioned
carriage was at the door to take them.

They had not the least objection, for
they were very fond of Aunt Martha, as
indeed was everybody that had ever seen
her.

She lived in a house with gable ends,
just as you turn into the village. It was a
very old house, and was said to have been
built in the reign of King John. It was
quite covered with ivy; and there was a
large garden, but the snow had hidden
everything in it.

The rooms were large, but very low.



12 . THE CUPBOARD.

The one Aunt Martha liked the best had
the morning sun upon it, and looked into
the garden. And here she had her work-
table, and her basket of knitting, for her
eyes were not very good, now she was
getting old. And here she sat all the day
long.

Close by was her corner cupboard, that
she kept locked up, and the key was on a
bunch that she carried in her pocket. She
never left her cupboard open, because it
had so many things in it.

The boys knew the cupboard by heart.
Out of it came sweet cakes, and honey and
sugar ; and tops and marbles, and all the
things they liked. And there were no
tiresome spelling-books, or grammars, or
anything of the kind, to plague them.

But you must not suppose that Aunt
Martha was an ignorant lady. Far from
it. She knew a great many things indeed,



AUNT MARTHA’S SCHEME. 13

and she did not like the thought that her
dear little nephews should grow up to be
dunces, which was most likely to be the
case.

Of course, she did not presume to think
she could teach them so well as Mr. Birch,
who understood Latin and Greek, and had
kept a school twenty years. “But she had
a scheme in her head to teach them some-
thing. .

Not that she intended them to learn
lessons in the holidays,—that would have
been extremely unkind. The knowledge
she meant to give them was not to be
found in their lesson-books, thumbed and
dog-eared as they were; for an idle boy
can wear his book out without using it.
No; the lore she was thinking about was
contained close by, in her corner cup-
board

It seemed to Aunt Martha—for she was



14 THINGS FROM FOREIGN PARTS.

a lady of a lively imagination—as if every-
thing in that cupboard,—her china, her tea,
her coffee, her sugar, even her needle,—had
a story to tell, and a most entertaining one
too. Had not many of the things been in
foreign parts, where are great palm-trees,
and monkeys, and black men, and lions,
and tigers ?

And if they had not been abroad, they
were sure to have something to.relate that
the boys had never heard of.

The boys loved to hear stories told them.
There was a time, just when it got dusk,
before the lamp was lighted, or the tea and
plum-cake brought in. Charley and Richard
would have played about all day long, and
pelted each other with snow-balls, and
made slides on the pond, and scampered
up and down the lane, till their legs, young
as they were, began to feel tired. And
then it was nice to sit on the hearth-rug



WHAT THE SCHEME WAS. 15

before the fire, and hear Aunt Martha tell
a tale.

Now, Aunt Martha had prepared a great
many tales, and had them, so to say, at
her finger-ends. She had not to make them
up as she went on, or that-would have
spoilt everything. Indeed, I almost think
she had learned them by heart.

She hoped that when her dear little boys
had heard all the curious things she was
about to relate, it would make them want
to read for themselves.

Charley and Richard had no idea of the
trouble their good aunt was taking on
their account, and they did just as they
had always done. They trundled their
hoops, and threw snow-balls, and scampered
about to their heart’s content. And when,
at last, their legs began to ache, good old
Sally, who had lived with Aunt Martha
for nearly thirty years, fetched them in,



16 WANTED—SOMETHING NEW.

took off their wet boots and put on dry
ones, and brushed their hair, and washed
their faces, and sent them into the parlour
to their aunt.

“She'll have a story to tell, I warrant,”
said old Sally, who was a little in the
secret.

Now, everything happened just as it
ought to do.

The boys wanted a story as much as
ever, but, like the rest of the world, they
wished for something new.

They were thoroughly acquainted with
“ Jack the Giant-killer,’” and entertaining
as he had once been, they were by this
time a little tired of him.

They knew “Cinderella” and “ Little
Red Riding Hood” by heart, and they did
not want to hear them over again. Not
that they could get really tired of such

d

delightful stories, but they “ might lie by,’

(457)



THE FIRST STORY BEGUN, 17

Charley said, “for one Christmas, and
something else come out.”

Aunt Martha was quite willing—indeed,
this was just what she had been planning
for. Her dear old face brightened up, and
looked as pleased as could be, when Charley
settled himself on the rug, and Richard
brought a stool and sat close by, their
merry blue eyes fixed intently upon her.

Then Aunt Martha began to relate her
first story—“ The Story of a Tea-Cup.”



(457)





CHAPTER IL.

THE STORY OF THE TEA-CUP.



|PJOME,” as I daresay you have heard
Heaeit said, “was not built in a day.”
CNA People who use the expression, mean
by it that nothing of any value can be done
without a great deal of time and trouble.

The tea-cup seems a simple thing, and
you use and handle it very often, and drink
your tea out of it every afternoon. But
perhaps you have never been told its whole
history “from beginning to end,” as the
story-books say, and do not know that it
takes a vast amount of labour, and sets
numbers of persons to work, before it can
become a cup at all.



BEST CHINA. 19

I will speak of the best china, that is
kept on the top shelf in the cupboard, and
only comes out on high days and holidays.
It is very superior, let me tell you, to the
blue and white cups and saucers in the
kitchen, that have no gold rim round them,
and did not cost nearly so much money.

The word china will remind you of a
country a long way off, where the gentle-
men have great plaits of hair hanging down
their backs, that look like tails, and the
ladies hobble about in little shoes turned
up at the toes.

The Chinaman drinks a great deal of tea,
because he likes it, and the tea grows in
his country. And the tea-cups are always
being handed about on little trays, that
everybody may have some. So the China-
man has a great deal of practice in making
tea-cups, and can do it remarkably well.

I am sorry to say he is not of an open



20 THE CHINAMAN’S SECRET

disposition, and likes to keep everything
he knows to himself.

He would not tell the people who lived
in other countries how he made his cups,
. though they were very curious to know,
and asked him over and over again.

There is a town in China where a great
many potters lived, and made their beauti-













CHINAMAN BAKING HIS CUPS.

ful cups. The streets were quite crowded
with the potters, and boat-loads of rice
came every day for them to eat.

There was a river close by the town; and



THE TWO STRANGERS. 21

when the cups and pots were finished, they
were packed and sent away in the boats.
The potters’ furnaces were always burning
to bake the cups, so that at night the town
looked as if it were on fire.

The potters would not let a stranger stay
all night in the place, for fear he should
find out the secret of the cup-making. He
was obliged either to sleep in one of the
boats, or to go away till the next morning.

But it happened that two strangers had
been on the watch for a long time, and at
last they thought they had found out the
secret.

One day they bought some great squares,
or bricks, that. were being sold in the
market and carried off by the potters.
They felt quite sure this was the stuff the
cups were going to be made of. Now the
bricks were sold on purpose to be used in
the potteries. They were made of a kind



22 KAOLIN.

of flint called petunse, that looks bright and
glittering, as if it had been sprinkled with
something to make it shine. And the
Chinaman collects it with great care, and
grinds it to powder, and makes the bricks
of it.

The two strangers carried the bricks
home to their own country, and set to
work to make cups.

But, alas! they could do no kind of
good. They were like a workman who had
left half his tools behind him. For they
wanted another substance to mix with the
petunse, and that was called kaolin.

Now kaolin was dug by the Chinaman
out of some deep mines, that he knew very
well, and often went to.

It lay about in little lumps, and he
picked it out, and made it into bricks just
as he had done the other.

And he laughed very much when he



PORCELAIN CLAY. 23

heard what the “barbarians,” as he called
them, had been trying to do. For he did
not pity them in the least.

“They think themselves very clever,” he
said, “to make a body that shall be all
flesh and no bones.”

He meant that the kaolin was hard, and
could not turn to powder when it was
burnt as the petunse did; so that it was like
bones to the cup, and made it firm. In-
deed, without it the cup was too soft, and
did not hold together.

I should not have told you this long
story if it had nothing to do with the best
china. But people can get a kind of clay
out of our own county of Cornwall that
does quite as well as the Chinaman’s bricks,
and the best china is always made of it.
People come a long way to look for the
“porcelain clay,” as it is called; and they
dig it out of the earth, and carry it toa



24 CLAY-CREAM.

great building that is, in fact, a porcelain
manufactory, where all kind of cups and
saucers, and jugs and basins are constantly
being made.

And as soon as the clay got there, it was
thrust into a machine, where it ran upon a
number of sharp knives that work round
and round, and have been set there on pur-
pose to chop it to pieces. When it had
been chopped long enough, it was turned
into a kind of churn, and churned as though
it were going to be made into butter. In-
deed, when the churning was over, the
person who had churned it called it “clay-
cream.”

Other matters, such as flint and bone,
were now mixed with it. But, in order
that they might work in harmony one with
the other, the flint and the bone had each
to be ground to a fine powder, and then
made like itself into “ clay-cream.”



“READY FOR THE POTTER.” 25

The two creams, in two separate vessels,
were carried to a room called “the mixing-
room,’ and put into a pan of water and
stirred well about.

They were stirred until they were quite
smooth, and without an atom of grit.

But as cups could not be made of the
clay-cream, it had to be made solid again.
And it was boiled over a fire until the
moisture was dried up, and it was very
much like dough. A man now began to
slap and beat it, and cut it in pieces, and
to fling the pieces one on the other with
all his might. And when he had slapped
it long enough, he said it was quite “ready
for the potter.”

The potter was called “a thrower,’—and
a good name for him.

He flung a ball of the clay on a little
round table before him, with such force
that it stuck there quite fast.



26 A WHIRLING TABLE.

The table was called a whirling table ;
and well it might, for it began to whirl
round and round as fast as could be.

The reason why it whirled, was because
a long strap went from it to a wheel in the
corner, that a boy was turning. When
the boy turned his wheel, the table turned
as well. And as the table went round,
the potter began to pinch, and pat, and
work the clay about with his fingers and
thumb, and give it what he called “ashape.”

He could do just what he liked with the
clay, and could make it into any shape he
pleased.

He had some tools to help him, such as
little pegs and bits of wood, with which he ©
scraped it on the outside and pressed it
on the inside, until he had brought it into
the form of a cup. And all the while the
wheel kept going round and round, until
it was enough to make you giddy.



THE BEST CHINA. 27

At last the wheel stopped, and so did
the table. And the clay was taken off, to
all intents and purposes a cup.

Aunt Martha had scarcely time to finish
the last sentence before there was a tap at
the door, and old Sally came in with the
tea-things.

Now, the best china had been taken
down and carefully dusted ; for Christmas
was looked upon as a high day and a holi-
day, and Charley and Richard were com-
pany, as a matter of course. As their heads
were still running upon cups and saucers,
they jumped up and began to look at them,
and to talk about “ flint,’ and “clay,” and
“kilns,” in a very learned manner, and one
that made old Sally smile.

Aunt Martha was very much pleased,
for she saw that her story had been care-
fully listened to, and had not gone in at



28 SEEKING KNOWLEDGE.

one ear and out at the other, as such in-
structive stories do sometimes.

And she was more pleased still, when
her little nephews asked her a great many
questions, and wanted to know more about
“the tea-cup.”

She did not tell them any more just then;
for she was a wise old lady, and she wished
to keep their curiosity awake, and not let
them have too much of the subject at
once.

So she talked about something else all
tea-time, and then she had out puzzles and
bagatelle, and a great many other games,
to make the evening pass pleasantly. But
old Sally told her that when the boys went
to bed, and she fetched away their candle,
they were talking very fast about “ the tea-
cup.”

And the next afternoon, when they had
given over running about, and their hair



THE STORY RESUMED. 29

had’ been brushed, and their faces washed,
they ran into the parlour where their aunt
was sitting, and asked her to go on with
her story, for they wanted to know a great
deal more.

Now it was rather early, and Aunt
Martha had hardly finished her afternoon’s
nap. But she did not like to keep the
little boys waiting. So she roused herself
up, put a log of wood on the fire,—for it
was very cold,—and when Charley and
Richard had settled themselves, she began,
or rather went on with—“ The Story of the
Tea-Cup.”











CHAPTER IIL

HOW THE TEA-CUP WAS FINISHED.

«the wheel. It was then set aside to



dry ; and very soon it reached what
the potter called “the green state”—though
he had better have said the “hard state,”
for it was getting gradually harder. It
was next taken to the turning-lathe, and
had all its roughness smoothed away, and
its appearance very much improved. Still,
the cup was by no means so handsome as
it is now; and it had no handle.

The Chinaman makes his cup without a
handle ; and when tea-cups were first used
in this country, they had no handles, and



HOW THE HANDLE IS MADE. 31

were very much smaller than they are now.
People in those days could not afford to
drink much tea at a time, it was so dear
and so scarce.





































THE POTTER AT HIS LATHE—MAKING A VASE.

But fashions are always changing, and in
our days every cup must have a handle.

The handle was made separate from the
cup, and fitted on afterwards. It was
nothing but a strip of clay cut the proper
length, and pressed into a mould to make
it the right shape. The man who has to



32 THE POTTER'S KILN.

do it, takes a great deal of pains to make it
fit very neatly.

The parts where the handle was to join
the cup were wetted with a certain mix-
ture of clay and water, to make them stick ;
and they did so at once.

The cup was now put into a square box,
or case, with sand at the bottom. Other
cups were placed in with it, though care
was taken to prevent them from touching
each other. Another box, just like it, and
full of cups, was set over it, so that the
bottom of one box made a lid for the other.”
All the boxes, piled up in this way, were
put into an oven, called “the potter’s kiln.”
It was in the shape of a cone, and with a
hole at the top to let the smoke out.

The Chinaman is at the trouble of put-
ting each cup into a separate box, in order,
as he says, that its delicate complexion may
not be spoilt by the fire !



ENAMEL, 33

When the cup is taken from the box, it
is pure white, and nearly transparent. It
is not yet thought worthy of the name of
porcelain, and is merely called “ biscuit
china.” 3

People were a long time before they
found out how to paint pictures on the
cup, or to give it its beautiful gloss.

The surface. of the cup was not hard
enough to hold the colours, and wanted a
coating upon it that is called ‘‘ enamel.”

No one in England knew how to make
the enamel, though the Chinaman did.
But a potter named Bernard Palissy tried
again and again to make it. Indeed, he
spent all his time in trying’ first one thing
and then another.

_ He made cup after cup, and coated them
over with what he thought was the right
thing; but not one of them would do. And
at last he became so poor that he had no

(457) 9
o



34 BERNARD PALISSY.

wood left to heat his furnace—just. at the
time, too, when more cups were ready to
go into it. :

He wanted wood to such a degree that
he became quite frantic, and felt that he
must put something into his furnace, he
did not care what. And he ran into the
room where his wife was sitting, and
snatched up the chairs and tables as if he
had been crazy, and ran with them to his
furnace.

Poor Madame Palissy wrote a book about
her troubles, at which I do not wonder. It
is a comfort to know that he succeeded at
last, and earned a great deal of money.
But many improvements have been made
in tea-cups since his time. _

Before the pictures are painted on the
cup, it is nicely cleaned, to remove any
atom of dust; and then it has to be glossed,
or, as it is called, “ glazed.” The stuff that



THE DIPPING-ROOM. 35

gives it its gloss, and makes it shine, looks
like thick cream, and is kept in wooden

































































PALISSY MAKING FUEL.

troughs in a room called “the dipping-
room.”

A man dips the cup into the trough, and
turns it about in such a way that every



36 THE PAINTING-ROOM.

part shall be coated, and yet every drop
drained out.

It is now put on a board, and, with other
cups, again baked, but in a cooler oven than
before. When it comes out of the oven it
shines with the beautiful gloss you see.

But it is not finished; for it is a bare cup,
without any pictures of flowers or fruit, or
figures like those on the best china.

It is taken to a room where there are
long tables, and a great many windows to
let in the light.

People sit at the tables, with brushes
and colours before them, and are busy
painting the cups.

In China one man paints nothing but
red, another paints nothing but blue; and
so on. But here, in the painting-room,
there is a little difference. One man paints
flowers, another leaves, another fruit, and
another figures.



THE LAST OPERATION. 37

The colours they use are obliged to be
made of metals—such as gold, iron, and
tin—for nothing else can stand the heat of
the furnace, in which the cups have once
more to be baked. Indeed, the painter
now and then pops
his cup or his saucer
into the kiln to see
how the colours will













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stand, before it is || ai
quite finished. 4 _—— ‘A
.

When the cup has ( OSX OA



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SAUCERS. PACKED FOR BAKING.

been painted, and
baked for the last time, it is taken to an-
other room still, where there are a great
many women and girls busy at work.

Each girl sits with her face to the light,
and takes a cup in one hand, and a stone
called an agate in the other. She rubs the
parts of the cup that are intended to look
like gold with the stone until they become



38 THE DAYS OF OLD.

of a brilliant gloss, and shine as if they
were gold.

There is a place in Staffordshire called
“the Potteries,’ where cups and pots have
always been made.

In old time they were very rough-look-
ing things, and had neither gilding nor
gloss. But the people who used them were
just as rough, and so was the country
round.

The roads were very bad indeed, and full
of deep ruts, so that no carriage could go
over them. There were no towns or fac-
tories, and the potter lived in a little
thatched cottage like a hovel.

He had a shed where he worked at his
wheel and baked his pots. He dug the
clay out himself, and his boys helped him
to “throw” and “press,” and do all that
was wanted to be done. |

When he had finished making his pots,



“THE POTTERIES.” 39

his wife used to bring up the asses from
the common, where they were grazing, and
get them ready for a journey. She put
panniers on their backs, filled with her
husband’s pots ; and then she set off, over
the bad, rutty roads, to the towns and vil-
lages to sell them. :

That part of Staffordshire is still called
“the Potteries ;” but it is very much im-
proved



and has great towns, and factories,
and good roads, and is not at all what it
used to be.

One of the towns is called Burslem ;
and a potter named Mr. Wedgwood lived
there. He spent all his life in making the
cups of a more beautiful kind than had ever
been made before. They were of a cream
colour ; and instead of the ugly figures that
were in fashion then, he painted them with
flowers and fruit, as we see them now.

One reason why he got on so well, was



40 AWAKENED INTEREST.

because he took so much pains, and would
not let anything pass unless it was perfect.
If a cup came off the wheel with the slight-
est fault in it, he would break it to pieces
with his stick, and say, “This will not do
for me.”

