No sooner said than done; the barrel was rolled in, and Vieve had the hammer and chisel ready.
“Now shut all the doors, Vieve,” he said, as he unfastened the head; “if it should be anything alive, it might get away.”
Vieve hastened to obey, but seeing him laughing at her, she threw them open again.
When the head was raised from the barrel, the room was instantly filled with a delightful tropical aroma that was familiar enough to Kit, but that is seldom found in a house in Huntington.
“Just crush these in your hands, and then smell them,” he said to both, taking up a handful of the fragrant lemon leaves with which the top of the barrel was covered; and they thought they had never smelled anything so sweet.
When he brushed the leaves aside, he found more than half a bushel of lemons, limes, and oranges. Then a little partition nailed in, and beneath it a great assortment of southern fruits—sugar apples, loquats, sapadillos, sour sops, jelly cocoanuts, tamarinds, guavas, and bananas. Then another partition, and beneath that a dozen of the largest and finest pineapples he had ever seen. By the time the barrel was emptied, every table and chair in the kitchen was covered with luscious fruit.
“Where in the world did you get all these things, Kit?” his mother asked.
“A present from one of my friends in Yucatan,” he replied; and then he had to tell all about Mr. Ysnard and how kind he had been. While he talked he was busy gathering up the fruit and laying it on the pantry shelves, where it would neither freeze nor be too warm, and Vieve and her mother fell to and washed the dishes.
“We’ll try one of these pineapples in the sitting-room,” he said; and he took a sharp knife and began to pare off the rough outer skin. “I want you to taste a real pine fresh from the orchard. They’re very different from the hard little things we buy here.” When it was peeled he took two forks and tore it apart into small pieces, as he had been taught on the ship; and around the sitting-room stove they were all agreed that no better or sweeter fruit could be grown.
But alas for Kit’s intentions to tell all his adventures that evening! He had had little sleep on the tug, and before the pineapple was finished, he caught himself nodding several times.