Coco

“ In the morning Auguste and Denise went to walk in the country. Coco always went with them, but his presence did not incommode them; for their eyes alone betrayed their feelings, and an innocent heart has no fear of witnesses. At night, when they were together in the cottage, the hours flew more swiftly still, and when they separated, they exchanged a loving: “Until to-morrow.” ”

“ Then the natives are such a nuisance with coco-nuts. For a truly terrific kniff give me even in West Africa a sand beach with coco-nut palms and natives. You never get coco-nut palms without natives, because they won’t grow out of sight of human habitation. I am told also that one coco will not grow alone; it must have another coco as well as human neighbours, so these things, of course, end in a grove. It’s like keeping cats with no one to drown the kittens. ”

“ Now, as he walked, he saw an old woman sitting near a coco palm making a cup of coconut shell. And she, hearing his footstep, looked up and cried, "Little brother, wilt thou climb and pluck me some coconuts, for there is here no man to climb for me." ”

“ Every morning he got one of them. Anybody but a dumb-bell darky would have seen right off that it was a frame-up, but Coco fell for it. Can yuh imagine it? Two or three times a day some guy would call Coco up on the telephone. Sometimes they'd get him outa bed at two in the mornin'. The guy would say in a deep and awful voice, 'Is this Clarence Dillingham Feeney,' which is Coco's whole name. 'Yessuh,' Coco would answer—he's scared of telephones, anyhow. 'Clarence Dillingham Feeney,' the guy would rumble, 'thou art accursed. Thou can't fight in no ring. ”

“ Coco wine—not the coco toddy that figured in my Marquesan pig hunt, which is a baser concoction—fermented from a juice drawn from the heart of the trunk of that palm, is expensive and hard to obtain at any cost. It is a gentleman's drink, however, and scorns to practise any of the "behind-the-back" tactics of the soft-footed orange thunderbolt. It romps down the throat like a torch-light procession and promptly starts a conflagration that spreads like wild-fire from the head to the heels. ”

“ On both sides the jungle presents an unbroken wall of tangled verdure; occasionally a slender palm rears its delicate head high above the riotous mass, as if gasping for one more breath of air before being strangled by the figs and creepers slowly entwining its stem with their death-dealing tentacles. Among the lower growth are vast areas of palms, known as coco del mono, with long fronds resembling those of the Seaforthia, and bearing small, hard nuts; the leaves are used in thatching huts and the carroza or covering of the boats. ”

“ From islands densely jungle-covered to open stretches of grass-land and groves of coco palms: from a little, black-skinned, frizzly-haired race, in an exceedingly low plane of existence, to a brown-complexioned, lank-haired people, of fair height, who are almost semi-civilised, live in good dwellings, cultivate food products, and possess domesticated animals. ”

“ Cushing gives a long list of these charming names never used by white visitors.
[196] A wild, ugly-looking man, or animal, that frightens bad boys; hence any terrible-looking person who frightens others is “el coco.” It is in general use in Spanish literature, “meterle el coco a una persona” (Espinosa, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vols. XXIII and XXIX) .
[197] In Zuñi an exactly similar character is A’Doshle, though Harrington refers to him as Tsabije or t’ete (grandfather) (Elsie Clews Parsons, Zuñi A’Doshle and Suüke, in American Anthropologist, Vol. XVIII, 1916) . ”

“ Previous to their emancipation, whole families of negroes lived upon the produce of one provision ground, and the coco formed the main article of their support. Where the soil is congenial to the white and black Bourbon coco, the labor of one industrious person once a fortnight will raise a supply sufficient for the consumption of a family of six or seven persons. The coco begins to bear after the first year, and with common care and cultivation the same plant ought to give annually two or three returns for several years. ”

“ The aggressor was Coco, a fierce little Boston bull and the pride of one of the town's most honored citizens. Coco fought by method and a very effective method it was. He would sneak up to his chosen antagonist, fly at the forehead, tear the flesh so that the streaming blood blinded his enemy and then try for a grip on the throat. Half the dogs in the village already bore Coco's mark when, one March morning, Joy-of-Life and I went in to chapel, leaving Sigurd, as usual, to wait for us outside. ”