Charley and Richard were so interested
in what Aunt Martha had been telling
them, that old Sally tapped at the door
twice before they heard her. And then,
when she had brought in the tea, and the
muffins hot out of the oven, they could
neither eat nor drink for talking about
“the tea-cups.” And Richard began to
wonder what Aunt Martha’s next story
would be about, and tried to make her tell
him. But she did not think this would be
wise ; and all he could ascertain was that
the subject of it would come out of her
corner cupboard.



THE BOYS AT PLAY. 41

It was clear, however, that the story had
done them good; for the next morning,
Charley and Richard, instead of spending
every moment in play, walked up and
down the garden-walk, talking about the
clay, and the glaze, and the enamel—things
they had known nothing about before.

But their greatest pleasure was to come;
for strolling out by the gate into the lane,
they spied, all at once, some bits of broken
pot. You would have thought they had
found something very precious indeed, they
were so pleased. They picked them up,
and carried them off in triumph into the
old tool-house, where Charley at once set
to work with a great stone to pound them
to powder. He had nearly broken them
up, to mix with some clay that Richard
brought out of the ditch, when the thought
struck him that these blue and white pieces
of pot were not like Aunt Martha’s best



42 COMMON CUPS.

china. He would go in and ask her if they
were.

Aunt Martha was seated at her work-
table, in the parlour, when the boys, with
dirty hands, came running in. She sent
them out again to wash their hands, and
then told them that Charley was right.
Her best cups and saucers had the pat-
terns painted on them, and required a
deal more skill to make than these.

Common blue and white cups—such as
Charley had a bit of in his hand — were
managed in quite another way. A paper,
with the pattern printed on it, was wrapped
round each cup. The cup was rubbed for
a long time, and then set in water. The
paper soon peeled off, but the blue marks
were left behind.

Richard and Charley wanted to know a
great deal more; but Aunt Martha would
not answer any of their questions. So they



PLAYING AT POTTERS, 43

went back to the tool-house again, to play
at potters. What delightful work it was!
so delightful, that Charley made up his
mind to be a potter as soon as he was old
enough,—and if his papa would let him.

Richard said, if he was a potter he ought
to go to China; and then he remembered
his dog’s-eared geography in his desk at
school, and thought when he got back he
would look into it, and see if it said any-
thing about China. He should like to
know a little more than Aunt Martha had
told them.

That afternoon old Sally had to keep the
boys from going into the parlour too soon ;
for their faces were washed and their hair
brushed half an hour before the usual
time.

But good Aunt Martha was ready ; and
when she heard their feet pattering along
the hall, she got up and opened the door.



44 ALL ATTENTION.

Then Charley settled himself on the hearth-
rug, and Richard fetched a stool; and the
boys were as still as mice while Aunt
Martha told them—“ The Story of the Tea.”









CHAPTER IV.

THE STORY OF THE TEA.

it is kept only to look at. It
wants to be filled with good strong



D® tea.

1 wonder what people did before tea
was brought to England; for it is not,
as everybody knows, a native of this
climate. It grows in China, where the
beautiful cups are made on purpose to hold
it. And it was sipped by emperors on
their thrones, and by their grand man-
darins, many years before we knew any-
thing about it. And even now, the best
of the tea is kept at home for the benefit



46 A NEW DRINK FROM CHINA,

of the Court, and it is only the next best
that finds its way into our tea-pots.

About two hundred and fifty years ago,
there was no tea in England except what
people made of the herbs that grew in their
gardens, such as mint, and thyme, and
sage ; no one, not even their majesties the
kings and queens, had ever tasted a cup
of real Chinese tea. _ .

But it happened that in the year 1610—-
for I daresay you would like to know the:
date—some Dutch ships brought a little
tea to Holland; and then a little more
was brought home to England, and people
talked about it as “a new drink that came
from China.”

Everybody would have liked to taste
some of it, but it was very difficult to get ;
and when a present of two pounds of tea
was made to the king, he thought it a
very handsome gift indeed.



A FUNNY STORY. 47

Not many people could buy tea in those
days ; and even when they did get it, they
hardly knew whether it was to be eaten or
drunk.

There is a funny story of two old people,
who had an ounce of tea sent to them, and
who were quite at a loss what to do with
it. At last, the old lady proposed to her hus-
band that they should sprinkle it on their
bacon, and eat it; which they accordingly
did—and very nasty it must have been.

By slow degrees, however, tea found its
way to every home in England; and in
these days every one can afford to buy it.
It is welcomed in the palace of our royal
lady the Queen, and it affords refreshment
to the poorest cottager. A cup of tea is
equally grateful to all.

It must be confessed that tea makes its
appearance under great disadvantages. No
one who has seen it growing in the Flowery



48 THE TEA IN FLOWER.

Land of its birth, can suppose it to be the
same thing. And it is rather whimsical as
to where it does grow. The north is too
cold, and the
south is too hot;
but there is a
middle tract of
country neither
too hot nor too
cold, that suits
it the best.

It is called by
the Chinaman
Teha or Tha,and
from this word
4 comes our Eng-

TRA-PLANT IN FLOWER, lish name of tea.

It has white flowers, a little like the wild

rose ; and when the flowers are over, there



come some green pods, that contain the
seed.











































































































































































































































































































































cy

ny

iy

i

nH | Il

a
I

il
+

n al















SOWING THE SEEDS OF



THE TEA-PLANT









50 SOWING THE TEA.

The Chinaman is very careful how he
sows his seeds, because his next crop is to
come from them. And he sows six or seven
seeds in one hole, to be quite sure that
some of them will come up.

The leaves are, as you may suppose, the
most important part of the plant. They are
very handsome and glossy, like the leaves
of the camelia that lives in the hothouse.
But it is not on account of their beauty they
are so much valued ; they have some good
qualities that no other leaves possess.

When a person drinks a cup of tea, how
refreshed he feels!” That is because of the
reviving and strengthening quality in the
leaf. The leaf also has in it a bitter sub-
stance called Thein—or, as it might be
styled, pure extract of tea; and this has a
great effect in taking away the feeling of
being wearied.

The Chinaman has his tea-plantation,















ih
cc

»
a

a





STRIPPING OFF THE LEAVES.





52 A TEA-FARM.

just as we have our vegetable-garden, or
the Irishman has his potato-ground. It is
called “a tea-farm ;” and the farmer lives
close by, in a funny little house, like a
pagoda, with long pointed eaves to it.

He and his wife are always busy in the
plantation, for she helps him to weed and
water, and her feet have no little shoes to
pinch them. She could not afford to hobble
about as the fine ladies do, or to be carried
in a sedan.

In the early spring, when the young leaves
were newly put forth, and had a delicious
flavour, the family began to be very busy.
The children came into the plantation and
stripped them off, until the branches were
nearly bare. But they left enough for an-
other gathering by-and-by.

Of course the young tender leaves were
the best, and made the nicest tea. The
Chinaman called it Souchong. When the











































































































THE TEA BEING DRIED.



54 STRIPPING OFF THE LEAVES,

leaves that are left get older, they are
gathered ; but they are not so delicate, and
people do not like them so well.

There is still a third gathering, but this
is worse than the last, and makes very
poor tea.

When the leaves are stripped off, they
are thrown into some shallow baskets, and
set in the sun, where the wind can blow on
them to dry them. They are then put in
a pan, and placed on a stove with a fire
under it, to be dried still more. While
they are over the fire, they are stirred
about with a brush until they are quite dry.

You may see that the tea-leaf is rolled up
and crumpled, and that it comes straight
when it is put into the water. The China--
man takes the trouble to roll it in this way.
He does it at a board, and rolls the leaf
between his fingers. After this has been
done, he again dries the leaves over the fire.



THE FARMER SELLING HIS TEA. 55

He takes a good deal of pains to pick
out all the bad leaves and throw them away.
He knows his tea will be looked at, before
it can be sold to a person who knows good
tea from bad.

This person is a tea-merchant, and lives
at the next town. All day long, the farmers
keep coming into the office where he sits,
with chests of tea slung over their shoulders.
They want him to buy, and he is quite
willing. Indeed, the more he can get the
better, for he wants to send it in a ship to
Europe.

But he always makes the farmer open
his chest and spread his tea out before him.
He looks at it very sharply, and takes it
in his hand and smells it; and he would
find out in a minute if any bad leaves were
left in it. But if it is really good tea, he
gives the farmer some money, and sends
him away, leaving his tea-chest behind him.



56 THE TEA-LEAVES BEGIN TO UNROLL.

The farmer goes to the market and lays
out some of his money,—though he is very
saving and thrifty, or he would not be a
Chinaman.

It was a good thing that old Sally just
then came in with the tea, for that was
what Charley and Richard wanted. Not
that they were either hungry or thirsty ;
but it was delightful to jump up and look
at the tea in the caddy, as Aunt Martha
took it out with a scoop.

It was better still to watch the water
being poured on it, and to see the tea-
leaves begin to unroll themselves and to
get quite flat. Charley clapped his hands
with glee, and they both skipped round
the room, saying they had never enjoyed a
cup of tea so much as now they knew some-
thing about it.

For I am afraid they were sad _ little



















A PICTURE IN AUNT MARTHA’S BOOK.



58 IN THE LIBRARY.

dunces; and if they knew that the tea
was a plant at all, it is more than could
be expected.

But it is never too late to mend; and the
very next afternoon Charley and Richard
found their way to a room they had never
much cared about before. This room was
called the library, and had rows and rows
of shelves, with many books upon them.

But besides the books upon the shelves,
there were others on the table. And
Charley, who was thinking very much
about foreign countries, was glad to find a
book lying open on Aunt Martha’s desk,
telling all about India and China. It was
full of pictures; among them were some of
potters making cups and other vessels, and
of people picking off the leaves of the tea-
plant.

How quickly the time passed in looking
at them! Instead of being tired of doing



PLEASANT EMPLOYMENT. 59

nothing, as Charley very often was when
it rained and he could not play out of doors,
the time seemed to fly; and Aunt Martha
had finished her nap and taken her knit-
ting, and was ready to tell her story, almost
before they were ready to hear it.

Not that they were a moment too late ;
oh no !—they wanted very much to know
more about the contents of Aunt Martha’s
corner cupboard, and were very glad when,
without any delay, she began—“ The Story
of the Sugav.”











CHAPTER V.

THE STORY OF THE SUGAR.



$V ERYBODY likes sugar. The Christ-
Yh mas pudding would be nothing with-
out it; and the plum-cake, and the

Ky f tarts, and the custards, and all the
nice things that little boys are so fond of,
would have no sweet taste in them if it
were not for the sugar.

But its range is much wider than this.
It is found in the ripe peach on the wall,
and in the juicy nectarine. The bee knows
the taste of it right well, and finds it hid-
den deep in the bell of the flower. It lurks
in the grape, and the orange, and fruits too
many for me to name.



THE SUGAR-CANE, 61

And it finds its way into the stems of
plants, and makes their juices sweet and
delicious. There is a tall, reed-like plant,
with a yellow stem. It is called the sugar-
cane, because there is y
so much sugar in it.

In some places, people
are always chewing it.
They cut it with their |
knives to make the 7




juice come out, and go ” Te 7
on cutting and chew-
ing all day long.

The sugar-cane grows :
in very hot countries, HE SUGAR-CANE,
where black people live and monkeys run
about on the trees. The burning sun pours
its rays full upon it; but this is what it
likes, and what makes its juice so sweet.
There is an island that belongs to England,
and is called Jamaica ; and the sugar-cane



62 A SUGAR-MILL









































































































































































































































































A SUGAR#=MILL.

grows there, and we get a great deal of
sugar from it. At one time the black people
who made the sugar and took care of the



THE GIANT STEAM. 63

canes were slaves, and were bought and
sold in the market ; but one happy morn-
ing they were all set free.

A great giant called Steam helps to make
the sugar now, and does more than all the
black people put together. People did not
all at once find out how helpful he was, and
that he could turn mills, and push carriages,
and do all kinds of things. But they were
very glad when they did know it; and when
he began to help them to make the sugar.
For weights, and rollers, and heavy wheels
are nothing to him.

A sugar-plantation is a very pretty sight.
The tall yellow canes rustle in the wind ;
and at the top is a tuft of flowers, that looks
like a silvery plume. And here and there
black people are busy at work, hoeing and
weeding. The women have blue and scar-
let handkerchiefs tied round their heads,
for they dearly love a bit of finery.



64 THE MONKEYS AND THE SUGAR-CANE,

Sometimes, in the middle of the night,
when all is still and cool, and the moon is
shining, a troop of monkeys come racing
down from some mountains near. Then
woe betide the sugar-canes !







A SUGAR-PLANTATION.

The monkeys love the taste of sugar ; and
they clutch at the canes with their long
fingers, and pull them up, and bite them,
and do a great deal of mischief.



WHAT-SUGAR COMES FROM. 65

Happily, the black man has a fancy for
roasted monkey,—a dish we never see in
England ; and he thinks it no trouble to
sit watching hour after hour, with his gun
in his hand, waiting for the monkeys.

Down they come on the full run, and do
not all at once see him. But pop goes the
gun, and one or other is sure to be shot.

It is time that I told you of a fact con-
nected with the history of the sugar-cane.
The stem is not hollow like the grass or the
reed, but it is solid, and filled with the
sweet juice we have been talking about,
and that makes the sugar.

But the juice, before anything is done to
it, is very wholesome, and people who suck
it are sure to be strong and healthy. Even
the horses that work in the sugar-mill get
as fat as can be, for they are always chew-
ing the canes. And nothing fattens: poul-

try half so. well,—and there are plenty of
(457) 5



66 ITS MANY STAGES.

fowls pecking about in the negro’s little
garden.

But the juice is too good to be wasted.
It forms the material of that vast supply of



















































































































































CUTTING THE CANES,

sugar met with everywhere, in every town,
and village, and household. And it has to
go through a great many stages, and pass
through a great many hands, like the tea-cup.



IN THE SUGAR-MILL. 67

In the first place, the beautiful yellow
canes are cut down close to the ground, -
and tied up in bundles. Then they are
carried to a mill, and the big giant Steam,









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































IN THE SUGAR-MILL.

in places where he has been set to work,
sends great iron rollers over them, and
squeezes out every drop of juice.

The juice runs into a cistern, and is made



68 THE SPARKLING CRYSTALS.

hot, lest it should turn sour; and a little
lime is put in with it, to make it clear, and
then the liquor is boiled very fast indeed.
When it has left off boiling, and is set
to cool, there will be a great many spark-
ling crystals in it, which are the real sugar.
But the crystals are mixed up with a thick
stuff that is called molasses, and which has
to be got away. This used to be a very
tiresome process indeed, in the old days
when the poor slaves made the sugar. |
They poured the liquor into a great many
tubs with little holes at the bottom of them ;
and it was left to stand a long time—till
the thick stuff or molasses had slowly
drained through, and had left the sugar
behind.
- But now the giant Steam is set to work,
all this is done as quickly as can be. The
liquor is poured into a large square box
made of iron, and divided into two cham-













































































































































































































































































































































































































































































BOILING THE SUGAR.



70 HOW THEY ARE GOT.

bers, an upper and a lower. The liquor is
poured into the upper chamber, on a floor
made of wire like a sieve. Then the good-
natured giant begins to pump the air out
of the lower chamber. Now nature abhors
a vacuum, and always finds something to
fill it. So the liquid molasses come pour-
ing down, through the sieve, into the lower
part of the box. The sugar that has be-
come crystallized cannot run through the
sieve, for the holes are too fine for it to
get through ; so it is left behind, and that
is Just what the sugar-maker wants.

All this is done in two hours, while in
the old-fashioned way it used to take eight
days.

The food with which the giant fills his
capacious maw is the raw sugar-cane, after
all the juice has been squeezed out. It
burns well, and there is plenty to be had,
and it does not cost a penny.











































































































SENDING THE SUGAR OFF TO EUROPE,



“I
bo

LUMP-SUGAR,

When the sugar is made, it is packed in
great casks, and sent to Europe.

After it gets here, some of it goes through
another process, and is made quite white,
and into tall cone-shaped loaves. This is

?

called “lump-sugar ;” and the other goes ©

by the name of “ raw.”

Aunt Martha had hardly finished speak-
ing when Charley, who was seated before
the fire with his elbows on his knees and
his chin between his hands, observed that
monkeys had a better time of it than boys
had. If he had been a monkey, he should
not have minded. Just think how pleasant
it would be to pop down among those sugar-
canes !

Richard said he did not think so. Char-
ley might like the chances of being shot,
and roasted for a black man’s dinner; but
he preferred less sugar and a safe life. Not



A SAFE PLACE. 73

that he pitied the monkeys for being shot ;
it served them right for being so greedy as
to pull down the canes.

Charley could not agree with this.
“Sugar,” he said, “was so tempting—no-
body knew how tempting,” added he, rising
and looking wistfully at the old-fashioned
sugar-basin heaped up with lumps of sugar,
which old Sally was taking out of the cor-
ner cupboard. That basin was very full—
too full; he feared that top lump would
topple over. A remark which made Aunt
Martha smile, and say that if he could find
a safer place for it, he might.

Charley said he knew of one much safer;
and, opening his mouth, waited for old Sally
to pop it in. Then he thanked his aunt by
an embrace, and they sat down to tea.

The next morning the two boys were
early, and went into the kitchen just as old
Sally was putting the coffee-berries into



74 COFFEE FOR BREAKFAST.

the mill to grind for breakfast. Charley
asked where they came from, and what
they were. Old Sally said she was not
book-learned ; if they wanted to know, they
had better ask their aunt.

The boys said they must; but that when
they got back to school they would try to
learn a few things for themselves.

Sally thought they had better be quick
about it; for if they did not learn while
they were young, they were not likely to
know anything when they were old. And
there were not many Aunt Marthas in the
world. What a long tale she had told them
last night !—too long, said she slyly.

Charley said, Not a bit. He meant to
ask for a longer one to-night. He wanted
to know all about the coffee.

So when Aunt Martha came down, it
was agreed that her next tale should be—
“The Story of the Coffee.”





CHAPTER VI.

THE STORY OF THE COFFEE.



“HEN the morning sun shines cheer-
4

white cloth is spread on the table,
coffee is always present. There are
few breakfast-tables in the kingdom where
it is not to be found.

