'What is coffee, mother dear? Does it grow?'
2. It was Dora who asked this. She and Harry were putting away some
things that had come from the shop, and she was now filling a tin with
coffee-beans.
3. She was kneeling on a chair by the table in the window. Her mother
was busy mending stockings, and the cat and the dog were both asleep.
The kettle was singing, and all was cosy.
4. The coffee-beans rattled into the tin, and Dora picked one out and
looked at it.
When Harry heard Dora asking about it, he also put his hand in and took
a coffee-bean. It smelt very nice, he thought. So did Dora.
5. They found that it had a flat side and a round side.
'It humps up,' said Dora.
'See, I can put the flat side of mine against the flat side of yours,'
said Harry.
'They grew like that,' said mother.
'Oh, then, they did grow? They were alive once?'
[Illustration: Coffee branch with Berries.]
6. 'Yes; they were seeds of a plant that grows in a warm country, far
away from here. They once lived inside a berry.
'The berry was red like a cherry, and the seeds inside were held
together in a little bag.'
7. 'There must have been a flower before the berry came,' said Harry,
thinking of the pea-flower and its pod.
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