“ I was awful ‘fraid of her!”
“My dear, it isn’t nice not to have any feeling.”
“Oh! if my goat died, Denise, I’d cry hard enough; Jacqueleine’s so good and she loves me so!”
Denise could think of no answer to make to the child; she sent him outside with his goat. On Père Calleux’s return, she obtained his permission to take Coco with her for a few days, and Coco took with him his darling goat, from which he refused to part. ”

“ COCO-DE-MER, or DOUBLE COCO-NUT, s. The curious twin fruit so called, the produce of the Lodoicea Sechellarum, a palm growing only in the Seychelles Islands, is cast up on the shores of the Indian Ocean, most frequently on the Maldive Islands, but occasionally also on Ceylon and S. India, and on the coasts of Zanzibar, of Sumatra, and some others of the Malay Islands. Great virtues as medicine and antidote were supposed to reside in these fruits, and extravagant prices were paid for them. ”

“ She was perfectly right; there WAS often something "very French," but my brother and I had always seen it and noted it before we were moved off from the windows.
I wonder if any "marchands de coco" still survive in Paris. "Coco" had nothing to do with cocoa, but was a most mawkish beverage compounded principally of liquorice and water. The attraction about it lay in the great tank the vendor carried strapped to his back. This tank was covered with red velvet and gold tinsel, and was surmounted with a number of little tinkling silver bells. ”

“ The coco-palm, although far away from the sea-coast, its native habitat, also flourishes in great perfection, contributing not a little to the splendor of the vegetation in these truly tropical gardens, with its glorious crown of monster leaves. And last, though not least, the plantain and banana claim here the supremacy which everyone accords them over all productions of the tropics. A few plants of each only are sufficient to supply a whole family with bread, vegetables, fruit, and preserves of various kinds. ”

“ Coco, Jack's jackal, was an ardent rival of the dogs, whose constant companion he was on these hunting expeditions. Sometimes the young hunter bestrode his onager, Lightfoot, who abundantly justified his name; sometimes the buffalo, Storm, who swept like a storm across the forest land. Strict injunctions had been laid upon the daring young fellow never to venture outside the confines of the Promised Land, and never to go through the defile of Cluse, opening into the Green Valley, where he would run the risk of encountering fierce animals. ”

“ I admit that Monsieur Auguste wasn’t very polite, to hardly answer you and not even thank you!—Ah! her color’s coming back a little.—It really scared me to see you like that!”
Denise took out her handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and called Coco.
“Come, my dear, let’s go,” she said; “we must go back to the village.”
“Ain’t my kind friend coming with us?” said Coco, as he took Denise’s hand.
“Oh, no! he hasn’t even time to speak to us. Come, Coco, let’s go. We must be at the stage office at four.”
“I’ll show you the way, my dear,” said Virginie; “you might lose yourself in Paris.” ”

“ As the tree grows up from the nut, the child likes to point it out to his playfellows and tell them, “This coco-nut palm is my navel.” In planting the coco-nut the parents say, “May God cause our child to grow up, that he or she may one day enjoy the coco-nut milk of the tree which we plant here.”437 Though it is not expressly affirmed, we may perhaps assume that such a birth-tree is supposed to stand in a sympathetic relation with the life of the person. ”

“ His grandmother’s rough and cross, and his father’s a drunkard, and they want that child, only six years old, to go to work so soon! Can you imagine such a thing? Why, he often has nothing but bread to eat, and he’s lucky when he doesn’t have a beating for his supper. So we in the village don’t like that drunken pig of a Calleux, and if the cottage wasn’t some distance from the village, Coco would be at our house more than he’s at home, I tell you.”
“Well, Denise, be good enough to keep an eye on the child and buy him whatever he needs—in short, take my place with him, will you?” ”

“ An eastern saying states: "The coco-nut will not thrive far from the sound of the human voice." Whether the coco-nut loves the sound of the Siamese voice or not it is, perhaps, not possible to say, but certain it is that the Siamese loves the coco-nut palm, on account of the many useful things that he can get from it. The young coco-nut is quite a different thing from that seen in our shops about Christmas-time. In its early stages it resembles a huge, unripe green plum. Outside there is a smooth green skin, like that on the outside of the plum. ”