You may know it is there by the pleasant
odour it spreads around. It is as nice to
drink as tea, and a great deal more strength-
ening. Many a poor man can work hard
from morning till night, and not drink any-
thing stronger than coffee.

It was a long time before coffee was
brought to England; but in the reign of



76 THE FIRST COFFEE-HOUSE.

Oliver Cromwell, a merchant who used to
go backwards and forwards to Turkey, to
trade there, brought home with him a
Greek servant. This man had tasted coffee
—for the Turks drink a great deal of it,
just as the Chinese drink a great deal of
tea—and he knew how nice it was.

He brought some berries home with him,
and used to make coffee, and let people in
London have some of it. Indeed, at last
he got so famous for his coffee, and so much
‘talked about, that he set up a coftee-house;
that is, a house where coffee is sold instead
of beer.

Perhaps you would like to know where
this first coffee-house was, for there are
plenty of them now in every town in Eng-
land. It was in George’s Yard, Lombard
Street. This Lombard Street is in the
very heart of the business world ; and it
gets its name because some Jews from



COFFEE-DRINKING. 77

Lombardy once came to live there,—who
used to lend money, for which they made
people pay a great deal.

Bankers now live in Lombard Street,
and their name comes from the Jews. The
Jews had benches with their bags of gold
upon them, and there they used to stand
and carry on their trade. Now, danco in
Italian means bench; and this became
corrupted into banker, a man who lends
money as the Jews did, only in a more
honest manner.—But all this has nothing
to do with coffee.

From the little coffee-house in Lombard
Street, the habit of drinking coffee spread
all over the country. ,

At first, like tea, it cost a good deal of
money ; and it was brought from only one
small province in Arabia, called Yemen.

I should tell you that Arabia is divided
into three parts. One is all stones and



78 MOCHA.

rocks; and another all sand and desert.
But there is a third region, called “ Happy
Arabia,” that is full of gardens and vine-
yards, and olive-trees. And here is the

province of Yemen.































MOCHA.

Mocha is the chief town, and the place
where the coffee came from, It stands close
to the sea-shore, on a very sandy plain, and
at the entrance to the Red Sea.



THE GATE OF TEARS. 79

The entrance to the Red Sea is through
some dangerous straits called “ Bab-el-
mandeb,” or “the Gate of Tears,’ because
so many ships are wrecked there. Indeed,
the Arab, who is very fanciful, says that
the spirit of the storm is always perched
on a rock that overlooks the straits.

Any lady in Mocha, when she goes out
for an evening visit, carries on her arm a
little bag of coffee, and has it boiled when
she gets there. And all over the town
people are to be seen lying on the ground,
under awnings spread to screen them from
the sun. These are their coffee-houses ;
and there they do nothing all day but sip
coffee and smoke their pipes.

The people at Mocha pretend that they
like coffee best when it is made of the husk
of the coffee-berry, and not of the berry
itself.

But all the coffee that Mocha and the



80 PLANTING THE COFFEE.

province round could supply was very
little, compared to what comes to Eng-
land now ; and of course the price of coffee
was extremely high. So, when it began
to be so much liked, the kings and queens
in the different countries of Europe set
about having coffee planted in all places
where it would grow.

The French sent some coffee-plants to
one of their islands in the West Indies, in
order to have a plantation there. An ofticer
had the care of the plants, and he sailed ina
ship from Amsterdam. He had a long and
_very stormy passage, and the wind pre-
vented the ship from getting on.

It might be said of the people on board
as it is in the poem,—

“ Water, water everywhere,
And not a drop to drink !”

In fact, the water on board was nearly all
used up, and no more was to be had until







































A COFFEE-PLANTATION.



82 THE BRAVE OFFICER.

they came to their journey’s end. Each
man was allowed only a very small quantity
a day, and they had often to suffer from
thirst.

The French officer had no more given to
him than the rest, and he would gladly
have quenched his thirst. But, alas! the
tender plants he was cherishing with such
care began to droop. They too wanted
water; and rather than let them die, he
went without himself, and poured the scanty
supply given him on their roots.

The crew laughed at him, and he had to
bear a great many rude speeches. But,
thanks to this act of self-denial, the plants
were able to live until the vessel came at
last to land. Then the brave officer received
hisreward. The plants grew and multiplied,
and became great plantations, that supplied
other countries and islands.

Many places now furnish coffee in the

















vials

|

i
‘i





THE FRENCH OFFICER AND THE GOFFEE-PLANTS.







84 ANCIENT CUSTOMS.

greatest abundance. Brazil sends out
enough almost to supply the world. The
plant had grown wild in the island of
Ceylon from the earliest times; and the

natives used to

sss
1

be



pluck the leaves





and mix them
with their food
to give it a fla-
vour ; they also
_made garlands
of its flowers to
decorate their
temples ; but it
was a very long
time before they
made any use of
COFFEE-PLANT IN FLOWER—AND FRUIT. the berries.

When the coffee-plant is left to nature it
grows rather tall. But, as a rule, its top is
cut off to make it throw out more branches.



WHERE THE BEST COFFEE COMES FROM. 85

The leaves are ever-green ; and the flowers
are white, and a , little He: those of the
jessamine. 00 Corry |

When the Bere is 18 ripe it is red, and like
a great cherry. There are two hard seeds
in it, like beans, that are known to every
one, for they are ground into coffee. In
many plantations they fall to the ground,
and lie under the tree until they are picked
up. But in Arabia this is not allowed
to be.

The planter, as he is called, spreads a
cloth on the ground, and then shakes the
tree, so that the ripe berries drop off. He
then puts them on mats, and lets them lie
in the sun till they are dry. And then the
husk is broken by a roller, and the berries
got out.

All his trouble is amply repaid, for this
Arabian coffee is the best in the world.

The coffee-berries have still to be roasted,



85 PURE COFFEE.

and then ground to powder. They are
brought to England, however, before they
are ground. Many people have little coffee-





SEs
BERRIES,



GATHLRING THE COFFE

mills in their houses, into which the ber-
ries are put, to be ground for breakfast.
By this means they can obtain the coffee
in a state of purity. For it is the custom



ENEMIES TO THE COFFEE-PLANT. 87

in these days to mix the ground coffee with
the roots of a plant called chicory, to make
it go further. This is done to such an
extent, that a law has been made obliging
the person who sells the coffee to declare
whether it is pure or not. And if it is
mixed, he is obliged to print on the packet
the words, “ Coffee and Chicory.”

The coffee-plant has a great many ene-
mies. Wild cats climb up the stem and
run along the branches to get at the berries;
and the squirrel nibbles them as he does
nuts ; to say nothing of the monkeys, who
are always ready for a taste.

In Ceylon, there is a kind of rat that lives
in the forest, and makes its nest in the
roots of the trees. It comes into the plan-
tation in swarms to feed on the berries.
Its teeth are as sharp as a pair of scissors;
and it gnaws through the branch that has
the fruit upon it, and lets it fall to the



88 WAR AGAINST THE RATS.

ground, where it can feast at its leisure.
It is very provoking to the planter to find
all the delicate twigs and branches cut off,
and he wages war against the rats.

The natives of the opposite coast of India
think the flesh of the rat, fed as it is on
such delicate fare, very nice, and they come
and work in the plantations on purpose to
get as many of them as they can. They fry
them in oil, and make a dish of them with
hot spices, and call it ‘ currie.”

The little boys were sorry when Aunt
Martha came to the end of her “story of the
coffee,” and wanted to know a great many
things about the brave man who went with-
out drinking, in order to water the plants,
and get them safe to their journey’s end.

Aunt Martha could not answer all their
questions, for she was tired of talking, and
wanted her tea. But she made a promise



THE PLEASURE OF HAVING KNOWLEDGE. 89

that the next time she went to London, if
Charley and Richard were there, she would
take them into a coffee-house and give
them each a cup.

Charley said it was a long time to wait
for that treat ; but if their aunt would let
them, they should like to get up a little
sooner each morning, and grind the coffee
for breakfast. And then they remembered
old Sally’s ignorance, and how they must
tell her where the coffee came from, and all
about it.

Yes, it was very pleasant indeed to know
a few things, and to be able to teach other
people. And Richard thought of a little
schoolfellow of his, and of how much he
should have to tell him when he got back
to school.

When old Sally brought in the tea, she
set a dish of new-laid eggs upon the table,
and Aunt Martha gave one to each of her



90 SPILLING THE SALT.

guests. Charley was talking away, and
not thinking of what he was doing, so he
upset the salt-cellar, and spilt all the salt
on the tablecloth. Aunt Martha asked
him if he knew where salt came from. He
answered very quickly, “From the shop.”
But then Richard wanted to know where
the shopman got it from.

Instead of telling them, Aunt Martha
said it was well for Charley that he did not
live in olden times, when salt was very
scarce, or he would have got into disgrace
for wasting it. For in those days it was
dear, and people took much more care of it
than they do now. One large salt-cellar
used to be set in the middle of the dinner-
table, and everybody helped themselves to
a little. It was the custom for the master
and mistress to sit above the salt-cellar,
and all the servants to take their places
below it.



PROMISE OF ANOTHER STORY. 91

Yes, indeed, he would have got into
trouble then, if he had spilt the salt. And
Aunt Martha promised that to-morrow
night she should tell them-——“ The Story of
the Salt.”









CHAPTER VII.

THE STORY OF THE SALT.



HERE is something on the lower
~, shelf of the corner cupboard, that




% is of more importance than many



i
of its neighbours.

You might contrive to live without either
tea or coffee, as people were obliged to do
in years gone by, when they drank stout
ale for breakfast, and had dinner at twelve
o'clock. But what would you do without
salt? What would become of your nice
relishing dishes, if sad¢ did not season them ?
They would taste no better than white of
egg.

Nay, you would not have those rosy



A SALT-LICK. 23

cheeks, nor be able to scamper about from
morning till night as you do now. You
would be pale and sickly; and I hardly
think you could live, without the little
harmless doses of salt you are always tak-
ing in some form or other.

In a part of the world called North
America, the cattle and the deer come a
long way to get a taste of salt. The salt is
in some well or spring that bubbles up
among the grass; and the water leaves it
behind like a crust on the stones that may
chance to be lying about; and the grass all
round tastes very much of salt.

The place is called a “salt-lick,” because
the cattle keep licking at the stones. They
are sure to find their way to the salt-lick,
even though they live miles away. And
they keep cropping the grass, and licking
the salt, till they have had enough, and then
they go home again. They make a path



94 A CUNNING HUNTER.

on the grass with their hoofs, and quite
tread it down. The hunter knows what
the path means the moment he sees it, and
he lies in wait with his gun. The poor deer
is sure to come before long, or the buffalo
with his great horns, and then the hunter
shoots at them.

The man who owns the salt-lick very
often begins to bore down into the ground.
He thinks he may find a salt-mine, or, at
least, a way underground that leads to one,
and then he can get quite rich and become
a person of importance.

A man once came to a salt-lick and tasted
the water. He found it was all right, and
that when he boiled some in a kettle and
let it get cold there was a crust of salt at
the bottom. He was highly delighted, and
bought the land, and set people on to
bore. But, alas! there was no salt to be
found anywhere. A cunning hunter had



A STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCE. 95

put salt into the spring, and sprinkled
it on the grass, to entice the deer, and
make them believe the place was a salt-
lick. And so the poor man had spent his
money for nothing !

In some places the salt-licks are very far
apart, and the cattle can hardly ever get
to them. The cattle have plenty of food,
and large rich pastures to browse in; but
they long for a bit of salt, and there is none
for them. Once a fortnight their master
~ lets them come home to the farm, and gives
each of them a bit of salt. The cows and
horses know the right day as well as can
be, and they set off at full gallop to the
farm. The farmer is quite ready for them ;
and when they have had their salt they
trot back again to the fields, as contented
as possible.

In Norway, when the farmer’s wife goes.
out with her maidens to collect her cows



96 THE SALT DESERT.

and have them milked, she takes a bowl of
salt in her hand. The moment the cows
see it, they come running up from all parts
of the field, as if asking for some. Their
mistress gives each of them a large spoon-
ful, and expects them to be satisfied. But
sometimes a cow is greedy, and wants
more, and keeps pressing to the bowl until
it becomes quite troublesome; and then
the mistress gives it a box on the ears
with the wooden spoon, to teach it better
manners.

There is a desert in Africa where the
ground under foot is not sand but salt. It
is called the “Salt Desert ;” and the salt
sparkles in the sun with such a crystal
whiteness that people who travel upon it
are almost blinded.

Because salt is so useful and so necessary,
it is found in great abundance. The great

wide sea could not keep sweet and fresh

















































































































































































































































































































































































































































SALT DESERT IN AFRICA,



©
oO

BAY SALT AND ROCK SALT.

without salt. People put the sea-water in
large shallow pans, and let the sun dry it
up. The salt found at the bottom is called
“bay salt,” and is very bitter. And some-
times it is mixed with other things,—such
as a relation called Epsom salts, that has
a disagreeable taste, and is used as a
medicine.

But the salt makes its way from the sea
by all kinds of secret paths under the
eround, and then it is found in places called
mines, and is named “rock salt.” The mine
is like a great deep cavern, and has tall
pillars of salt to hold up the roof; and the
roof, and the walls, and the pillars glitter
as though they were covered with precious
stones.

When any person of consequence comes
to visit the mine, the men who are at
work make a great illumination. They

stick torches here and there as thickly as


"3 aa lop a

av “ — oleae cya

i NAT ie

MEV eave borat ral ha
i NG
The Baldwin Library

University
TP
Florida


















—~tngitieotcr-

AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD.

woe ae



AT WORK

HONEY MAKERS
Bowe ies








STORIES oe

EA UOFFEE SUGAR
Ho N EY

T.NELSON & SONS, London & Edinburgh














AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD.

A Storp for Little Hops and Girls.

BY

MARY ann ELIZABETH KIRBY,

AUTHORS OF “THE WORLD AT HOME,” ‘‘ THE SEA AND ITS WONDERS,”

ETC,, ETC,



LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YORK,

1875.





Il.

Ill.

Iv.

v.

CXontents.

THE CORNER CUPBOARD,

THE STORY OF THE TEA-CUP,

HOW THE TEA-CUP WAS FINISHED,
THE STORY OF THE TEA, °*

THE STORY OF THE SUGAR,

. THE STORY OF THE COFFEE,

. THE STORY OF THE SALT,

THE STORY OF THE CURRANTS, ...
THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE,

THE STORY OF THE COTTON,

. THE STORY OF THE RICE,

THE STORY OF THE HONEY,

C=}

i
oo

30


AUNT MARTHA’S CORNER CUPBOARD,



CHAPTER I

THE CORNER CUPBOARD.

gor,

f- AM afraid that Charley and Richard
® Knight gave their master a great
(eX deal of trouble.

: The school they went to had just
broken up for the Christmas holidays, and
neither of them had won a prize. Indeed,
they were never likely to do so, judging
from the way in which they went on.

They were good-tempered lads, and
favourites with their playmates. If they
had a cake sent them from home, they





10 IDLE BOYS. -

always shared it with the rest of the school.
And they were first and foremost at every
game that was played. Their blue eyes
were always twinkling with fun; and if
they had been sent to Mr. Birch’s Academy
merely to enjoy themselves, it would have
been all very well.

But it is of no use mincing the matter :
they were the most idle lads in the school.
Nobody could make them learn their lessons
—not even Mr. Birch, though he was very
strict, and now and then gave them a
caning.

It was a pity they were so idle. Their
papa was a learned man, and wished them
to follow in his steps. It made him very
unhappy when they came home without a
prize ; and always, by the next post, a long
letter from the schoolmaster to complain
that he could not make them work.

Their mamma tried to excuse them, and
GOING TO AUNT MARTHA’S. 11

said it was “time enough yet.” But their
papa was of another opinion, now that
Richard had turned twelve ; and he used
to shake his head, and look very sad.

This cold, snowy Christmas the boys
were not going home. It was a promise
that they should spend the holidays with
their Aunt Martha; and her old-fashioned
carriage was at the door to take them.

They had not the least objection, for
they were very fond of Aunt Martha, as
indeed was everybody that had ever seen
her.

She lived in a house with gable ends,
just as you turn into the village. It was a
very old house, and was said to have been
built in the reign of King John. It was
quite covered with ivy; and there was a
large garden, but the snow had hidden
everything in it.

The rooms were large, but very low.
12 . THE CUPBOARD.

The one Aunt Martha liked the best had
the morning sun upon it, and looked into
the garden. And here she had her work-
table, and her basket of knitting, for her
eyes were not very good, now she was
getting old. And here she sat all the day
long.

Close by was her corner cupboard, that
she kept locked up, and the key was on a
bunch that she carried in her pocket. She
never left her cupboard open, because it
had so many things in it.

The boys knew the cupboard by heart.
Out of it came sweet cakes, and honey and
sugar ; and tops and marbles, and all the
things they liked. And there were no
tiresome spelling-books, or grammars, or
anything of the kind, to plague them.

But you must not suppose that Aunt
Martha was an ignorant lady. Far from
it. She knew a great many things indeed,
AUNT MARTHA’S SCHEME. 13

and she did not like the thought that her
dear little nephews should grow up to be
dunces, which was most likely to be the
case.

Of course, she did not presume to think
she could teach them so well as Mr. Birch,
who understood Latin and Greek, and had
kept a school twenty years. “But she had
a scheme in her head to teach them some-
thing. .

Not that she intended them to learn
lessons in the holidays,—that would have
been extremely unkind. The knowledge
she meant to give them was not to be
found in their lesson-books, thumbed and
dog-eared as they were; for an idle boy
can wear his book out without using it.
No; the lore she was thinking about was
contained close by, in her corner cup-
board

It seemed to Aunt Martha—for she was
14 THINGS FROM FOREIGN PARTS.

a lady of a lively imagination—as if every-
thing in that cupboard,—her china, her tea,
her coffee, her sugar, even her needle,—had
a story to tell, and a most entertaining one
too. Had not many of the things been in
foreign parts, where are great palm-trees,
and monkeys, and black men, and lions,
and tigers ?

And if they had not been abroad, they
were sure to have something to.relate that
the boys had never heard of.

