The Desert Home: The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness

by Mayne Reid

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

  THE STUMP-TREE AND THE BREAD-PINE.

  "That evening, as we sat around the supper table, my wife announced thatthe last grain of our coffee was in the pot. This was sad news to allof us. Of the little luxuries that we had brought with us from SaintLouis, our coffee had held out longest; and a cup of this aromaticbeverage had often cheered us during our toilsome journey across theprairie desert. Often, too, since our arrival in the valley, had itgiven a relish to our homely meals.

  "`Well, then,' said I, by way of reply to the announcement, `we mustlearn to do without it. We have now the materials for making soup; whatcare we for coffee? How many poor people would be glad to be surroundedwith luxuries, as we are! Here we have venison of different kinds; wecan have beavers' tails whenever we want them. There are fish, too inthe lake and stream; there are hares and squirrels, which we shall trapin abundance, by-and-by; and, in addition to all, we shall dine oftenupon ruffed grouse and roast turkey. I wonder, with all these luxuriesaround us, who is not content?'

  "`But, papa,' said Harry, taking up the discourse, `in Virginia I haveoften seen our black folks make coffee out of Indian corn. It is notbad, I assure you. I have drunk it there, and thought it very good.Have not you, Cudjo?'

  "`Dat berry coffee dis chile hab drunk, Massa Harry.'

  "`Now, papa?'

  "`Well, Harry, what of it?'

  "`Why should we not use that--the Indian corn, I mean--for coffee?'

  "`Why, Harry,' said I, `you surely do not reflect upon what you aretalking about. We have a far worse want than coffee, and that is thisvery Indian corn you speak of--to make bread. Could I only get a supplyof that, I should think very little about coffee or any other beverage.Unfortunately there is not a grain of corn within many an hundred milesof where we are now sitting.'

  "`But there is, papa; I know where there is at least a quart of it; andwithin less than an hundred yards of us, too.'

  "`Come,' said I, `my boy, you have mistaken some useless seed for corn.No corn grows in this valley, I am certain.'

  "`It did not grow in this valley. It has travelled all the way fromSaint Louis along with us. It is now in the wagon.'

  "`What! corn in the wagon?' I exclaimed, starting up with suchvehemence as to frighten my children. `Are you sure of that, Harry?'

  "`I saw it this very morning in one of the old bags,' replied he.

  "`Come!' cried I; `get a torch, Cudjo. To the wagon!--to the wagon!'

  "In a short time we had reached the wagon, which stood close to thedoor. With a beating heart I climbed into it. There was an oldworn-out buffalo robe, with the harness of the ox lying upon the bottom.I flung these aside; and underneath I saw a coarse gunny-bag, such asare used in the Western States for holding Indian corn. I knew that itwas one of those we had brought with us from Saint Louis, containingcorn for our horse and oxen; but I was under the impression that I hademptied out the last of it long before. I took the bag up, and, to myinexpressible delight, found that it still contained a small quantity ofthe precious grain; besides, there was still more of it, that had beenspilled from time to time, and had got into the corners and cracks ofthe wagon. These we collected carefully and put with the rest--notleaving a single grain that we did not scrape out from the cracks. Thencarrying my bag into the house, I turned out its contents upon thetable. To our great joy there was, as Harry had affirmed, nearly aquart of the golden grain!

  "`Now,' said I, `we shall have bread!'

  "This was a glad sight to my wife. During the preceding days we hadfrequently talked upon this subject--the want of bread--which is one ofour first necessities. We had lived in hope that we should find somespecies of cereal in the valley that would supply us with a substitutefor bread; but up to that time nothing of the kind had appeared. We hadgathered the mast from the beech-tree and roasted it. We had collectedquantities of locust-pods and acorns. We had also eaten the pulpy fruitof the pawpaw; but all these together we found to be but poor apologiesfor real bread. This, then, was a discovery of greater importance to usthan either the salt or the sugar.

  "The winter, in the latitude of our valley, would be a short one. Wecould then plant the corn--there was enough of it to plant a whole acre.It would come to maturity in six or eight weeks; and we knew that insuch a climate we could easily raise two crops in the year--so thatbefore the next winter came round we should have enough and to spare.

  "While we stood by the table talking over these pleasant prospects, oneof the boys--Frank it was--suddenly shouted out, `Wheat! wheat!'

  "I looked down to ascertain what he meant. He had been turning over theyellow seeds of the maize, and, among them, had discovered severalgrains of wheat. No doubt there had been wheat in the bag before thecorn had been put into it; and this was soon confirmed, as, on carefullysearching the bag, we found several of the precious pickles stillclinging between the seams. After separating the one species from theother with great carefulness--for we did not wish to lose a singleseed--we found that our grains of wheat counted exactly one hundred!This, to be sure, was a small quantity to go a-farming with, but weremembered the old saving, `Great oaks grow from little acorns,' and weknew the importance of these small grey seeds. In a couple of years weshould have large crops of wheat.

