“Were there cocoa-nut-trees here, sir, when your grandfather was here?” I asked Mr. Crusoe.
“I suppose there were,” he replied; “for in his book he speaks of ‘cocoa-trees,’ which must have been the same thing.”
“Then, of course, he made dishes out of the shells, and drank the milk, and made cocoa-nut pies and such,” I continued.
“He didn’t do anything of the kind,” answered Mr. Crusoe; “at least, I don’t think he could have made cocoa-nut pies, for he was never sick but once; and I know he didn’t use cocoa-nut dishes, because he made clay dishes.”
“Well,” said I, “we can use cocoa-nuts, can’t we, whether he did or not?”
“Mike,” said Mr. Crusoe, looking at me as if I wasn’t fit to live, “if you touch even the outside of a cocoa-nut you’ll wish that you had eaten a dozen cocoa-nut pies—that is, if I can find a way to make you suffer as you would deserve to suffer. How dare you propose to do what my grandfather didn’t do!”
So when I wanted a cocoa-nut I had to watch my chance and take one when Mr. Crusoe was out of sight. This, of course, made me the more anxious for cocoa-nuts, and twice I made myself pretty sick by eating too many. I don’t think that three or four cocoa-nuts would hurt anybody, but you can’t eat many more at one time without running the risk of being twisted all up into a Turk’s-head knot.
Mr. Crusoe insisted that we must build a country-house in the valley. I had had about enough of building houses, and I told him so, but it didn’t make any impression on him. His grandfather had a country-house in that very valley, and so we must have one. I suppose if his grandfather had happened to have a broken leg anywhere on the island, we should have had to break one of our legs in the same place.
I said to him, “Mr. Crusoe, now just look at this a minute. Did your grandfather have three houses?”
“No, I can’t say he did.”