The boys loved to hear stories told them.
There was a time, just when it got dusk,
before the lamp was lighted, or the tea and
plum-cake brought in. Charley and Richard
would have played about all day long, and
pelted each other with snow-balls, and
made slides on the pond, and scampered
up and down the lane, till their legs, young
as they were, began to feel tired. And
then it was nice to sit on the hearth-rug
WHAT THE SCHEME WAS. 15

before the fire, and hear Aunt Martha tell
a tale.

Now, Aunt Martha had prepared a great
many tales, and had them, so to say, at
her finger-ends. She had not to make them
up as she went on, or that-would have
spoilt everything. Indeed, I almost think
she had learned them by heart.

She hoped that when her dear little boys
had heard all the curious things she was
about to relate, it would make them want
to read for themselves.

Charley and Richard had no idea of the
trouble their good aunt was taking on
their account, and they did just as they
had always done. They trundled their
hoops, and threw snow-balls, and scampered
about to their heart’s content. And when,
at last, their legs began to ache, good old
Sally, who had lived with Aunt Martha
for nearly thirty years, fetched them in,
16 WANTED—SOMETHING NEW.

took off their wet boots and put on dry
ones, and brushed their hair, and washed
their faces, and sent them into the parlour
to their aunt.

“She'll have a story to tell, I warrant,”
said old Sally, who was a little in the
secret.

Now, everything happened just as it
ought to do.

The boys wanted a story as much as
ever, but, like the rest of the world, they
wished for something new.

They were thoroughly acquainted with
“ Jack the Giant-killer,’” and entertaining
as he had once been, they were by this
time a little tired of him.

They knew “Cinderella” and “ Little
Red Riding Hood” by heart, and they did
not want to hear them over again. Not
that they could get really tired of such

d

delightful stories, but they “ might lie by,’

(457)
THE FIRST STORY BEGUN, 17

Charley said, “for one Christmas, and
something else come out.”

Aunt Martha was quite willing—indeed,
this was just what she had been planning
for. Her dear old face brightened up, and
looked as pleased as could be, when Charley
settled himself on the rug, and Richard
brought a stool and sat close by, their
merry blue eyes fixed intently upon her.

Then Aunt Martha began to relate her
first story—“ The Story of a Tea-Cup.”



(457)


CHAPTER IL.

THE STORY OF THE TEA-CUP.



|PJOME,” as I daresay you have heard
Heaeit said, “was not built in a day.”
CNA People who use the expression, mean
by it that nothing of any value can be done
without a great deal of time and trouble.

The tea-cup seems a simple thing, and
you use and handle it very often, and drink
your tea out of it every afternoon. But
perhaps you have never been told its whole
history “from beginning to end,” as the
story-books say, and do not know that it
takes a vast amount of labour, and sets
numbers of persons to work, before it can
become a cup at all.
BEST CHINA. 19

I will speak of the best china, that is
kept on the top shelf in the cupboard, and
only comes out on high days and holidays.
It is very superior, let me tell you, to the
blue and white cups and saucers in the
kitchen, that have no gold rim round them,
and did not cost nearly so much money.

The word china will remind you of a
country a long way off, where the gentle-
men have great plaits of hair hanging down
their backs, that look like tails, and the
ladies hobble about in little shoes turned
up at the toes.

The Chinaman drinks a great deal of tea,
because he likes it, and the tea grows in
his country. And the tea-cups are always
being handed about on little trays, that
everybody may have some. So the China-
man has a great deal of practice in making
tea-cups, and can do it remarkably well.

I am sorry to say he is not of an open
20 THE CHINAMAN’S SECRET

disposition, and likes to keep everything
he knows to himself.

He would not tell the people who lived
in other countries how he made his cups,
. though they were very curious to know,
and asked him over and over again.

There is a town in China where a great
many potters lived, and made their beauti-













CHINAMAN BAKING HIS CUPS.

ful cups. The streets were quite crowded
with the potters, and boat-loads of rice
came every day for them to eat.

There was a river close by the town; and
THE TWO STRANGERS. 21

when the cups and pots were finished, they
were packed and sent away in the boats.
The potters’ furnaces were always burning
to bake the cups, so that at night the town
looked as if it were on fire.

The potters would not let a stranger stay
all night in the place, for fear he should
find out the secret of the cup-making. He
was obliged either to sleep in one of the
boats, or to go away till the next morning.

But it happened that two strangers had
been on the watch for a long time, and at
last they thought they had found out the
secret.

One day they bought some great squares,
or bricks, that. were being sold in the
market and carried off by the potters.
They felt quite sure this was the stuff the
cups were going to be made of. Now the
bricks were sold on purpose to be used in
the potteries. They were made of a kind
22 KAOLIN.

of flint called petunse, that looks bright and
glittering, as if it had been sprinkled with
something to make it shine. And the
Chinaman collects it with great care, and
grinds it to powder, and makes the bricks
of it.

The two strangers carried the bricks
home to their own country, and set to
work to make cups.

But, alas! they could do no kind of
good. They were like a workman who had
left half his tools behind him. For they
wanted another substance to mix with the
petunse, and that was called kaolin.

Now kaolin was dug by the Chinaman
out of some deep mines, that he knew very
well, and often went to.

It lay about in little lumps, and he
picked it out, and made it into bricks just
as he had done the other.

And he laughed very much when he
PORCELAIN CLAY. 23

heard what the “barbarians,” as he called
them, had been trying to do. For he did
not pity them in the least.

“They think themselves very clever,” he
said, “to make a body that shall be all
flesh and no bones.”

He meant that the kaolin was hard, and
could not turn to powder when it was
burnt as the petunse did; so that it was like
bones to the cup, and made it firm. In-
deed, without it the cup was too soft, and
did not hold together.

I should not have told you this long
story if it had nothing to do with the best
china. But people can get a kind of clay
out of our own county of Cornwall that
does quite as well as the Chinaman’s bricks,
and the best china is always made of it.
People come a long way to look for the
“porcelain clay,” as it is called; and they
dig it out of the earth, and carry it toa
24 CLAY-CREAM.

great building that is, in fact, a porcelain
manufactory, where all kind of cups and
saucers, and jugs and basins are constantly
being made.

And as soon as the clay got there, it was
thrust into a machine, where it ran upon a
number of sharp knives that work round
and round, and have been set there on pur-
pose to chop it to pieces. When it had
been chopped long enough, it was turned
into a kind of churn, and churned as though
it were going to be made into butter. In-
deed, when the churning was over, the
person who had churned it called it “clay-
cream.”

Other matters, such as flint and bone,
were now mixed with it. But, in order
that they might work in harmony one with
the other, the flint and the bone had each
to be ground to a fine powder, and then
made like itself into “ clay-cream.”
“READY FOR THE POTTER.” 25

The two creams, in two separate vessels,
were carried to a room called “the mixing-
room,’ and put into a pan of water and
stirred well about.

They were stirred until they were quite
smooth, and without an atom of grit.

But as cups could not be made of the
clay-cream, it had to be made solid again.
And it was boiled over a fire until the
moisture was dried up, and it was very
much like dough. A man now began to
slap and beat it, and cut it in pieces, and
to fling the pieces one on the other with
all his might. And when he had slapped
it long enough, he said it was quite “ready
for the potter.”

The potter was called “a thrower,’—and
a good name for him.

He flung a ball of the clay on a little
round table before him, with such force
that it stuck there quite fast.
26 A WHIRLING TABLE.

The table was called a whirling table ;
and well it might, for it began to whirl
round and round as fast as could be.

The reason why it whirled, was because
a long strap went from it to a wheel in the
corner, that a boy was turning. When
the boy turned his wheel, the table turned
as well. And as the table went round,
the potter began to pinch, and pat, and
work the clay about with his fingers and
thumb, and give it what he called “ashape.”

He could do just what he liked with the
clay, and could make it into any shape he
pleased.

He had some tools to help him, such as
little pegs and bits of wood, with which he ©
scraped it on the outside and pressed it
on the inside, until he had brought it into
the form of a cup. And all the while the
wheel kept going round and round, until
it was enough to make you giddy.
THE BEST CHINA. 27

At last the wheel stopped, and so did
the table. And the clay was taken off, to
all intents and purposes a cup.

Aunt Martha had scarcely time to finish
the last sentence before there was a tap at
the door, and old Sally came in with the
tea-things.

Now, the best china had been taken
down and carefully dusted ; for Christmas
was looked upon as a high day and a holi-
day, and Charley and Richard were com-
pany, as a matter of course. As their heads
were still running upon cups and saucers,
they jumped up and began to look at them,
and to talk about “ flint,’ and “clay,” and
“kilns,” in a very learned manner, and one
that made old Sally smile.

Aunt Martha was very much pleased,
for she saw that her story had been care-
fully listened to, and had not gone in at
28 SEEKING KNOWLEDGE.

one ear and out at the other, as such in-
structive stories do sometimes.

And she was more pleased still, when
her little nephews asked her a great many
questions, and wanted to know more about
“the tea-cup.”

She did not tell them any more just then;
for she was a wise old lady, and she wished
to keep their curiosity awake, and not let
them have too much of the subject at
once.

So she talked about something else all
tea-time, and then she had out puzzles and
bagatelle, and a great many other games,
to make the evening pass pleasantly. But
old Sally told her that when the boys went
to bed, and she fetched away their candle,
they were talking very fast about “ the tea-
cup.”

And the next afternoon, when they had
given over running about, and their hair
THE STORY RESUMED. 29

had’ been brushed, and their faces washed,
they ran into the parlour where their aunt
was sitting, and asked her to go on with
her story, for they wanted to know a great
deal more.

Now it was rather early, and Aunt
Martha had hardly finished her afternoon’s
nap. But she did not like to keep the
little boys waiting. So she roused herself
up, put a log of wood on the fire,—for it
was very cold,—and when Charley and
Richard had settled themselves, she began,
or rather went on with—“ The Story of the
Tea-Cup.”








CHAPTER IIL

HOW THE TEA-CUP WAS FINISHED.

«the wheel. It was then set aside to



dry ; and very soon it reached what
the potter called “the green state”—though
he had better have said the “hard state,”
for it was getting gradually harder. It
was next taken to the turning-lathe, and
had all its roughness smoothed away, and
its appearance very much improved. Still,
the cup was by no means so handsome as
it is now; and it had no handle.

The Chinaman makes his cup without a
handle ; and when tea-cups were first used
in this country, they had no handles, and
HOW THE HANDLE IS MADE. 31

were very much smaller than they are now.
People in those days could not afford to
drink much tea at a time, it was so dear
and so scarce.





































THE POTTER AT HIS LATHE—MAKING A VASE.

But fashions are always changing, and in
our days every cup must have a handle.

The handle was made separate from the
cup, and fitted on afterwards. It was
nothing but a strip of clay cut the proper
length, and pressed into a mould to make
it the right shape. The man who has to
32 THE POTTER'S KILN.

do it, takes a great deal of pains to make it
fit very neatly.

The parts where the handle was to join
the cup were wetted with a certain mix-
ture of clay and water, to make them stick ;
and they did so at once.

The cup was now put into a square box,
or case, with sand at the bottom. Other
cups were placed in with it, though care
was taken to prevent them from touching
each other. Another box, just like it, and
full of cups, was set over it, so that the
bottom of one box made a lid for the other.”
All the boxes, piled up in this way, were
put into an oven, called “the potter’s kiln.”
It was in the shape of a cone, and with a
hole at the top to let the smoke out.

The Chinaman is at the trouble of put-
ting each cup into a separate box, in order,
as he says, that its delicate complexion may
not be spoilt by the fire !
ENAMEL, 33

When the cup is taken from the box, it
is pure white, and nearly transparent. It
is not yet thought worthy of the name of
porcelain, and is merely called “ biscuit
china.” 3

People were a long time before they
found out how to paint pictures on the
cup, or to give it its beautiful gloss.

The surface. of the cup was not hard
enough to hold the colours, and wanted a
coating upon it that is called ‘‘ enamel.”

No one in England knew how to make
the enamel, though the Chinaman did.
But a potter named Bernard Palissy tried
again and again to make it. Indeed, he
spent all his time in trying’ first one thing
and then another.

_ He made cup after cup, and coated them
over with what he thought was the right
thing; but not one of them would do. And
at last he became so poor that he had no

(457) 9
o
34 BERNARD PALISSY.

wood left to heat his furnace—just. at the
time, too, when more cups were ready to
go into it. :

He wanted wood to such a degree that
he became quite frantic, and felt that he
must put something into his furnace, he
did not care what. And he ran into the
room where his wife was sitting, and
snatched up the chairs and tables as if he
had been crazy, and ran with them to his
furnace.

Poor Madame Palissy wrote a book about
her troubles, at which I do not wonder. It
is a comfort to know that he succeeded at
last, and earned a great deal of money.
But many improvements have been made
in tea-cups since his time. _

Before the pictures are painted on the
cup, it is nicely cleaned, to remove any
atom of dust; and then it has to be glossed,
or, as it is called, “ glazed.” The stuff that
THE DIPPING-ROOM. 35

gives it its gloss, and makes it shine, looks
like thick cream, and is kept in wooden

































































PALISSY MAKING FUEL.

troughs in a room called “the dipping-
room.”

A man dips the cup into the trough, and
turns it about in such a way that every
36 THE PAINTING-ROOM.

part shall be coated, and yet every drop
drained out.

It is now put on a board, and, with other
cups, again baked, but in a cooler oven than
before. When it comes out of the oven it
shines with the beautiful gloss you see.

But it is not finished; for it is a bare cup,
without any pictures of flowers or fruit, or
figures like those on the best china.

It is taken to a room where there are
long tables, and a great many windows to
let in the light.

People sit at the tables, with brushes
and colours before them, and are busy
painting the cups.

In China one man paints nothing but
red, another paints nothing but blue; and
so on. But here, in the painting-room,
there is a little difference. One man paints
flowers, another leaves, another fruit, and
another figures.
THE LAST OPERATION. 37

The colours they use are obliged to be
made of metals—such as gold, iron, and
tin—for nothing else can stand the heat of
the furnace, in which the cups have once
more to be baked. Indeed, the painter
now and then pops
his cup or his saucer
into the kiln to see
how the colours will













> Va
i
=) ,
7)

stand, before it is || ai
quite finished. 4 _—— ‘A
.

When the cup has ( OSX OA



~
\

SAUCERS. PACKED FOR BAKING.

been painted, and
baked for the last time, it is taken to an-
other room still, where there are a great
many women and girls busy at work.

Each girl sits with her face to the light,
and takes a cup in one hand, and a stone
called an agate in the other. She rubs the
parts of the cup that are intended to look
like gold with the stone until they become
38 THE DAYS OF OLD.

of a brilliant gloss, and shine as if they
were gold.

There is a place in Staffordshire called
“the Potteries,’ where cups and pots have
always been made.

In old time they were very rough-look-
ing things, and had neither gilding nor
gloss. But the people who used them were
just as rough, and so was the country
round.

The roads were very bad indeed, and full
of deep ruts, so that no carriage could go
over them. There were no towns or fac-
tories, and the potter lived in a little
thatched cottage like a hovel.

He had a shed where he worked at his
wheel and baked his pots. He dug the
clay out himself, and his boys helped him
to “throw” and “press,” and do all that
was wanted to be done. |

When he had finished making his pots,
“THE POTTERIES.” 39

his wife used to bring up the asses from
the common, where they were grazing, and
get them ready for a journey. She put
panniers on their backs, filled with her
husband’s pots ; and then she set off, over
the bad, rutty roads, to the towns and vil-
lages to sell them. :

That part of Staffordshire is still called
“the Potteries ;” but it is very much im-
proved



and has great towns, and factories,
and good roads, and is not at all what it
used to be.

One of the towns is called Burslem ;
and a potter named Mr. Wedgwood lived
there. He spent all his life in making the
cups of a more beautiful kind than had ever
been made before. They were of a cream
colour ; and instead of the ugly figures that
were in fashion then, he painted them with
flowers and fruit, as we see them now.

One reason why he got on so well, was
40 AWAKENED INTEREST.

because he took so much pains, and would
not let anything pass unless it was perfect.
If a cup came off the wheel with the slight-
est fault in it, he would break it to pieces
with his stick, and say, “This will not do
for me.”

Charley and Richard were so interested
in what Aunt Martha had been telling
them, that old Sally tapped at the door
twice before they heard her. And then,
when she had brought in the tea, and the
muffins hot out of the oven, they could
neither eat nor drink for talking about
“the tea-cups.” And Richard began to
wonder what Aunt Martha’s next story
would be about, and tried to make her tell
him. But she did not think this would be
wise ; and all he could ascertain was that
the subject of it would come out of her
corner cupboard.
THE BOYS AT PLAY. 41

It was clear, however, that the story had
done them good; for the next morning,
Charley and Richard, instead of spending
every moment in play, walked up and
down the garden-walk, talking about the
clay, and the glaze, and the enamel—things
they had known nothing about before.

But their greatest pleasure was to come;
for strolling out by the gate into the lane,
they spied, all at once, some bits of broken
pot. You would have thought they had
found something very precious indeed, they
were so pleased. They picked them up,
and carried them off in triumph into the
old tool-house, where Charley at once set
to work with a great stone to pound them
to powder. He had nearly broken them
up, to mix with some clay that Richard
brought out of the ditch, when the thought
struck him that these blue and white pieces
of pot were not like Aunt Martha’s best
42 COMMON CUPS.

china. He would go in and ask her if they
were.

Aunt Martha was seated at her work-
table, in the parlour, when the boys, with
dirty hands, came running in. She sent
them out again to wash their hands, and
then told them that Charley was right.
Her best cups and saucers had the pat-
terns painted on them, and required a
deal more skill to make than these.

Common blue and white cups—such as
Charley had a bit of in his hand — were
managed in quite another way. A paper,
with the pattern printed on it, was wrapped
round each cup. The cup was rubbed for
a long time, and then set in water. The
paper soon peeled off, but the blue marks
were left behind.

Richard and Charley wanted to know a
great deal more; but Aunt Martha would
not answer any of their questions. So they
PLAYING AT POTTERS, 43

went back to the tool-house again, to play
at potters. What delightful work it was!
so delightful, that Charley made up his
mind to be a potter as soon as he was old
enough,—and if his papa would let him.

