"When is the harvest time?" asked Maria.
"We have two crops so there are two harvests, one in February and one in August. Sometimes you see fruit and flowers on the same tree at the same time. The blossoms grow in little white bunches and are very fragrant."
"I should think it would take a lot of people to pick all this coffee," said Affonzo.
"It does. If you were to be here next February you would see hundreds of negroes and Italians, men, women, and children, busy up and down these long rows. Many of them live in those little houses," he said, pointing to a street lined with small wooden huts crowded close together. About the houses were scores of small, dark-skinned children at play.
"At the present time," said the Senhor, "the men and women are at work in the sheds and ware-houses making the coffee ready for market. We shall ship thousands of pounds next month. To-morrow I will take you about and show you what we have to do. I wish you might have been here during the harvest season. It is very interesting to watch the pickers with the huge baskets strapped to their shoulders. There is great rivalry among them to see who can be the fastest picker on the place."
Before they reached the fazenda their carriage passed through two gates which closed after them with a spring, and the Senhor said,
"The fazenda factory is always enclosed by one and sometimes two fences, for the cattle graze loose with only a pickaninny or the madrinla[13] to watch them."
"It looks like a fortress," said Maria.
"Yes, and some fazendas are called 'fortaleza' for that very reason," said her uncle.
"It is really very much like the old fortresses of feudal times, within the walls of which went on all manner of things. Inside the fazenda palisades there are the houses of the labourers, apothecary's shop, hospital, ware-houses, and terrerios,[14] besides the house of the owner."