he Philippines for it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just think of practically growing chocolate bonbons on a tree, beneath
the window of your nipa huts, in these wonderful Philippine Islands,"
I added, and every one smiled.

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

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

Fil's father continued:

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

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

Fil's fathe