A TOMATO STORY

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1913, Page 61

A TOMATO STORY

Have another tomato, Johnny,’ said grandma, as she saw the last red slice disappear from Johnny’s plate; ‘I think you like tomatoes.’ ‘I do,’ said Johnny. ‘I like them raw and stewed and baked, and ’most every way.’ ‘ I wonder if you would like them the way I ate them last summer in Wyoming?’ Cousin May said. ‘ They are not plentiful there, and we ate them like fruit, with cream and sugar.’ ‘Well,’ Johnny said, ‘l’d just like to try them that way.’ " ‘Why, bless the child!’ grandma said. ‘ We’ll have some for supper. That’s the way we always used to eat them, but it’s gone out of fashion now.’ ‘ Didn’t you like tomatoes when you were little, grandma?’ Johnny asked, as he saw grandma looking at his plate with a smile in her eyes. ‘No,’ grandma said, * but that’s because I was a big girl before I ever tasted them, I never saw any until I was thirteen years old.’ ‘ I can remember it so well ! A pedler who came by our farm once a month, bringing buttons and thread and such like things to sell, brought the seed to my mother. ‘ He used to carry seeds and cuttings of plants from one farmer’s wife to the next, and they liked to see him come. He could tell all the news, too, from up* the road and down. ‘ One spring morning he came, and after mother had bought all she needed from his big red waggon, and he had fed his horses and was sitting by the kitchen fire waiting for his dinner, he began fumbling about in his big pockets in search of something. & ‘Finally he drew out a very small package and handed it to mother. ‘ “I’ve brought you some love-apple seeds,” he said. “I got them in the city, and I gave my sister half and saved half for you.” ‘ “Thank you kindly,” mother said, as she looked

at the little yellow seeds., “ I’m right glad to get them. What kind of a plant is ..the. love-apple?” ; Well, said-the pedler,, ‘the man who gave me the seeds had his’plants last year in a sunny fencecorner. ... *„ ' " . - J -KPM ‘‘‘The flowers are '.small,' but the fruit is bright red, a.nd is very., pretty among, the dark green leaves.. You can t eat the fruit - though—it’s poisonous. It’s something newthe ’ man who gave me the seeds got them from the captain of a ship from South America. They grow wild there.” "• _ j ,_ ‘So mother planted her “love-apple” .seeds in a warm , corner, and they grew, and the little yellow blossoms came, and after them the pretty red fruit. ‘We children would go and ■ look at it, and talk, about it and wonder if it would hurt us if we just tasted it. One day mother heard us talking about it, and she called us away, and told us that, if we could not be satisfied to look at the pretty fruit without wanting to eat it, she would have to pull up her “love-apple” vines, and throw theme" away. ‘We knew she would hate to do that, for no one else about had them, and she was very proud of them. we kept away from that corner, and the vine grew and blossomed, and the red showed in new places ©very day The birds didn’t seem at all afraid of the poison fruit, and ate all they wanted of it. One day, in the early fall, my uncle came from New York to make us a visit. When he went out- in the garden,, he stopped in surprise. “Why, Mary what fine tomato vines you have!” he said to mother! Where did you get them?” ‘ “We call them love-apples,” mother said, and then she told him how the pedler brought the seeds. But when my uncle found that we were afraid to eat them he had a hearty laugh at us, and then he showed mother how to get some ready for supper. And that was my first taste of tomato, Johnny/ grandma said, ‘and you shall have some the same way with cream and sugar, for supper.’ % ' ■ i *