Richard said, if he was a potter he ought
to go to China; and then he remembered
his dog’s-eared geography in his desk at
school, and thought when he got back he
would look into it, and see if it said any-
thing about China. He should like to
know a little more than Aunt Martha had
told them.

That afternoon old Sally had to keep the
boys from going into the parlour too soon ;
for their faces were washed and their hair
brushed half an hour before the usual
time.

But good Aunt Martha was ready ; and
when she heard their feet pattering along
the hall, she got up and opened the door.
44 ALL ATTENTION.

Then Charley settled himself on the hearth-
rug, and Richard fetched a stool; and the
boys were as still as mice while Aunt
Martha told them—“ The Story of the Tea.”






CHAPTER IV.

THE STORY OF THE TEA.

it is kept only to look at. It
wants to be filled with good strong



D® tea.

1 wonder what people did before tea
was brought to England; for it is not,
as everybody knows, a native of this
climate. It grows in China, where the
beautiful cups are made on purpose to hold
it. And it was sipped by emperors on
their thrones, and by their grand man-
darins, many years before we knew any-
thing about it. And even now, the best
of the tea is kept at home for the benefit
46 A NEW DRINK FROM CHINA,

of the Court, and it is only the next best
that finds its way into our tea-pots.

About two hundred and fifty years ago,
there was no tea in England except what
people made of the herbs that grew in their
gardens, such as mint, and thyme, and
sage ; no one, not even their majesties the
kings and queens, had ever tasted a cup
of real Chinese tea. _ .

But it happened that in the year 1610—-
for I daresay you would like to know the:
date—some Dutch ships brought a little
tea to Holland; and then a little more
was brought home to England, and people
talked about it as “a new drink that came
from China.”

Everybody would have liked to taste
some of it, but it was very difficult to get ;
and when a present of two pounds of tea
was made to the king, he thought it a
very handsome gift indeed.
A FUNNY STORY. 47

Not many people could buy tea in those
days ; and even when they did get it, they
hardly knew whether it was to be eaten or
drunk.

There is a funny story of two old people,
who had an ounce of tea sent to them, and
who were quite at a loss what to do with
it. At last, the old lady proposed to her hus-
band that they should sprinkle it on their
bacon, and eat it; which they accordingly
did—and very nasty it must have been.

By slow degrees, however, tea found its
way to every home in England; and in
these days every one can afford to buy it.
It is welcomed in the palace of our royal
lady the Queen, and it affords refreshment
to the poorest cottager. A cup of tea is
equally grateful to all.

It must be confessed that tea makes its
appearance under great disadvantages. No
one who has seen it growing in the Flowery
48 THE TEA IN FLOWER.

Land of its birth, can suppose it to be the
same thing. And it is rather whimsical as
to where it does grow. The north is too
cold, and the
south is too hot;
but there is a
middle tract of
country neither
too hot nor too
cold, that suits
it the best.

It is called by
the Chinaman
Teha or Tha,and
from this word
4 comes our Eng-

TRA-PLANT IN FLOWER, lish name of tea.

It has white flowers, a little like the wild

rose ; and when the flowers are over, there



come some green pods, that contain the
seed.








































































































































































































































































































































cy

ny

iy

i

nH | Il

a
I

il
+

n al















SOWING THE SEEDS OF



THE TEA-PLANT






50 SOWING THE TEA.

The Chinaman is very careful how he
sows his seeds, because his next crop is to
come from them. And he sows six or seven
seeds in one hole, to be quite sure that
some of them will come up.

The leaves are, as you may suppose, the
most important part of the plant. They are
very handsome and glossy, like the leaves
of the camelia that lives in the hothouse.
But it is not on account of their beauty they
are so much valued ; they have some good
qualities that no other leaves possess.

When a person drinks a cup of tea, how
refreshed he feels!” That is because of the
reviving and strengthening quality in the
leaf. The leaf also has in it a bitter sub-
stance called Thein—or, as it might be
styled, pure extract of tea; and this has a
great effect in taking away the feeling of
being wearied.

The Chinaman has his tea-plantation,












ih
cc

»
a

a





STRIPPING OFF THE LEAVES.


52 A TEA-FARM.

just as we have our vegetable-garden, or
the Irishman has his potato-ground. It is
called “a tea-farm ;” and the farmer lives
close by, in a funny little house, like a
pagoda, with long pointed eaves to it.

He and his wife are always busy in the
plantation, for she helps him to weed and
water, and her feet have no little shoes to
pinch them. She could not afford to hobble
about as the fine ladies do, or to be carried
in a sedan.

In the early spring, when the young leaves
were newly put forth, and had a delicious
flavour, the family began to be very busy.
The children came into the plantation and
stripped them off, until the branches were
nearly bare. But they left enough for an-
other gathering by-and-by.

Of course the young tender leaves were
the best, and made the nicest tea. The
Chinaman called it Souchong. When the








































































































THE TEA BEING DRIED.
54 STRIPPING OFF THE LEAVES,

leaves that are left get older, they are
gathered ; but they are not so delicate, and
people do not like them so well.

There is still a third gathering, but this
is worse than the last, and makes very
poor tea.

When the leaves are stripped off, they
are thrown into some shallow baskets, and
set in the sun, where the wind can blow on
them to dry them. They are then put in
a pan, and placed on a stove with a fire
under it, to be dried still more. While
they are over the fire, they are stirred
about with a brush until they are quite dry.

You may see that the tea-leaf is rolled up
and crumpled, and that it comes straight
when it is put into the water. The China--
man takes the trouble to roll it in this way.
He does it at a board, and rolls the leaf
between his fingers. After this has been
done, he again dries the leaves over the fire.
THE FARMER SELLING HIS TEA. 55

He takes a good deal of pains to pick
out all the bad leaves and throw them away.
He knows his tea will be looked at, before
it can be sold to a person who knows good
tea from bad.

This person is a tea-merchant, and lives
at the next town. All day long, the farmers
keep coming into the office where he sits,
with chests of tea slung over their shoulders.
They want him to buy, and he is quite
willing. Indeed, the more he can get the
better, for he wants to send it in a ship to
Europe.

But he always makes the farmer open
his chest and spread his tea out before him.
He looks at it very sharply, and takes it
in his hand and smells it; and he would
find out in a minute if any bad leaves were
left in it. But if it is really good tea, he
gives the farmer some money, and sends
him away, leaving his tea-chest behind him.
56 THE TEA-LEAVES BEGIN TO UNROLL.

The farmer goes to the market and lays
out some of his money,—though he is very
saving and thrifty, or he would not be a
Chinaman.

It was a good thing that old Sally just
then came in with the tea, for that was
what Charley and Richard wanted. Not
that they were either hungry or thirsty ;
but it was delightful to jump up and look
at the tea in the caddy, as Aunt Martha
took it out with a scoop.

It was better still to watch the water
being poured on it, and to see the tea-
leaves begin to unroll themselves and to
get quite flat. Charley clapped his hands
with glee, and they both skipped round
the room, saying they had never enjoyed a
cup of tea so much as now they knew some-
thing about it.

For I am afraid they were sad _ little
















A PICTURE IN AUNT MARTHA’S BOOK.
58 IN THE LIBRARY.

dunces; and if they knew that the tea
was a plant at all, it is more than could
be expected.

But it is never too late to mend; and the
very next afternoon Charley and Richard
found their way to a room they had never
much cared about before. This room was
called the library, and had rows and rows
of shelves, with many books upon them.

But besides the books upon the shelves,
there were others on the table. And
Charley, who was thinking very much
about foreign countries, was glad to find a
book lying open on Aunt Martha’s desk,
telling all about India and China. It was
full of pictures; among them were some of
potters making cups and other vessels, and
of people picking off the leaves of the tea-
plant.

How quickly the time passed in looking
at them! Instead of being tired of doing
PLEASANT EMPLOYMENT. 59

nothing, as Charley very often was when
it rained and he could not play out of doors,
the time seemed to fly; and Aunt Martha
had finished her nap and taken her knit-
ting, and was ready to tell her story, almost
before they were ready to hear it.

Not that they were a moment too late ;
oh no !—they wanted very much to know
more about the contents of Aunt Martha’s
corner cupboard, and were very glad when,
without any delay, she began—“ The Story
of the Sugav.”








CHAPTER V.

THE STORY OF THE SUGAR.



$V ERYBODY likes sugar. The Christ-
Yh mas pudding would be nothing with-
out it; and the plum-cake, and the

Ky f tarts, and the custards, and all the
nice things that little boys are so fond of,
would have no sweet taste in them if it
were not for the sugar.

But its range is much wider than this.
It is found in the ripe peach on the wall,
and in the juicy nectarine. The bee knows
the taste of it right well, and finds it hid-
den deep in the bell of the flower. It lurks
in the grape, and the orange, and fruits too
many for me to name.
THE SUGAR-CANE, 61

And it finds its way into the stems of
plants, and makes their juices sweet and
delicious. There is a tall, reed-like plant,
with a yellow stem. It is called the sugar-
cane, because there is y
so much sugar in it.

In some places, people
are always chewing it.
They cut it with their |
knives to make the 7




juice come out, and go ” Te 7
on cutting and chew-
ing all day long.

The sugar-cane grows :
in very hot countries, HE SUGAR-CANE,
where black people live and monkeys run
about on the trees. The burning sun pours
its rays full upon it; but this is what it
likes, and what makes its juice so sweet.
There is an island that belongs to England,
and is called Jamaica ; and the sugar-cane
62 A SUGAR-MILL









































































































































































































































































A SUGAR#=MILL.

grows there, and we get a great deal of
sugar from it. At one time the black people
who made the sugar and took care of the
THE GIANT STEAM. 63

canes were slaves, and were bought and
sold in the market ; but one happy morn-
ing they were all set free.

A great giant called Steam helps to make
the sugar now, and does more than all the
black people put together. People did not
all at once find out how helpful he was, and
that he could turn mills, and push carriages,
and do all kinds of things. But they were
very glad when they did know it; and when
he began to help them to make the sugar.
For weights, and rollers, and heavy wheels
are nothing to him.

A sugar-plantation is a very pretty sight.
The tall yellow canes rustle in the wind ;
and at the top is a tuft of flowers, that looks
like a silvery plume. And here and there
black people are busy at work, hoeing and
weeding. The women have blue and scar-
let handkerchiefs tied round their heads,
for they dearly love a bit of finery.
64 THE MONKEYS AND THE SUGAR-CANE,

Sometimes, in the middle of the night,
when all is still and cool, and the moon is
shining, a troop of monkeys come racing
down from some mountains near. Then
woe betide the sugar-canes !







A SUGAR-PLANTATION.

The monkeys love the taste of sugar ; and
they clutch at the canes with their long
fingers, and pull them up, and bite them,
and do a great deal of mischief.
WHAT-SUGAR COMES FROM. 65

Happily, the black man has a fancy for
roasted monkey,—a dish we never see in
England ; and he thinks it no trouble to
sit watching hour after hour, with his gun
in his hand, waiting for the monkeys.

Down they come on the full run, and do
not all at once see him. But pop goes the
gun, and one or other is sure to be shot.

It is time that I told you of a fact con-
nected with the history of the sugar-cane.
The stem is not hollow like the grass or the
reed, but it is solid, and filled with the
sweet juice we have been talking about,
and that makes the sugar.

But the juice, before anything is done to
it, is very wholesome, and people who suck
it are sure to be strong and healthy. Even
the horses that work in the sugar-mill get
as fat as can be, for they are always chew-
ing the canes. And nothing fattens: poul-

try half so. well,—and there are plenty of
(457) 5
66 ITS MANY STAGES.

fowls pecking about in the negro’s little
garden.

But the juice is too good to be wasted.
It forms the material of that vast supply of



















































































































































CUTTING THE CANES,

sugar met with everywhere, in every town,
and village, and household. And it has to
go through a great many stages, and pass
through a great many hands, like the tea-cup.
IN THE SUGAR-MILL. 67

In the first place, the beautiful yellow
canes are cut down close to the ground, -
and tied up in bundles. Then they are
carried to a mill, and the big giant Steam,









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































IN THE SUGAR-MILL.

in places where he has been set to work,
sends great iron rollers over them, and
squeezes out every drop of juice.

The juice runs into a cistern, and is made
68 THE SPARKLING CRYSTALS.

hot, lest it should turn sour; and a little
lime is put in with it, to make it clear, and
then the liquor is boiled very fast indeed.
When it has left off boiling, and is set
to cool, there will be a great many spark-
ling crystals in it, which are the real sugar.
But the crystals are mixed up with a thick
stuff that is called molasses, and which has
to be got away. This used to be a very
tiresome process indeed, in the old days
when the poor slaves made the sugar. |
They poured the liquor into a great many
tubs with little holes at the bottom of them ;
and it was left to stand a long time—till
the thick stuff or molasses had slowly
drained through, and had left the sugar
behind.
- But now the giant Steam is set to work,
all this is done as quickly as can be. The
liquor is poured into a large square box
made of iron, and divided into two cham-










































































































































































































































































































































































































































































BOILING THE SUGAR.
70 HOW THEY ARE GOT.

bers, an upper and a lower. The liquor is
poured into the upper chamber, on a floor
made of wire like a sieve. Then the good-
natured giant begins to pump the air out
of the lower chamber. Now nature abhors
a vacuum, and always finds something to
fill it. So the liquid molasses come pour-
ing down, through the sieve, into the lower
part of the box. The sugar that has be-
come crystallized cannot run through the
sieve, for the holes are too fine for it to
get through ; so it is left behind, and that
is Just what the sugar-maker wants.

All this is done in two hours, while in
the old-fashioned way it used to take eight
days.

The food with which the giant fills his
capacious maw is the raw sugar-cane, after
all the juice has been squeezed out. It
burns well, and there is plenty to be had,
and it does not cost a penny.








































































































SENDING THE SUGAR OFF TO EUROPE,
“I
bo

LUMP-SUGAR,

When the sugar is made, it is packed in
great casks, and sent to Europe.

After it gets here, some of it goes through
another process, and is made quite white,
and into tall cone-shaped loaves. This is

?

called “lump-sugar ;” and the other goes ©

by the name of “ raw.”

Aunt Martha had hardly finished speak-
ing when Charley, who was seated before
the fire with his elbows on his knees and
his chin between his hands, observed that
monkeys had a better time of it than boys
had. If he had been a monkey, he should
not have minded. Just think how pleasant
it would be to pop down among those sugar-
canes !

Richard said he did not think so. Char-
ley might like the chances of being shot,
and roasted for a black man’s dinner; but
he preferred less sugar and a safe life. Not
A SAFE PLACE. 73

that he pitied the monkeys for being shot ;
it served them right for being so greedy as
to pull down the canes.

Charley could not agree with this.
“Sugar,” he said, “was so tempting—no-
body knew how tempting,” added he, rising
and looking wistfully at the old-fashioned
sugar-basin heaped up with lumps of sugar,
which old Sally was taking out of the cor-
ner cupboard. That basin was very full—
too full; he feared that top lump would
topple over. A remark which made Aunt
Martha smile, and say that if he could find
a safer place for it, he might.

Charley said he knew of one much safer;
and, opening his mouth, waited for old Sally
to pop it in. Then he thanked his aunt by
an embrace, and they sat down to tea.

The next morning the two boys were
early, and went into the kitchen just as old
Sally was putting the coffee-berries into
74 COFFEE FOR BREAKFAST.

the mill to grind for breakfast. Charley
asked where they came from, and what
they were. Old Sally said she was not
book-learned ; if they wanted to know, they
had better ask their aunt.

The boys said they must; but that when
they got back to school they would try to
learn a few things for themselves.

Sally thought they had better be quick
about it; for if they did not learn while
they were young, they were not likely to
know anything when they were old. And
there were not many Aunt Marthas in the
world. What a long tale she had told them
last night !—too long, said she slyly.

Charley said, Not a bit. He meant to
ask for a longer one to-night. He wanted
to know all about the coffee.

So when Aunt Martha came down, it
was agreed that her next tale should be—
“The Story of the Coffee.”


CHAPTER VI.

THE STORY OF THE COFFEE.



“HEN the morning sun shines cheer-
4

white cloth is spread on the table,
coffee is always present. There are
few breakfast-tables in the kingdom where
it is not to be found.

You may know it is there by the pleasant
odour it spreads around. It is as nice to
drink as tea, and a great deal more strength-
ening. Many a poor man can work hard
from morning till night, and not drink any-
thing stronger than coffee.

It was a long time before coffee was
brought to England; but in the reign of
76 THE FIRST COFFEE-HOUSE.

Oliver Cromwell, a merchant who used to
go backwards and forwards to Turkey, to
trade there, brought home with him a
Greek servant. This man had tasted coffee
—for the Turks drink a great deal of it,
just as the Chinese drink a great deal of
tea—and he knew how nice it was.

He brought some berries home with him,
and used to make coffee, and let people in
London have some of it. Indeed, at last
he got so famous for his coffee, and so much
‘talked about, that he set up a coftee-house;
that is, a house where coffee is sold instead
of beer.

Perhaps you would like to know where
this first coffee-house was, for there are
plenty of them now in every town in Eng-
land. It was in George’s Yard, Lombard
Street. This Lombard Street is in the
very heart of the business world ; and it
gets its name because some Jews from
COFFEE-DRINKING. 77

Lombardy once came to live there,—who
used to lend money, for which they made
people pay a great deal.

Bankers now live in Lombard Street,
and their name comes from the Jews. The
Jews had benches with their bags of gold
upon them, and there they used to stand
and carry on their trade. Now, danco in
Italian means bench; and this became
corrupted into banker, a man who lends
money as the Jews did, only in a more
honest manner.—But all this has nothing
to do with coffee.

From the little coffee-house in Lombard
Street, the habit of drinking coffee spread
all over the country. ,

At first, like tea, it cost a good deal of
money ; and it was brought from only one
small province in Arabia, called Yemen.

I should tell you that Arabia is divided
into three parts. One is all stones and
78 MOCHA.

rocks; and another all sand and desert.
But there is a third region, called “ Happy
Arabia,” that is full of gardens and vine-
yards, and olive-trees. And here is the

province of Yemen.































MOCHA.