“ Coco, Cocoa, kō′kō, n. a palm-tree growing in tropical countries, and producing the coco-nut.—ns. Cō′co-nut, Cō′coa-nut, the well-known fruit of the coco-palm: (slang) a man's head. [Port. and Sp. coco, a bugbear; applied to the nut from the three marks at the end of it, which form a grotesque face.]
Cocoa, kō′kō, n. the seed of the cacao or chocolate tree: a beverage made from the seeds crushed and ground. [A corr. of Cacao.]
Cocoon, ko-kōōn′, n. the silken sheath spun by the larvæ of many insects in passing into the pupa or resting stage.—n. ”

“ Coco Ferret, lacking a woman’s best friend—a mirror—and having no idea of her horrific appearance, turned and grinned at the crowd of Tickfall negroes, delighted with her success as a hoodoo breaker.
“Oh—my—Lawd A’mighty!” Vinegar Atts bellowed, his eyes popping with fright, his mouth spread wide in horrified imbecility. “Whut is Gawd done gone an’ done to dat gal? Run, niggers, run!” ”

“ Thomson5 mentions that coco-trees growing by the sea-side are wont to incline their stems over the ocean, the waters of which bear their fruit to desert shores and islands, and render them habitable for mankind. ”

“ If, however, our coco-nut is lucky enough to escape the robber-crabs, the pigs, and the monkeys, as well as to avoid falling into the hands of man, and being converted into the copra of commerce, or sold from a costermonger's barrow in the chilly streets of ungenial London at a penny a slice, it may very probably succeed in germinating after the fashion I have already described, and pushing up its head through the surrounding foliage to the sunlight above. ”

“ You said a gentleman yesterday.”
“Bless me! so he is, a gentleman who is young.”
“Oh! that makes a difference.”
“He was very pleasant and friendly with me, and when he learned from me that Père Calleux spent all the money, he gave me this purse and told me to see that poor Coco has everything he needs. I took it, aunt; did I do wrong?”
“Of course not, my dear; as if you didn’t always do right, dear Denise. Well! you’re a good girl too, and you don’t let the men talk nonsense to you.” ”

“ Go home, Coco, and don’t wait supper for me; I’ve got business in the town.”
Auguste guessed that Père Calleux’s business consisted in drinking up the five-franc piece to the last sou; but, satisfied to see that his young protégé was in high spirits, he bade the peasant adieu, and followed the child, who retraced the steps they had just taken; but this time he leaped and gambolled about his companion. His great grief was forgotten already! And they say that we are great children: it is true as concerns our foibles, but not as concerns happiness. ”

“ The black coco seems to suffer less than the white.
Another species, the Taro (Arum Colocasia, Colocasia esculenta and macrorhizon) , is an important esculent root in the Polynesian islands. In the dry method of culture practised on the mountains [Pg 365] of Hawaii, the roots are protected by a covering of fern leaves. ”

“ The Cocos nucifera, or coco-nut palm, is a native of the island, and may justly be considered the most valuable of its trees. It grows in vast abundance alone the entire sea-coast of the west and south sides of the island, and furnishes almost all that a Sinhalese villager requires. Its fruit, when green, supplies food and drink; when ripe, it yields oil. ”

“ A Chinese proverb says that there are as many useful properties in the coco-nut palm as there are days in the year; and a Polynesian saying tells us that the man who plants a coco-nut plants meat and drink, hearth and home, vessels and clothing, for himself and his children after him. ”

“ But I want to see Coco, my little protégé, poor child. I really long to hug the little fellow. You will see how pretty he is, Bertrand—and such vile relations!—Put some money in your pocket, Bertrand.”
“Oh! as much as you choose, lieutenant, to relieve the unfortunate, to help an orphan; one never regrets such things, and it gives one a hundred times more pleasure than paying for the brunette’s hangings and the blonde’s shawls.”
The horses were saddled; Auguste and Bertrand mounted, and started for Montfermeil about ten o’clock in the morning. ”

“ It is fitted to other purposes besides that of food, for it serves to give light; and mixed with soda [483] it yields good soap, white and hard. One hundred cocos give one canada of oil of the canadas of Pernambuco. So that each coco costing 10 reis, a canada may be obtained for 1280 reis, or 7s. 11⁄4d.
From the fibre of the outward rind of the coco, which is called cairo, may be made all kinds of cordage; even cables are manufactured from it.
The only means by which the fibre of the coco rind can be obtained, are by beating and maceration ”