  "`You see,' said I, addressing my little family, `how kind Providencehas been to us. Here, in the middle of the Desert, has He furnished uswith all the necessaries of life; and now, with a little patience, wemay promise ourselves many of its luxuries--for what can mamma not makeout of flour and sugar?'

  "`Oh, everything!' cried Frank, who had grown enthusiastic at theprospect of farming, for he was fond of agricultural pursuits; `we canhave venison-pasties with our flour.'

  "`And fruit-pies,' added Harry; `there are plenty of fruits. I havefound wild plums and cherries, and mulberries as long as my finger, andwhortle-berries, too. What delicious puddings we can make.'

  "`Yes,' said I; `now shall we care for coffee?'

  "`No, no!' cried Frank and Harry in a breath.

  "`Then you shall have it,' said their mother, with a smile of peculiarmeaning.

  "`What! mother?' exclaimed Harry, `another tree?'

  "`Yes, indeed, another.'

  "`Not a coffee-plant?'

  "`No; but a coffee-tree.'

  "`A coffee-tree! why I thought, mamma, that they never grew, except inthe hottest parts of the tropics.'

  "`That is true enough of the small tree or shrub which produces thecoffee you have been accustomed to drink; but not far from us there is avery large tree, whose seed will give us a very palatable substitute.Here is a specimen of it.'

  "So saying, she threw down upon the table a large brown pod--of at leasttwelve inches in length by two in breadth--exactly the shape of acrescent or young moon. It reminded us of the pods of the locust,though differing considerably in shape. Like them, too, when opened--which was forthwith done--it was seen to contain a pulpy substance, inwhich several large grey-coloured seeds were imbedded. These seeds, sheinformed us, when parched, ground, and boiled--after the manner of thetrue coffee--would afford us a beverage nearly as good and quite aswholesome.

  "`The tree,' said she, `from which I have plucked this pod, grows inmost parts of America. You may have observed it here?'

  "`I have,' interrupted Harry. `Now that mamma has shown us the use ofthe maples, I have been looking particularly at all the trees; since Ifind that some of them that appeared scarce worthy of notice, may afterall be very interesting.'

  "`I have observed the tree,' added Frank, who was something of abotanist as well as his mother; `I noticed that its bark is very rough,dropping off here and there in large curling scales. The branches, too,are very odd-looking; they have blunt, stumpy ends, that give the tree aclumsy appearance. Is it not so, mamma?'

  "`Precisely as you say. Hence its name of "chicot" among the CanadianFrench, and "stump-tree" in the United States. Its botanical name is_gymnocladus_, whi
ch means, "with naked branches;" for during thewinter, as you shall find, it will present a very naked appearance. Itis also known as the "Kentucky coffee-tree," because the early pioneersand settlers of that country, when they were unable to obtain the truecoffee, made use of its seeds, as we intend doing.'

  "`Oh!' cried Harry; `only think of it--sugar, and coffee, and salt, andplenty of meat, and roast turkey--everything but bread. If we only hadbread! Would our corn not grow if we planted it now, papa?'

  "`No; the frost would kill the young plants. We must have patienceuntil spring.'

  "`It is a long time till spring,' said Harry, with rather a discontentedair; `and then we must wait much longer while the corn is growing. Itis a very long time to wait.'

  "`Come, Master Hal,' rejoined his mother, `I fear you are one of thosewho cannot be satisfied, no matter how many blessings are heaped uponthem. Remember how many are worse off than yourself--how many arewithout bread, even where it is plentiest. No doubt, at this momentmany a hungry boy in the streets of wealthy London is standing by thebaker's window, and gazing at the crisp loaves, with no more chance toeat one of them than you have. He is worse off than you. You haveother food--plenty of it--he has none; and, moreover, his hunger isrendered more acute and painful by the sight of the tempting food--separated from his hand only by a pane of glass. Poor boy! that pane ofglass is to him a wall of adamant. Think upon this, my son, and learnto be contented.'

  "`Indeed, I am so, mamma,' replied Harry, with a look of contrition. `Idid not mean to complain. I was only thinking how nice it would be tohave bread, now that we have got both sugar and coffee.'

  "`Ah! now, my good Harry,' said his mother, `since I find you in theproper spirit, I think I must tell you about another curious and usefultree, of which, perhaps, you have not heard.'

  "`A bread-fruit now, I'm sure? No, it cannot be that; for I _have_heard of the bread-fruit.'

  "`Still, it might very appropriately be called a bread-fruit, since,during the long winter months, it furnishes bread to many tribes ofIndians; indeed, not bread alone, but subsistence--as it is the onlyfood these improvident people have.'