Mocha is the chief town, and the place
where the coffee came from, It stands close
to the sea-shore, on a very sandy plain, and
at the entrance to the Red Sea.
THE GATE OF TEARS. 79

The entrance to the Red Sea is through
some dangerous straits called “ Bab-el-
mandeb,” or “the Gate of Tears,’ because
so many ships are wrecked there. Indeed,
the Arab, who is very fanciful, says that
the spirit of the storm is always perched
on a rock that overlooks the straits.

Any lady in Mocha, when she goes out
for an evening visit, carries on her arm a
little bag of coffee, and has it boiled when
she gets there. And all over the town
people are to be seen lying on the ground,
under awnings spread to screen them from
the sun. These are their coffee-houses ;
and there they do nothing all day but sip
coffee and smoke their pipes.

The people at Mocha pretend that they
like coffee best when it is made of the husk
of the coffee-berry, and not of the berry
itself.

But all the coffee that Mocha and the
80 PLANTING THE COFFEE.

province round could supply was very
little, compared to what comes to Eng-
land now ; and of course the price of coffee
was extremely high. So, when it began
to be so much liked, the kings and queens
in the different countries of Europe set
about having coffee planted in all places
where it would grow.

The French sent some coffee-plants to
one of their islands in the West Indies, in
order to have a plantation there. An ofticer
had the care of the plants, and he sailed ina
ship from Amsterdam. He had a long and
_very stormy passage, and the wind pre-
vented the ship from getting on.

It might be said of the people on board
as it is in the poem,—

“ Water, water everywhere,
And not a drop to drink !”

In fact, the water on board was nearly all
used up, and no more was to be had until




































A COFFEE-PLANTATION.
82 THE BRAVE OFFICER.

they came to their journey’s end. Each
man was allowed only a very small quantity
a day, and they had often to suffer from
thirst.

The French officer had no more given to
him than the rest, and he would gladly
have quenched his thirst. But, alas! the
tender plants he was cherishing with such
care began to droop. They too wanted
water; and rather than let them die, he
went without himself, and poured the scanty
supply given him on their roots.

The crew laughed at him, and he had to
bear a great many rude speeches. But,
thanks to this act of self-denial, the plants
were able to live until the vessel came at
last to land. Then the brave officer received
hisreward. The plants grew and multiplied,
and became great plantations, that supplied
other countries and islands.

Many places now furnish coffee in the














vials

|

i
‘i





THE FRENCH OFFICER AND THE GOFFEE-PLANTS.




84 ANCIENT CUSTOMS.

greatest abundance. Brazil sends out
enough almost to supply the world. The
plant had grown wild in the island of
Ceylon from the earliest times; and the

natives used to

sss
1

be



pluck the leaves





and mix them
with their food
to give it a fla-
vour ; they also
_made garlands
of its flowers to
decorate their
temples ; but it
was a very long
time before they
made any use of
COFFEE-PLANT IN FLOWER—AND FRUIT. the berries.

When the coffee-plant is left to nature it
grows rather tall. But, as a rule, its top is
cut off to make it throw out more branches.
WHERE THE BEST COFFEE COMES FROM. 85

The leaves are ever-green ; and the flowers
are white, and a , little He: those of the
jessamine. 00 Corry |

When the Bere is 18 ripe it is red, and like
a great cherry. There are two hard seeds
in it, like beans, that are known to every
one, for they are ground into coffee. In
many plantations they fall to the ground,
and lie under the tree until they are picked
up. But in Arabia this is not allowed
to be.

The planter, as he is called, spreads a
cloth on the ground, and then shakes the
tree, so that the ripe berries drop off. He
then puts them on mats, and lets them lie
in the sun till they are dry. And then the
husk is broken by a roller, and the berries
got out.

All his trouble is amply repaid, for this
Arabian coffee is the best in the world.

The coffee-berries have still to be roasted,
85 PURE COFFEE.

and then ground to powder. They are
brought to England, however, before they
are ground. Many people have little coffee-





SEs
BERRIES,



GATHLRING THE COFFE

mills in their houses, into which the ber-
ries are put, to be ground for breakfast.
By this means they can obtain the coffee
in a state of purity. For it is the custom
ENEMIES TO THE COFFEE-PLANT. 87

in these days to mix the ground coffee with
the roots of a plant called chicory, to make
it go further. This is done to such an
extent, that a law has been made obliging
the person who sells the coffee to declare
whether it is pure or not. And if it is
mixed, he is obliged to print on the packet
the words, “ Coffee and Chicory.”

The coffee-plant has a great many ene-
mies. Wild cats climb up the stem and
run along the branches to get at the berries;
and the squirrel nibbles them as he does
nuts ; to say nothing of the monkeys, who
are always ready for a taste.

In Ceylon, there is a kind of rat that lives
in the forest, and makes its nest in the
roots of the trees. It comes into the plan-
tation in swarms to feed on the berries.
Its teeth are as sharp as a pair of scissors;
and it gnaws through the branch that has
the fruit upon it, and lets it fall to the
88 WAR AGAINST THE RATS.

ground, where it can feast at its leisure.
It is very provoking to the planter to find
all the delicate twigs and branches cut off,
and he wages war against the rats.

The natives of the opposite coast of India
think the flesh of the rat, fed as it is on
such delicate fare, very nice, and they come
and work in the plantations on purpose to
get as many of them as they can. They fry
them in oil, and make a dish of them with
hot spices, and call it ‘ currie.”

The little boys were sorry when Aunt
Martha came to the end of her “story of the
coffee,” and wanted to know a great many
things about the brave man who went with-
out drinking, in order to water the plants,
and get them safe to their journey’s end.

Aunt Martha could not answer all their
questions, for she was tired of talking, and
wanted her tea. But she made a promise
THE PLEASURE OF HAVING KNOWLEDGE. 89

that the next time she went to London, if
Charley and Richard were there, she would
take them into a coffee-house and give
them each a cup.

Charley said it was a long time to wait
for that treat ; but if their aunt would let
them, they should like to get up a little
sooner each morning, and grind the coffee
for breakfast. And then they remembered
old Sally’s ignorance, and how they must
tell her where the coffee came from, and all
about it.

Yes, it was very pleasant indeed to know
a few things, and to be able to teach other
people. And Richard thought of a little
schoolfellow of his, and of how much he
should have to tell him when he got back
to school.

When old Sally brought in the tea, she
set a dish of new-laid eggs upon the table,
and Aunt Martha gave one to each of her
90 SPILLING THE SALT.

guests. Charley was talking away, and
not thinking of what he was doing, so he
upset the salt-cellar, and spilt all the salt
on the tablecloth. Aunt Martha asked
him if he knew where salt came from. He
answered very quickly, “From the shop.”
But then Richard wanted to know where
the shopman got it from.

Instead of telling them, Aunt Martha
said it was well for Charley that he did not
live in olden times, when salt was very
scarce, or he would have got into disgrace
for wasting it. For in those days it was
dear, and people took much more care of it
than they do now. One large salt-cellar
used to be set in the middle of the dinner-
table, and everybody helped themselves to
a little. It was the custom for the master
and mistress to sit above the salt-cellar,
and all the servants to take their places
below it.
PROMISE OF ANOTHER STORY. 91

Yes, indeed, he would have got into
trouble then, if he had spilt the salt. And
Aunt Martha promised that to-morrow
night she should tell them-——“ The Story of
the Salt.”






CHAPTER VII.

THE STORY OF THE SALT.



HERE is something on the lower
~, shelf of the corner cupboard, that




% is of more importance than many



i
of its neighbours.

You might contrive to live without either
tea or coffee, as people were obliged to do
in years gone by, when they drank stout
ale for breakfast, and had dinner at twelve
o'clock. But what would you do without
salt? What would become of your nice
relishing dishes, if sad¢ did not season them ?
They would taste no better than white of
egg.

Nay, you would not have those rosy
A SALT-LICK. 23

cheeks, nor be able to scamper about from
morning till night as you do now. You
would be pale and sickly; and I hardly
think you could live, without the little
harmless doses of salt you are always tak-
ing in some form or other.

In a part of the world called North
America, the cattle and the deer come a
long way to get a taste of salt. The salt is
in some well or spring that bubbles up
among the grass; and the water leaves it
behind like a crust on the stones that may
chance to be lying about; and the grass all
round tastes very much of salt.

The place is called a “salt-lick,” because
the cattle keep licking at the stones. They
are sure to find their way to the salt-lick,
even though they live miles away. And
they keep cropping the grass, and licking
the salt, till they have had enough, and then
they go home again. They make a path
94 A CUNNING HUNTER.

on the grass with their hoofs, and quite
tread it down. The hunter knows what
the path means the moment he sees it, and
he lies in wait with his gun. The poor deer
is sure to come before long, or the buffalo
with his great horns, and then the hunter
shoots at them.

The man who owns the salt-lick very
often begins to bore down into the ground.
He thinks he may find a salt-mine, or, at
least, a way underground that leads to one,
and then he can get quite rich and become
a person of importance.

A man once came to a salt-lick and tasted
the water. He found it was all right, and
that when he boiled some in a kettle and
let it get cold there was a crust of salt at
the bottom. He was highly delighted, and
bought the land, and set people on to
bore. But, alas! there was no salt to be
found anywhere. A cunning hunter had
A STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCE. 95

put salt into the spring, and sprinkled
it on the grass, to entice the deer, and
make them believe the place was a salt-
lick. And so the poor man had spent his
money for nothing !

In some places the salt-licks are very far
apart, and the cattle can hardly ever get
to them. The cattle have plenty of food,
and large rich pastures to browse in; but
they long for a bit of salt, and there is none
for them. Once a fortnight their master
~ lets them come home to the farm, and gives
each of them a bit of salt. The cows and
horses know the right day as well as can
be, and they set off at full gallop to the
farm. The farmer is quite ready for them ;
and when they have had their salt they
trot back again to the fields, as contented
as possible.

In Norway, when the farmer’s wife goes.
out with her maidens to collect her cows
96 THE SALT DESERT.

and have them milked, she takes a bowl of
salt in her hand. The moment the cows
see it, they come running up from all parts
of the field, as if asking for some. Their
mistress gives each of them a large spoon-
ful, and expects them to be satisfied. But
sometimes a cow is greedy, and wants
more, and keeps pressing to the bowl until
it becomes quite troublesome; and then
the mistress gives it a box on the ears
with the wooden spoon, to teach it better
manners.

There is a desert in Africa where the
ground under foot is not sand but salt. It
is called the “Salt Desert ;” and the salt
sparkles in the sun with such a crystal
whiteness that people who travel upon it
are almost blinded.

Because salt is so useful and so necessary,
it is found in great abundance. The great

wide sea could not keep sweet and fresh














































































































































































































































































































































































































































SALT DESERT IN AFRICA,
©
oO

BAY SALT AND ROCK SALT.

without salt. People put the sea-water in
large shallow pans, and let the sun dry it
up. The salt found at the bottom is called
“bay salt,” and is very bitter. And some-
times it is mixed with other things,—such
as a relation called Epsom salts, that has
a disagreeable taste, and is used as a
medicine.

But the salt makes its way from the sea
by all kinds of secret paths under the
eround, and then it is found in places called
mines, and is named “rock salt.” The mine
is like a great deep cavern, and has tall
pillars of salt to hold up the roof; and the
roof, and the walls, and the pillars glitter
as though they were covered with precious
stones.

When any person of consequence comes
to visit the mine, the men who are at
work make a great illumination. They

stick torches here and there as thickly as
A DEEP MINE. 99

they can, and then light them up, so that
the place looks like a fairy palace.

The mine I am speaking of is near the
town of Cracow in Poland, and it is not
very pleasant to be let down. The person
is let down in a hammock by means of a
rope ; and he goes down, down, a very long
way. When he stops, he is not at his
journey’s end ; for he has to get out of his
hammock, and go along a pathway that
_ descends lower and lower, till it reaches the
mine.

The pathway is sometimes cut into steps,
like a great wide staircase, and glitters
with the light of the torches that the miners
carry in their hands. And the road leads
through a great chamber or room where a
thousand people might dine.

When the traveller reaches the mine he
finds himself in a country under ground,
such as perhaps he had no idea of before.
190 IN THE MINE.









































A SALT-MINE,

There is neither sun nor sky. But there

are cross-roads, with horses and carriages
PILLARS OF SALT. 101

going along them. And there are crowds
of men, women, and children, who live
always in the mine. Some of the children
have lived there all their lives, and have
never seen the daylight.

Most of the horses, when once taken
down, do not come up again. There are
numbers of caverns, little and big, and some
of them are made into stables, and the
horses are kept there. The roofs of the
caverns are supported on pillars of salt, and
roads branch from them in all directions.
They reach so far, and wind about so much,
that a man may easily get lost. If his
torch happens to go out, he wanders about
until his strength is quite gone; and if
nobody finds him, he les down and dies.

I have read of a salt-mine—also in Poland
—in which there is a pretty chapel cut out
of the salt, and called the “Chapel of St.
Antony.”
102 THE CHAPEL OF ST. ANTONY.





































































































































































































































































































THE CHAPEL OF ST. ANTONY.

1e King of Poland used to be the owner
The King

of the mines ; but Poland has no king now,
and they belong to Austria.
CHARLEY’S IDEA. 103

There are some grand salt-mines in our
own country, and perhaps I ought to have
told you about these first. They are at a
place called Nantwich, in Cheshire; and
people are let down in a great tub. When
they reach the bottom of the mine, there is
the same glittering light from the torches.
The torches are what the miners have to
see by.

Aunt Martha concluded by remarking
how much pleasanter it is to live above
ground, and see the cheerful light of the
sun, and to walk in the green fields, and to
breathe the fresh air. Did not the boys
think so?

Charley said he did ; but if ever he went |
down into a mine he should mind and take
a box of matches with him. He thought
then if his torch went out, he should stand
quite still and light it again.

*
104 THE PLUM-CAKE.,

Aunt Martha agreed with him that would
be the best plan, but she hoped they might
never have a chance of trying it.

Charley wondered at the cattle liking
salt somuch. He could understand them
liking sugar, but salt was not nice at all
—and he put a little into the palm of his
hand to taste. It was very well with egg
or potatoes, but he should not like to lick
it as the cattle did.

Richard said the coachman had told him
that salt was very good for horses, and
made their coats finer ; and that when they
could not get it they were neither so well
nor so handsome.

Aunt Martha said that was quite true.

But at this moment their attention was
diverted by Sally’s placing on the table a
large plum-cake. Now the boys had seen
this cake being made, and had asked old

Sally ever so many questions about the

*
NO QUESTIONS TO-NIGHT. 105

currants she was putting into it. Did they
grow on trees? Did they come from the
same country as the coffee? For Charley
had told her the history of the coffee—
and indeed all the other stories; and
Richard had begged, as she did not seem
to know anything, that she would begin to
read for herself!

So the arrival of the cake brought the
currants to mind, and both the boys began
to question their aunt about them. But
Aunt Martha said it was tea-time now, and
she could not answer any questions. She
hoped they would find the cake all the nicer
for the currants that were in it, as she
believed old Sally had put them in on pur-
pose for them. At which Charley laughed
a merry laugh, and begged Aunt Martha,
if she was rested by to-morrow night, to tell
them—‘ The Story of the Currants.”










CHAPTER VIIL

THE STORY OF THE CURRANTS.




as) meaning the currants we buy at
> the grocer’s shop, and which are
not in the least degree related to the red
and white bunches that hang in summer
from the bushes in the garden.

The mistake arose from the name of one
of the places where the currants grow, and
that is called “Corinth.” People chose to
speak of them as “ Corinths,” and in time
the word became changed into cwrrants.
Currants, indeed! Why, they belong to

the elegant family of grapes, that hang in
A COMMON MISTAKE, 107

white and purple clusters in the vineyards
abroad. They too grow upon a vine, and
are nothing in the world but grapes !




mm

It is also as much a mistake f
-to call them
plums, and talk _
about a “plum- “



pudding,’ when -

y ES
there is not a o%@Â¥

single plum to#

oe

be found in it.
The little
bush-like vine,
on which the
currants grow, CLUSTERS OF GHAPES,
requires a great deal of care. It has to be |
supported on sticks, and to have the earth
loosened every now and then about the
roots. It is very subject to blight; and if
the weather is too wet, is apt to be spoiled,
108 THE IONIAN ISLES.

and even killed. At all times it is very
slow in bringing forth its fruit, and the
little grapes do not appear until the tree
is six years old.

It grows in some sunny islands near to
Greece, in a sea called the Ionian Sea. If
ever you read the history of Greece, you
will find a great deal about the Ionian
Islands.

There are seven of them, and one of them
is called Zante. It has high cliffs, and a
pier where the people land from the ships
and the boats. All kinds of persons are
seen to land from the boats, and it is a
pretty sight to watch their different cos-
tumes and faces. There is the Greek, and
the Venetian, and a great many other
foreigners ; and among them is sure to be
the Englishman.

The island is only sixty miles round, and
there is a great plain stretching over nearly
PEOPLE AT WORK FOR “JOHN BULL.” 109

all of it, and some hills in the distance.
There are pretty villages, and houses and
gardens, and groves of oranges and lemons;
and to stand on the hills and look over the
plain, you would think it was one great
vineyard.

About the end of August, the grapes on
the little bushy vines are ready to gather.
The people in the island never eat plum-
pudding or plum-cake, and they do not
want the currants—for so, I think, I must
call them, in spite of the word being wrong
—they do not want the currants for them-
selves.

But England is the land for plum-pud-
dings and mince-pies. And “John Bull,”
as he is styled, can do with any quantity.
So a great many men, women, and chil-
dren are sent into the vineyards to gather
the currants, and to get them ready for him.

They pick off the little grapes, and lay
10 HOW CURRANTS ARE DRIED.

them upon the stone floor of a room or shed,
that has no roof, and is open to the sky.
The sun pours down his beams upon them,
and very soon dries them. If the weather
keeps fine, all is well. But now and
then there comes a great thunderstorm,
and the rain pours in torrents. Then the
currants begin to ferment, and are quite
spoiled. Indeed, they will not do for John
Bull, who likes everything of the best
quality. So the owner does not try to sell
them to him. He throws them to the
horses, and cows, and sheep, who eat them
up very soon.

If the weather is fine, the currants get
quite dry, and then they are taken away to
a kind of warehouse, and poured through a
hole in the roof until the warehouse is quite
full. This makes them cake together, as
you see when you open a packet of them.

