“You’ll never make anything grow planting it as deep as that and then stamping the ground down as hard as a brick!” declared the lad.
“Oh, sure da monkey nuts grow!” declared the Italian with a smile. “Alla same we plant dem lika deese in Italy.”
He smiled his white-tooth smile.
“Oh, in Italy,” conceded Bob. He couldn’t dispute this. He had never been in Italy and knew nothing of these strange fruits or nuts.
“Sure—Italy. Deese grow fine when da warm weather he come back. Put ’em in deep so no freeze.”
There might be something in that theory Bob admitted to himself. Idly he watched the Italian dig. He cut aside, with wide sweeps of the sharp spade, the dead and dying weeds and brambles, and when he had a cleared place he began on another hole, not far from where he had dug several others, as evidenced by the mounds of fresh earth.
“How’s the monkey?” asked Bob, seeing no object in lingering longer on the scene.
“Jacko—he good—I leave him by friend while I plant hees food for da next year.”
“What does he live on while these things are growing—there won’t be any until next year,” said the young detective.
“I got some I breeng from Italy—’nough, mebby, to last. I dunno! Jacko eat da banana too, mebby.”