CHAPTER XXXII
WHAT TO MAKE OF BANANAS, ORANGES, AND APPLES
WHILE icy blasts are still sweeping through the cities of the North, while the snow lies deep on the ground, and the children, bundled up until little except their pink noses is visible, are coasting, sleighing, and snowballing, in the South soft breezes are sifting through the green leaves of the trees and gently stirring the beautiful flowers blossoming in the warm sunshine.
In the orange groves the great golden balls are ripening, and on the long-leaved banana trees hang the queer bunches of bananas, growing in their funny upside-down fashion. Pineapples, lemons and many other fruits are there, all growing and ripening that the children of the North may have them when their own delicious strawberries, peaches and plums have gone.
We are very glad of these Southern fruits, even the skins seem too good to throw away. And so they are.
Save Your Orange, and Banana, and Apple Skins,
too, and see what delightful things you can make of them.
Long, long ago, before there were any steamboats, sailboats or even rowboats in the British Isles, when men’s clothes were merely the skins of wild beasts tied on with leather thongs, the people went on the water in little circular boats called coracles. These boats were wickerwork baskets covered with the hides of animals and resembled bowls in shape. They were sent skimming over the water very rapidly by means of a paddle which was dipped in first on one side of the boat then on the other. The coracles were so small a man easily carried his boat on his back to transport it over dry land, looking, one would think, very much like a huge turtle walking on its hind legs.