In the warehouse they cake so much,
AN ANCIENT CUSTOM. 111

that men have to dig them out with sharp
instruments, when the time is come for
putting them into barrels. Then a man
used to get into the barrel, without shoes
or stockings, and trample them down as
they were poured in. And there were
barrels enough to fill five or six ships.

I should tell you that when the currants
are brought to the warehouse, the keeper
of the place has a paper given to him, say-
ing how many of them there are. And
in olden days a great fuss was made about
the currants. The island belonged to the
city of Venice, which was then in its glory.
And five grave senators dressed in their
robes used to meet to decide what the price
of the currants was to be. And no one
might buy them without asking leave of
the Government.

When the English came into power, they
did rather a foolish thing. They laid a
112 WHAT DID WE DO WITH THEM?

heavy tax on the currants, so that to eat
them in puddings was like eating money.
But very few people would buy them, and
the little vines were neglected and left to
die. The owners of them lost all their
money, and had to borrow of the Jews.
Indeed, there was so much grumbling, and
so many complaints made, that the tax
had to be altered, and then the price of
currants came down.

So many ship-loads of currants come to
England, that the people of Zante used to
wonder what we did with them all. They
were quite certain that we used them in

dyeing cloth.

When Charley heard that currants were
really grapes, he jumped up to pick one off
the dish and put it into water. There it lay
and swelled itself out, till he could see quite
plainly that it was a small, round grape.
ZANTE, 113

While Charley was looking at it on the
palm of his hand, Richard went to fetch
the map, that Aunt Martha might show
them where the island of Zante was. But
she would only open the atlas at the right
map, and it took them a very long time to
find Zante.

Then they had a little talk about the
high cliffs, and the pier, and the motley
group of strangers who landed there.
Richard knew what a pier was, for he had
seen the one at Margate. He remembered
very well how the boats came, and set
people down at the bottom of a flight of
steps; and then he saw a great number
of persons mount the stairs, and come on
to the pier.

Aunt Martha said there was one thing
she thought the little boys would not like,
if they went to Zante. It was a very

lovely island, but every now and then
8
114 WHO WAS IT?

they might feel the ground under their
feet begin to tremble, and perhaps the
house they lived in might be shaken down.
Since she could remember, there had been
such a severe shock of earthquake that the
town of Zante was almost destroyed.

An earthquake must be a terrible thing,
Richard thought. But now he had found
Corinth on the map: was there anything
interesting to be said about that? Yes.
And Aunt Martha asked them if they
could tell her who lived at Corinth for
more than a year, and taught the people
that Jesus, who had been crucified, was
the Messiah.

The boys looked very grave, and were
obliged to confess they did not know. So
then their aunt told them it was St. Paul ;
and that while he was there he wrote his
Letter, or Epistle, as we call it, to the
Romans. As soon as they were old enough,
CORINTH AND CURRANT. 115

they would read for themselves what he
had said in that letter.



CORINTIL

Charley said the word Corinth was not
much like the word currant. And he did
not like the idea of the currants being trod-
den down in the barrels by men with
naked feet. Richard said currants were
116 RAISINS.

dirty things, and he liked raisins better.
Were they grapes too? Aunt Martha told
them they were a larger kind of grape,
which came from Spain.

As the atlas was on the table, they might
as well show her where Spain was.

She had a few raisins in her corner cup-
board, and if Charley liked to put one in
water, he would see what a large grape it
was.

Aunt Martha was about to rise and
reach out the raisins, when she dropped
her needle. For after tea she had taken
it up to mend a hole in Richard’s glove.
Charley soon found the needle, but when
he had picked it up he began to look at it.
Where did needles come from? Who made
them? And how did they manage to make
that hole for the eye /

Aunt Martha had found the raisins, and
would only talk about them now. One
ONE THING AT A TIME. 117

thing, she said, was enough at once. To-
morrow night she would answer his ques-
tions ; and if they liked, her story should be
—“The Story of the Needle.”










CHAPTER IX.

THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE.

and snow lies on the ground, and
the wind is shrill and piercing



outside, within all is snug and
warm. The fire blazes brightly, and the
curtains are drawn, and the lamp lighted,
and the mother threads her needle; and
the children gather round, to listen to
some pretty story, in some instructive
book that the father has brought home
with him.

How quickly the hours pass !

By means of the needle, people can do all
kinds of things. In skilful hands it can
THE DAYS OF OLD. 119

make, and mend, and patch, and darn, and
keep the children tidy.

And it can do more than this. It can
make the sweeping trains and rich cos-
tumes that appear in the Queen’s drawing-
room; and the beautiful laces, and those ~
which cost the most money, are all made
by the needle.

In olden days, when those grim castles
were standing that are now in ruins, the
needle filled up a blank in every household.

The young ladies could not go about to
croquet parties, or have much company at
home. For, in the first place, croquet had
not been invented ; and there was always
fighting going on outside the walls of the
castle. And there were no nice books to
read, as there are now, or pretty pictures
to look at.

So the young ladies sat in the great hall
of the castle, with their damsels about them,
120 GARMENTS OF DIVERS COLOURS.

and employed themselves with the needle.
And many a gay banner and scarf was
wrought, that fluttered on the field of battle,
or streamed from the castle walls.

And further back still, the queens and
princesses of high degree sat in their
chambers and wrought with the needle.
And they made garments of divers colours,
like that which Jacob gave to his son
Joseph, or those which the mother of Sisera
expected when she looked out of the win-
dow,—‘ Needlework of divers colours on
both sides, meet for the necks of them that
take the spoil.”

But what is the needle? And where did
it come from, and who made it ?

Once a great coil of wire was brought
into a room in a mill, and hung on a wooden
bar until it was wanted. The wire was
very fine, and was made of steel; and it
CUTTING THE WIRE. 12]

was kept near a fire lest it should get
rusty.

One day aman came and carried it away
toa place called a “cutting shop,” and a
great pair of shears was reached down from
their peg by the wall. The shears were
very strong and very sharp, and they cut
the wire into several thousand pieces. Of
course the pieces were not quite straight,
for they were bent by the act of cutting,
and had to be put inside some iron rings
and made red-hot. The man then took a
piece of iron, and put it also inside the
rings; and he rubbed the pieces of wire
backwards and forwards, and kept them
rolling round and round, until they were
quite straight.

The pieces of wire were now, to be sure,
straight as a dart; but they were not in
the least like needles, and they were blunt
at both ends. Each bit of wire was, in
122 POINTING THE NEEDLE.

fact, two needles, and would have to be
cut through the middle.

But before this was done, the business of
pointing had to be gone through. A man
sat at a grindstone, with the pieces of wire
in his hand, and ground the points against
the stone till he had made them sharp.
Every now and then he stopped, to dip the
points into a kind of liquid that stood by
ina trough. And as the grindstone went
round and round, sparks kept flashing from
the steel in a regular stream.

So well and so quickly did he work, that
two thousand needles were pointed in an
hour.

The grinder always looks very ill ; and he
wears a handkerchief tied over his mouth. If
he were wise, he would not be contented with
the handkerchief, but would try what is
called a mouth-guard,—which was invented
bya kind-hearted man named Mr. Abraham.
THE MOUTH-GUARD. 128

The mouth-guard fits over the mouth,

































NEEDLE-POINTER AT WORK,

needle-point from getting in. The man
swallows a great deal of steel-dust in the
124 THE STAMPING-MACHINE.

course of the day, and that makes him look

so ill He soon gets the “ grinder’s
asthma,” as it is called; and though he
can earn a great deal of money, it is as
much as his life is worth. A grinder rarely
lives to be forty.

When the wires were pointed at each
end, they were still of no use. There was
not a single eye amongst them.

They were now taken to the “stamping-
shop,’ where was a great machine called
a “stamping-machine.” The man dropped
one wire at a time under the stamp, and
down it came with a bang, and pierced a
hole partly through.

Then a boy took the needle and finished
the process. He had a little press before
him, and he held the wires in his hand,
spread out like a fan. He laid them flat
on an iron slab, and two steel points,
fastened to the top of the press, were made
AS BUSY AS BEES, 125

to come down and pierce two holes close
together in the middle of the wire.

The wires had now each of them two eyes
and two points. They were, in fact, two
needles, only they wanted dividing.

A great many boys were at work in the
shop. Some wore paper caps like the
workmen, and gave themselves airs as if
they had been grown-up. Others were
quite little, and wore pinafores; but all
were as busy as bees.

When one lad had pierced the holes in the
wires, another took them in hand, and ran
a bit of wire right through all the eyes, so
that the needles looked like a small-toothed
comb. Then a man, who was expert at his
trade, broke the wires in the right place.
Each one was now a needle. But no one
could work with it at present. It was rather
bent,and veryrough, and could neither mend
nor make with any comfort to its owner.
126 BEING “ TEMPERED.”

A woman put the needles on a plate, and
rolled a steel bar backwards and forwards
over them till they were as straight as a
dart. They were then laid on an iron tray,
and put into a furnace ; and, after a time,
taken out, and plunged into cold water ;
laid on the tray again, and moved about,
till they were said to be hardened and
“tempered,” and made quite perfect,—ex-
cept that they had still to be scoured.

The needles were next coated with emery,
and tied up in a strip of thick canvas, and
then put under the rollers of the scouring-
machine. There they rubbed one against
the other, until they were smooth and
bright. Then they were taken out and
washed in soap suds, and put back under
the rollers again.

For some hours longer they kept rub-
bing and rubbing, and the polish became

brighter and brighter, until it was thought
ONE NEEDLE IN THE PARISH. 127

bright enough; and at last the machine
stopped, and the needles were taken
out.

You might suppose that they were now
quite ready for use, But no. They had to
be sorted, and laid head to head, and point
to point. All the bad needles were picked
out and thrown away ; and the good ones |
were touched up with polishing paste, and
then wrapped up in papers, and sent to the
shopkeepers to be sold.

At one time, people did not know how to
make needles. They used pieces of bone, or
of thorn, sharpened at one end, and with a
hole in the other. Ifa real steel needle was
ever seen, you might be sure that it came
from abroad. And steel needles were so
searce, that not more than one was found
in a whole parish, and it was looked upon
as a great treasure !

In the reign of Queen Mary the steel
128 NEEDLES MADE OF BONES.

needles began first to be made in England.
A negro, who had lived in Spain, under-
stood the art, and used to make the
needles. But he would never tell his secret
to any one, so that no one was any the wiser.

But in the happier reign of “ good Queen
Bess,” as she is called, the secret was taught
by a German, and then the English began
to make very good needles. There is a
place called Redditch, in the
\ county of Worcester, where a
Xd great needle-making business
is carried on,

Tn many parts of the world,
such as the South Sea Islands,



and the places where the

GREENLANDER’S

xexouvs. American Indians live, there

are no needle manufactories to be found.
The Greenlanders make their needles of

bones, either from the seal or the whale ;

and they can sewas quickly and as well as
ANOTHER STORY ENDED. 129

we can. The thread they use is nothing
but sinews, split fine enough to go through
the finest holes.

Aunt Martha promised to show them a
picture by-and-by, but just then came in
the tea, and her story was obliged to come
to an end.

The two boys said they liked that story
very much indeed. They wanted to know
why boys never learned to sew.

Aunt Martha said some boys did. They
seemed to forget their sailor-uncle, Jack.
He could sew; he had a better work-box
than she had, and needles in plenty. And
he used them ; she knew that, for she had
seen him at work.

Richard thought it must be very sad to
sit grind, grind all day with one’s mouth
tied up. He should like to be a doctor,

and then, perhaps, he could cure some of
(457) 9
130 AN IGNORANT DOCTOR WORSE THAN NONE.

those poor men. Aunt Martha said that
would be a good thing to do; but if he
meant to be a doctor, he must learn his
lessons and study very hard, because an
ignorant doctor was worse than none.

Charley wanted to know what the next
story would be about. Aunt Martha said
she had thought of that; and since the
needle was of no use unless it was threaded,
her story to-morrow had better be—‘“ The
Story of the Cotton.”














CHAPTER X.

THE STORY OF THE COTTON.

not ready a minute too soon for Aunt
* Martha’s story. They had found so
many interesting pictures to look at, and



had spent so much time in the old library,
that Aunt Martha was in her chair by the
fire and waiting to begin before they made
their appearance. And when they did come
in, they had so much to say of the pictures
they had seen, that Aunt Martha told them,
with a smile, she foresaw they would turn
the tables upon her, and begin to tell her
stories, instead of her telling them.
Charley said he should like to tell his
132 CHARLEY’S FAILURE.

aunt a story very much, but first he must
see something to tell her. He must go and
see all the curious things in the world, and
then—

Charley stopped there, for his aunt looked
slyly at him, and said that even then he
might not be able to tell her. It was not
so easy as little boys thought. Suppose he
were to try; suppose he were to tell her
what he had seen that day in his walk.

Charley laughed at the idea, and began.
But he could not get on, and made so many
mistakes, that Aunt Martha said if her
stories were no better than his, they would
be of very little use. But now they must
listen while she told them—

THE STORY OF THE COTTON.

The needle would not be of any use
without the thread.
In some parts of the world, where the
COTTON-PLANT IN FLOWER. 133

needle is made of bone or of wood, the
thread is taken from the stem of a plant.
For in those hot countries many of the






Mi
alii



COTTON FLOWER AND DOWN.

plants have very tough, stringy fibres in
the stem, and in the veins of the leaves ;
and when they are pulled out, they can be
used instead of thread.
134 JHE SOFT WHITE DOWN.

But there is a plant that bas a bright
yellow flower; and when the flowers are
over, the seeds lie on a soft bed of down.
The seed-vessel, or that part which holds
the seeds, is about the size of a walnut; and
as soon as it is ripe it bursts, and the beau-
tiful white down comes out with the seeds
amongst it.

The soft white down would be in rather
a dangerous position if there was no one at
hand, for the wind is apt to carry it away.
But people are always at hand, and this is
the most important time of the year.

The white down is the cotton, which by-
and-by will be made into gowns, and hand-
kerchiefs, and all manner of articles of
clothing ; and some of it will be wound
round a bobbin, like this out of my corner
cupboard, and go through the eye of the
needle.

In hot countries, the people wear cotton






















































































































































































































































































































GATHERING THE COTTON DOWN.
136 GETTING OUT THE SEEDS.

garments for the sake of coolness ; and all
over the world cotton is wanted every day ;
and the shop windows at home are full of
it in one form or other. But every bit, of it
came from the plant with the bright yellow
flowers.

But the cotton cannot be made into gowns
or anything else until the troublesome little
seeds are all got out. And this used to
take a great deal of time. People used to
sit all day and pick them out by the hand.
But a machine is now used that very soon
settles the matter.

In America, where the cotton-plant has
been growing, there are great mills in which
quantities of cotton are cleansed in a day ;
and the work is all done by horses or by
steam.

But lest a few seeds might be left in the
down, it has to be whisked about in a kind

of wheel, through which a great wind
BALES OF COTTON, 1387

rushes ; and when every atom of seed has
been blown away, the cotton is gathered
up, and taken to a house called a packing-
house ; and forced into bags that are made
to hold as much as they can.

Then they are strongly sewed up and
sent on board a ship. But before they are
put into the ship, the bags are squeezed
and pressed until they are only half their
original size.

The great bags or bales of cotton cross
the sea, safely stowed away in the hold of
the vessel; and in due time they reach
England, and are taken out at a city called
Liverpool.

There is a great noise and bustle while
the ship is unlading; and a great deal to be
done with counting the bales and seeing
that all is right.

But the heavy bales do not stay in Liver-
pool. They are put on the railway, and go
138 THE FIBRES MAGNIFIED.

whirling off to another great city, called
Manchester, where there are tall factories
more than you can number, and where the
people who spin the cotton get so rich that
they can live in the grandest houses, and
buy the most beautiful pictures in Eng-
Jand.

When the bales of cotton come to be
opened, the cotton looks like a heap of fibre
matted and tangled together.



FIBRES OF COTTON DOWN SEEN THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE

It has first to be made into a thread, or, -
as it is called, a yarn; for if you look at a
piece of cotton cloth very closely, or through
a magnifying glass, you will see that it is
made up of threads that go through its
whole length and breadth.

And TI had better tell you here, that the
THE CARDING-MACHINE. _ 139

long threads are called the warp, and the
short threads across, the woof.

The first thing to be done, is to get the
cotton untangled ; and a machine is used
that has a great many spikes or teeth, on
purpose to catch the cotton and pull its
fibres apart.

A boy takes an armful of cotton and puts
it into a kind of box, and shuts it up; and
when the machine has worked it about a
little time, he opens the door and takes it
out again.

The cotton is now disentangled, and every
bit of dust has been got away. But it is
still a mass of confusion, as far as the fibres
go, and they want to be pulled straight
and made into threads.

This is done by what is called carding ;
and the carding-machine acts very much as
a comb or a brush does when it straightens
a rough head of hair.
140 . SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.

The carding-machine used in these days
has a great many fine teeth, and is very
delicate indeed. But, delicate as it is, the
threads, even though they have passed
through it, are not quite ready for the
spinner. Many of them have got doubled
up, and they have to go through another
machine to be made straight.

When you are old enough, you will read
a great deal about Sir Richard Arkwright,
and all the machines he invented, and the
improvements he made in cotton-spinning
and weaving. Indeed, he may be said to
have called into life that wonderful trade
in cotton which has made England so rich
and so flourishing.

When all the work was done by the
hand, not much cotton could be picked or
woven, and then not much cotton was sold.
3ut when machines were invented, and

steam was made to work, mighty factories
SPINNING-MACHINE, 141

began to be built ; and what were once vil-
lages soon became great cities; and bales
on bales of cotton were brought into Eng-
land by millions!

One machine can do the work of five
thousand men, and produce a thread five
hundred miles long in a minute; and in
half an hour a thread might be spun that
would reach from England to India !

When Aunt Martha had finished, Charley
said he should like to see a picture of the
machine that Sir Richard. Arkwright had
invented, if his aunt had one to show him.
He should like to be a man, and to invent
things as he did.

Aunt Martha said she wished he might be
able ; but that great and good men began
to work while they were young. Idle boys
grew up as idle men; and dunces very
seldom did anything useful.
142 YOUTHFUL DILIGENCE.

