“Tell us why, tell us why,” clamoured the audience.
“For a very good reason. We are picked in bunches and dried in an oven in sugar. They are dried in the sun, and are called sun raisins. Their leaves are taken off, and a jolly time they have in the sunshine and fresh air. A much better way than to be shut in an oven in the dark.
“However, we have to make the best of it; the cool nights and heavy dews would ruin us if we stayed out, so we just cuddle up in the nice warm dark, and look forward to the moment when the big oven door will fly open, then we know something nice is to happen, for America sends millions of pounds of raisins to other countries, and we just love to go.
“The sun raisins are the kind used for Christmas goodies, and are packed between layers of paper in large wooden boxes.
“Other places they come from are here, and here, and here, and here.”
As he spoke, he twirled over various parts of the globe, touching Persia, Greece, Italy, and Southern France.
“It is quite grand to be a sun raisin and come in a box looking so large and delicious, and to know you are the finest of your kind, but I’d just about as soon be a pudding raisin, when the Cook comes in and says:
“‘Dear suz me, Missus, we can’t have pudding to-day!’
“Then all the children set up a dismal wail and Missus says, ‘Why not, I’d like to know!’
“‘Because we are just out of pudding raisins,’ but she adds cheerfully, ‘We have the layer kind. Could we use those?’