  "`I am sure I have never heard of that tree.'

  "`Well, I imagine not, as it is not long since it was discovered anddescribed by botanists; and even now it is but imperfectly known tothem. It is a pine.'

  "`What! a pine with fruit?'

  "`Did you ever see a pine without it--that is, in the proper season?'

  "`Then you call those cone-shaped things fruit?'

  "`Certainly; what else should they be?'

  "`Oh! I thought those were the seed.'

  "`So are they, and the fruit as well. In botany we have no such word asfruit. What you call fruit is in some trees the seed. In all speciesof nuts, for instance, the fruit and the seed are one and the samething--that is to say, the kernel of the nut is both fruit and seed. Soit is with leguminous plants, as beans and peas. In other trees,however, the fruit is a substance covering and enclosing the seed, asthe pulp of the apple, the pear, and the orange. Now, with regard tothe pines, they are nut-bearing trees, and their seed is at the sametime their fruit.'

  "`But, mamma, you do not mean that any one could eat those rough thingsthat grow upon pine-trees?'

  "`Those rough things you speak of are the cones. They are only thesheaths that protect the seeds during a certain period of the year.They open as nuts do, and then you will find a kernel inside which isthe true fruit.'

  "`But I have tasted that, too--it is quite bitter.'

  "`You have tasted that of the common pine, and you say true of it; butthere are many species of pine-trees, whose seeds are not only edible,but pleasant to the taste, and wholesome as an article of food.'

  "`What pines, mamma?'

  "`Several species are known. Several new ones have been discovered oflate years, and in this very Desert. Perhaps in no part of the world isfound a greater variety of these valuable trees, than in the mountainouscountries which border upon and lie within the Great American Desert.There is one species in California called "Colorado" by the Spaniards--which means _red_, because their wood, when sawn up, is of a reddishcolour. Trees of this kind are the largest in the world; they are oftenover 300 feet in height! Only think of a tree 300 feet high, when thetallest we saw in the Mississippi Valley was not much over half that.Yet there are whole forests of these upon the mountains of the SierraNevada. There is another species almost as large on these samemountains. It has been called by botanists _pinus Lambertiana_. It ismore remarkable, however, for the size of its cones, which are of theenormous length of eighteen inches--a foot and a half! Fancy howsingular a sight it must be--one of these gigantic trees with coneshanging from its branches larger than sugar-loaves!'

  "`Oh, beautiful indeed!' exclaimed Frank and Harry at the same time.

  "`But, mamma,' added Frank, `are these the sort that are eaten by theIndians?'

  "`Their seeds are also fit to eat, and in times of great distress theIndians and others resort to them for food; but it is not of them Iintended to speak. It is of another kind very distinct from either, andyet growing in the same region. It is a small tree, rarely seen of morethan thirty or forty feet in height, and with leaves or needles of amuch lighter green than the generality of pines. Its cones are notlarger than those of the common sort; but the seed or kernel is oilylike the American walnut, and quite as agreeable in flavour. Theycannot be otherwise than nutritious, since, as I have said, they formthe whole subsistence of many people for months in the year. They canbe eaten raw; but the Indians usually roast them. When roasted orparched, and then ground in a mill, or broken in a mortar, they make aspecies of meal, which, though coarse in appearance, can be baked intosweet and wholesome bread. This tree is called by the Mexicans "pinon,"and also by travellers the "nut-pine." The only botanist who has fairlydescribed it has given it the name of _pinus monophyllus_. Perhaps asgood a name as any, and certainly the most appropriate--I mean for itspopular one--would be the "bread-pine."'

  "`But, mamma, does this tree grow in our valley? We have not seen it.'

  "`Not in the valley, I think; but I have hopes that we may find it onthe mountain. The day we came around from Camp Antelope, I thought Isaw a strange species of pine growing up in the ravines. It might bethis very one; and I am the more inclined to think so, as I have heardthat it grows on the Rocky Mountains--within the latitudes of NewMexico--and also on all the sierras that lie between them and thePacific. I see no reason why we should not find it upon our mountain,which is, no doubt, a sort of outlying peak of the Rocky Mountainsthemselves.'

  "`Oh! then,' said Harry, `shall we not go up to the mountain, and seeabout it? An excursion to the mountain would be so very pleasant.Don't you think so, papa?'

  "`I do, indeed,' I replied; `and as soon as we can make a cart forPompo, so as to be able to take mamma and the children along with us, weshall go there.'

  "This proposal was hailed with delight, as all wished very much to visitthe beautiful mountain that rose so majestically above us. It wassettled, then, that on the first fine day, as soon as our cart should beconstructed, we would set forth, and make a grand pic-nic to theSnow-mountain."