Charley blushed, and said that he and
Richard did not mean to be dunces. Aunt
Martha would see if they did not bring
home a prize next half-year. They should
try for it; but they wished to stay with her
instead of going back to Dr. Birch, she
taught them things so easily.

She said that would not do. What they
wanted was to read for themselves ; and if
they meant to go to other countries to
see all the curious things there were to be
seen, they must learn the languages of
those countries, or it would be of very little
use. }

Richard said they had found a picture in
the library of black men gathering the cot-
ton. Might he fetch it for his aunt to look
at? She gave him leave; and a very pretty
picture it was. The beautiful cotton, white
and downy, was growing as tall as the men
who were plucking it off; and great bales




































































































































BLACK MEN GATHERING THE COTTON.
”

144 THE ‘‘ BENEFICENT PALM.

were lying, ready packed and corded, under
the shade of some trees. It looked as if it
was a very hot country indeed, for the men
who were at work had not many clothes
on; and the trees were not at all like our
trees.

Aunt Martha told them that the one
with the crown of leaves at the top was a
palm-tree, which was of so much use to
the natives that it was called the “ Benefi-
cent Palm.”

Food, and wine, and house, and clothing,
were all provided by the palm. Indeed;
the poets of the East have said that its
uses are as many as there are days in the
year !








CHAPTER XI.

THE STORY OF THE RICE.



plants that grows. It feeds hun-
dreds and thousands of persons, and has
been called the “staff of life.” But rice
feeds millions—nay, hundreds of millions !

Just open the map of Asia and look at
it. Do you see the great peninsula of Hin-
dustan ? and do you see China, and Japan,
and the islands round about? And turn
to another map, where the New World
is spread out before you. There is a state
called Carolina, where the rice grows and

flourishes. Nay, in Europe itself, on the
(457° 10
146 A TROPICAL PLANT.

banks of the river Danube, it is not lack-
ing. So far does its domain extend.

And all the swarming hosts of China
and of India feed on rice, and it is to
them what bread is to us—the staff of
life.

People in those hot countries do not care
for beef or mutton. seasoned with pepper, makes them a good
dinner. In England such is not the case.
Rice is eaten, it is true, but rather smiled
at for its simplicity. An Englishman
would look very blank, if he had nothing
set before him but a dish of rice.

The plant that bears the rice wants a
great deal of moisture; and, on this ac-
count, you might suppose the English
climate would just suit it. And so it
might, if the sun were but hot enough.
But it is a tropical plant, and the least
frost would kill it.
WORKING IN THE MUD.

When it does
rain in the trop-
ics, 1t poursin tor-
rents, and comes
from the clouds
like a sheet of
water. The water
cannot run away
all at once, and
in some places
forms a_ great
lake. This is just
the place for the
rice to grow ; for it
must be kept, till
nearly ripe, with
its head only just
above water.

It is not very
pleasant to work
in the mud. But









‘ANATA-ANIW TAL ONTHNNOTA










148 RICE-BIRDS.

the farmer, and the buffalo that draws the
plough, have to do it. They wade about
as best they can; and here and there a
bird with long legs, called a heron, stands
patiently waiting for a fish in the middle
of arice-field, as if he thought fishes must
be there.

And here and there is a little shed built
on poles, with a man sitting inside it. A
great many ropes are fastened to it, and
spread over the field. A number of scare-
crows are tied to the ropes, and the man in
the shed makes them jump up and down.

This is done to frighten away a flock of
birds called “‘rice-birds,” that love to pick
out the grain while it is soft and milky.
When the odd-looking figures, or scare-
crows, begin to jump about, the birds that
have been picking and eating, and doing
all the mischief they can, rise in the air

and fly away. But as soon as the scare-
THE SCARECROWS, 149



crows are at rect
again, they come
back, and go on
feasting on the
rice.

In a month or
two the flood is
gone, and the
field looks as if
it were covered















































with a waving



























crop of barley.







































Then comes the
busy time of har-

‘Saud GHL NALHOIYA OL GHHS AHL NT NYA WRT

vest ; and the vil-
lagers all turnout
to’ reap, some-
times up to their











knees in mud.





















































This muddy part





















































































































of the business is


150 THE CHINAMAN’S TERRACES.

not very healthy, and the people who work
in the rice-field often die of fever.

When there is no flood likely to come
upon the ground, the water is made to
stand upon it from some river. This pro-
cess is called by the long name of “ artificial
irrigation.”

We never need it in England, where the
clouds keep us amply supplied; and we
never meet with such a machine as a water-
wheel, set up for the purpose of pumping
water on the land. Nor are we obliged
to coax our rivers and streams up - hill,
and then let them run down into the
valleys. But all this is done in countries
where it does not rain for months at a
time.

The Chinese farmer is very fond of mak-
ing terraces on the banks of a river, for his
rice to grow upon. He ploughs the land
with the help of the buffalo, for horses are




























































































































































































































































THE CHINAMAN'S TERRACES,
152 SETTING THE RICE-PLANTS.

not used as in
England. Both
7, man and_ buf-




falo wade in
the mud, and
seem quite con-
tented.

Then, when the
land has been
Eploughed, the



;
= rice - plants are
* 2 brought from a

2

- hot-bed, and set
in holes made







on purpose. The
holes are full of



water, that has
been pumped up











from the river
by the water-





wheel. EG 4s


MOUNTAIN-RICE. 153

pumped up to the top terrace, and then is
let to run down all over the rest.

This pumping goes on until the rice-
stalks begin to turn yellow. Then the
Chinaman gives over, for he knows the
plants have had enough.

When the crops are ripe, the terraces
have a green and beautiful appearance,
and look like gardens.

Sometimes the little trickling rill is led
many miles along the country to a rice-
field that wants water; and no trouble is
thought too great to ensure a plentiful
crop.

There is a kind of rice that does not
require all this watering. It is called
mountain-rice, and grows in the island of
Sumatra, where it rains every few days.
When the crop has been gathered in, the
land is let to lie fallow for a time, and then
it becomes covered with a great jungle-
154 THE TALL GRASS SET ON FIRE.

grass as much as twelve feet high. In
this tall grass the tiger hides himself, or
the rhinoceros comes to graze.

But when the ground is wanted for
another crop, the tall grass has to be
burned off. As soon as the fire is lighted,
a loud, rustling noise is heard, and the
great column of flame rises and sweeps
along, till the whole ground is covered with
a sheet of fire.

If the traveller sees the column in the
distance, he takes care to escape it if he
can. But sometimes it is too quick in its
march for him to get away, and then woe
betide him!

When Aunt Martha had finished her
story, she got up, and opening her corner
cupboard, reached down a jar of rice for
the boys to look at. After that, she showed
them a picture of the plant itself, as it
ALMOST LIKE BARLEY. 155

looks when growing. It had three ears on
the top of each stalk, and each ear had
awns to it.



RICE-PLANT.

Charley said it was almost, only not
quite, like barley.

Richard said he should like to see a
Chinaman ploughing, with his buffaloes, in
the mud. He had once seen a Chinese
156 ABOUT SMALL FEET.

giant: he wore his hair in a long pigtail
down his back. Charley said it looked

=.

very strange; for





his head, except this

pigtail, was quite
— bald.

There was a Chinese
~lady in the same
show ; she had such
(HINAMAN'S PrOTATD small feet, hardly
bigger than a baby’s, and could only hobble.

Charley asked what the ladies did to
make their feet so small.

Aunt Martha said, that when they were
babies, their feet were fastened up in tight
bandages, so that they could not grow.
When Charley got home, he must ask his
papa to take him to the museum, and
show him all the curious things that were
there.

Aunt Martha had seen the museum long
THE YELLOW JAR. 157

ago, and knew that a great many things in
it had been brought from China.

The boys then began to talk about the
rice-puddings they had so many of at
school. Charley said he should like them
better, now he knew so many people lived
on rice, without any meat at all.

Aunt Martha observed that everything
in her corner cupboard had told them
its story. The tea-cup, and the tea, and
the sugar, and the coffee, and the rice,
and the salt, and the currants, and even
the needle and cotton. It was well they
were going home so soon, for there would
be no more tales to tell. Yes, she believed
everything had told them its story.

Charley said, might he see? And, before
his aunt had time to reply, he had jumped
on a chair, and was peering into her cup-
board. What was that yellow jar hidden
up so snug? What had that inside it ?
158 SHORT AND SWEET.

Aunt Martha said that indeed she had
forgotten that; it was her honey-jar. If
they liked, she would tell them a tale about
Honey to finish with; it would be short

and sweet. s










: CHAPTER XIL

THE STORY OF THE HONEY.

is called, manufactured, by man.



é And if he has not made them, he
has at least prepared and got them ready
for use. Even the tea and the coffee and
the sugar have to pass through his hands
before they come to table.

But I am going now to tell you about
something with which he has very little to
do. He has neither made nor prepared it,
and yet it is something we all like very
much, and should be sorry to do without.

The garden in stunmer-time.is full of
160 IN THE GARDEN,





BEES AT WORK.

bright-coloured flowers. The
rose, and the honeysuckle, and
the jessamine that climbs over
the porch ; and the white lily,
and the pink, and the carna-
tion. Now in the deep recess
of the flower a sweet juice lies
hidden. It is not honey, but
it is the stuff out of which
honey is made.

A hundred little workmen


THE NECTAR IN THE FLOWERS. 161

are busy carrying away the juice—or, as it
is called, the nectar—for the very purpose
of making honey. You will guess that I
mean the bees. But the bees are very
knowing, and they do not take the nectar
out of all the flowers ; they skip over some,
as if they did not like them.

The bee is very intent on its work. It
lives in the hive by the garden wall: though
it has plenty of relatives who do not live in
a hive, but make their nests out in the
fields and woods; but they all carry on the
same trade,—that of honey-making.

No one can take any liberties with the
bee, because it is armed with a sharp little
sword called a sting; but it is worth
while to stand a minute and see what it is
about.

It has a tongue which is a great deal too
long for its mouth, so it lies folded down on

its breast. When the bee settles on a flower,
'457) 11
162 THE HONEY-BAG.

it thrusts its long tongue deep into the very
bottom of it. The tongue is like a sponge,
and sucks up all the nectar. The nectar
passes along the body of the bee to a curious
little bag called the honey-bag, and that
seems made on purpose to holdit. »

f By-and-by the bee flies
off home to the hive with
its honey-bag quite full.

ZS




} |

U

The hive, as you know,
| || has a great many cells in
W/ it made of wax, and they
{ form what is called the *



honey-comb.

THE BEE'S

TONGUE. The bee pushes its head THE BEH’S HONEY-BAG

into a cell, and empties the honey by drops

out of its honey-bag; and then comes an-
other bee, and does the same, till the cell is
quite full; and then it is closed up with a
waxen lid to keep out the air.

I do not pretend to find out a secret
THE HONEY-COMB. 163

known only to the bee, but it is quite cer-
tain that the nectar by some means or other
has become changed into honey. It is full
of little bright crystals like sugar, and has



PART OF A HONEY-COMB.

a pleasant smell, anda taste I need hardly
describe.

All over the country, in every garden are
the little honey-makers at work from morn-
164 THE BALLS THAT SET THE BEES TO SLEEP.

ing till night. They are doing it to lay upa
store of food for themselves. But honey is
very nice, and the wax that they make
their comb of is very useful; so the bee is
robbed every year.

It would not be easy to rob the hive in
an open and straightforward way, because
of the sharp little swords I have told
“you about. But the owner of the hive
gets some round white balls that are found
in the fields, and are called furze balls,
and sets them on fire under the hive.
The smoke gets in among the bees, and
makes them drop down as if they were
dead.

But, I am happy to say, they come to
life again, though not before their beautiful
comb with all its nice honey has been run
away with.

When the honey has been poured out of
the cells it is clear and liquid ; but in this


HONEY-MAKERS AT WORK,
166 MEAD WINE,

country, where the weather is never very
hot, it soon hardens and thickens as you
see when it is brought to table.

A great many years ago, people used to
drink a nice sweet wine called mead, and
that was made of honey.

We never hear about mead in these days,
when so many different sorts of wines are
brought to us from other countries. But
in olden times mead was held in very high
esteem ; and the person who made it, and
who was called “the mead-maker,” was
thought to be of more importance than
the doctor. Queen Elizabeth used to drink
a great deal of mead, and left behind a
recipe for the best way of making it.

In these days, though mead is out of
fashion, honey and wax are considered part
of the riches of the kingdom, and are bought
and sold everywhere.

There is a bird called the honey-guide,
THE HONEY-GUIDE. 167

that lives in Africa, in the country of the
Hottentots. It is rather larger than a
sparrow, and is so fond of honey that it is
always on the look-out to get some. There



THE HONEY-GUIDE,

are no bee-hives in that country, but the
bees make their nests in the hollow of a
tree, or in some other sheltered place. |
The bird is sure to find its way to the
bee’s-nest, but it does not like to attack
168 THE BEAR ROBBING THE BEES,

it, for fear of being stung. So it begins to
call out in its own way for some one else
to come; it makes a loud piercing cry,
that is well known by all who are within
hearing.

Sometimes the bear is lurking about
among the trees, and he hears it; and by-
and-by he sees the bird perched on some
branch close by. The bird flies towards
the nest of the poor unsuspecting bees,
and the bear follows ; for he loves the taste
of honey, and this is not the first time, by
any means, that he has gone after the
honey-guide. He does not much care
about the stings, though they sometimes
put him into a great passion. At any rate,
he pulls out the nest with his feet and paws,
and feasts on the honey; and while the bear
is eating, the bird is sure to get as much as
it wants.

The Hottentot knows the voice of the
THE HOTTENTOT’S FRIEND, 169

honey-guide, and follows it with great de-
light. When he reaches the nest, he does
not forget his kind friend; he takes care to
leave behind that part of the comb which
contains the eggs and the little grubs, for
the bird likes these better even than the
honey.

And he would not catch or kill the honey-
guide for any reward that could be offered.
A traveller once told a Hottentot that he
would give him any number of glass beads
and a great deal of tobacco, if he would set
a trap for the honey-guide. But the Hot-
tentot would do nothing of the kind.

“The bird is our friend,” he said, “and

we will not betray it!”

Richard and Charley were very sorry
when Aunt Martha came to the end of
her story ; and they might have said more
about their regret that it was to be the
170 HOW GOOD IT WAS!

last, had not Charley espied old Sally reach-
ing the jar of honey out of the cupboard.

What was she going to do with it?
Charley was not wrong in guessing ; al-
though, on sitting down to tea, he made
beiieve to look surprised at a nice slice of
bread and honey on the plate before hin.
How good it was !

He asked Aunt Martha why she did not
keep bees, she had so many flowers in the
garden.

Aunt Martha said she had thought about
it, and that perhaps next time they came
to see her, they might find she had set up a
bee-house.

Charley hoped, if Aunt Martha did keep
bees, she would not have them killed when
the honey was taken; it was a shame to
kill them when they had worked so hard.

Richard said it was more cruel to take
their honey, and leave them to starve.
THE GAME AT CHESS. 171

Aunt Martha said so it was; but that if
she kept bees, she meant to take care of
them,—for to keep bees, or birds, or any
living thing, and not to be kind to them,
was very wicked indeed.

Richard said the boys at school kept
rabbits, and sometimes forgot to feed them;
but Charley had never forgotten to feed
his. And he liked that Hottentot, and
thought him a fine fellow, for not betray-
ing the honey-guide. He should have done
just the same himself.

When tea was over, Aunt Martha said,
as she had no knitting to do that night,
she should not mind playing a game at
chess ; they two might be on one side, and
she would be on the other. So when old
Sally had taken away the tea-things, and
made up the fire, Richard fetched out the
chess-board, and he and Charley set the

men.
172 CHECK-MATE.

When the game began, Aunt Martha
said she was afraid she should be beaten,
—it would be hard to play against them
both. The boys did not think so; and they
were right,—for they first lost their knights,
then their bishops, and then, to Charley’s
great dismay, their queen. Old. Sally
tapped at the door to take them off to
bed, just as Aunt Martha had got their
king into a corner, and contrived to say
check-mate !

The next day, the boys returned to
school. Aunt Martha was very sorry to
part with them; but old Sally predicted
they were going back to learn, and she was
not a bit afraid of their turning out dunces.

Old Sally was right; for the two boys
had no sooner got back to school than they
set to work in earnest ; indeed, the very
first thing they did was to pull out of the
A CHANGE INDEED. 173

desk their dog’s-eared geography. They
wanted to see if it said anything about the
places their aunt had told them of in her
stories. When they found that it did, they
hastened from one to another of the great
maps which hung on the school-room wall,
talking all the time about Brazil and China,
Zante and Corinth. One would have
thought they had just come back from a
voyage round the world!

They were so anxious to learn, that Dr.
Birch could hardly believe they were the
same boys who had only cared for tops and
marbles. Nor did his wonder cease when,
week after week, their lessons were well
said, their copies neatly written, their sums
done without mistakes; when, in fact,
from lazy, idle boys, they became good, in-
dustrious scholars !

Ah! how they enjoyed their play-time!
Yet play-time was not half so joyful as go-
174 BEAUTIFUL PRIZES,

ing home for the holidays, for they had each
a prize to take with them!

Perhaps you would like to know what
their prizes were.

Richard’s was a handsome writing-desk,
with ink, and pens, and paper; it was
lined with crimson velvet, and had a little
box for stamps.

Charley’s was a paint-box full of gay
colours. It had a little pallet to rub the
colours on, and plenty of brushes. He
painted a great many pictures; but the
one his mamma liked best, was of a robin
redbreast picking up some crumbs.

Then, too, there came a kind letter from
Dr. Birch to their papa, saying how hard
they had worked, and that he was quite
contented with them.

Before the first week of the holidays
was over, they took the letter and their
prizes for Aunt Martha to see; and she
THE END. 175

was very pleased indeed, and praised them
quite as much as Dr. Birch had done. And
they told old Sally that their love of learn-
ing had all come out of the corner cup-
board, and they hoped Aunt Martha would
never, never have it taken down.

And so the two boys, who had before
been so idle and ignorant, grew up in-
dustrious and learned men. They were,
besides, able to be kind and good to others ;
for that is the real use of learning,—as we
hope our little readers will one day find
out for themselves, even if they have not an
Aunt Martha, and a Corner Cupboard.









NELSON & SONS



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