The ripe fruit is put through a mill which removes the pulp. The wet berries are then spread to dry in the sun on a floor of hardened earth, brick or slate.
The coffee terrane in my memory was about eighty feet square, laid with smooth slate, and slightly sloping. It had around it a moulding of plaster with spaces of perforated zinc for the escape of water. Orange and fig trees dropped their fruit over its border and it was an ideal spot for a moonlight dance. The coffee house was near, and an approaching cloud was a signal to gather the coffee in.
When dry the grains are put through a mill, or where primitive methods prevail, pounded in a mortar to remove a thin brittle shell which encloses each grain. The coffee is then put into sacks of five _arrobas_, or 160 pounds each and carted to the warehouses of the city.
"Say, was thy little mate unkind, And heard thee as the careless wind? Oh! nought but love and sorrow joined Such notes of woe could waken."
"Well, I'm glad to get over to this tree again out of the sound of mother's voice. Duty to my husband; that's all she could talk about. All wives help to build the home-nest," she says, "and indeed do the most toward making it snug and comfortable, and that I must give up my old pastimes and pleasures and settle down to housekeeping. Well, if I must, I must, but oh! how I wish I had never got married."
Not a word was exchanged between the pair that night, and on the following morning Mrs. B., with a disdainful toss of her head, ironically announced her willingness to become a hod-carrier, a mason, or a carpenter, according the desires of her lord.
They elected to build their nest in the maple-tree, and you can imagine the bickerings of the pair as the house progressed. Mrs. B's. groans and bemoaning over the effect, such "fetchings and carryings" would have upon her health, already delicate. How often she was compelled from weakness and fatigue to tuck her head under her wing and rest, while Mr. B. carried on the work tireless and uncomplaining.
"She may change when she has the responsibility of a family," he mused, "and perhaps become a helpmeet after all. I must not be too severe with her, so young and thoughtless and inexperienced."