The old man sat with his nutcracker systematically working the lever, cracking, and shelling pecans. About every fifth nut went into his mouth as he worked.

The little girl climbed up on a chair beside him. “Can I crack nuts, too, Grandpa?”

He grinned at her. “Crack or crack and eat?”

Her smile was mischievous. “Both.”

“Well they are mighty good eatin’. I’ll tell you what, since we only have one nut cracker, I’ll crack and you can help me eat.” He set another nut in the cracker, pulled the lever, separated the shell from the nut inside and handed it to her. These are good Pawnee pecans. They’re big and have a nice buttery flavor.”

“Pawnee? That’s the name of a Native American tribe, right.”

“Yep. Almost seventy years ago a fellow named H.L. Crane suggested namin’ the different kinds of pecans after the native tribes in pecan growing territory. So we’ve got Comanche, Cherokee, Choctaw, and a bunch more pecan varieties—each a little bit different. The name pecan is an Algonquin word that translates—more or less—to “a nut requiring a stone to crack its shell.

“We call the original Texas pecan the ‘native’ variety. Pecans been growin’ in Texas a long time. Back in the 1500s, Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca wrote that the native people he met ate pecans. But pecans go back even further than that. Fossilized pecans found along the Rio Grande River are estimated to be 65 million years old.” He handed her another nut and popped one in his mouth.

“There are wild pecan trees and planted pecan orchards across most of Texas, ‘specially in the Hill Country. Some of the wild trees are 200 years old. Did you know, pecan trees can grow to 120 feet tall and measure four feet across?”

“Wow! That’s a humungous tree. You’d need a tall ladder to pick the nuts.”

“Well, nowadays, pickin’ is mechanical. A big machine puts its metal arms around a tree’s trunk and gives it a big shake for about a minute. The ripe pecans just fall to the ground. Some growers catch them on special sheets, others sweep ‘em up with mechanical sweepers.”

“We have lots of pecan trees around here.” She pulled a shelled nut from the growing pile.”There are even two in our front yard. But the squirrels beat us to most of the pecans.”

“Yep. Little rascals. We’re mighty lucky to live in the Texas hill country, especially in San Saba.”

“Because there are so many pecan trees?”

“That’s part of it. San Saba is known as the ‘Pecan Capital of the World’ and San Saba is the home of the ‘Mother Pecan Tree.’”

“Pecan trees have a mother?”

“Well, the folks at Texas A&M over in College Station tell the story of E.E. Risien. He was an Englishman who moved to Texas in 1874 and spent his life growing pecan trees near where the Colorado and San Saba Rivers meet. He gathered male pecan blossoms from pecan trees all over the area. Then, placed the pollen on the female blossoms of a special tree to create new varieties. His special tree gets the credit for creating many, many different pecan varieties—that tree is the ‘Big Mama’ of the pecan business.

“People liked his pecans. Customers from all over the world bought them. Queen Victoria and Alfred Lord Tennyson in Great Britain ordered his pecans. The Post Cereal Co. was another customer.

“By 1904, Texas had really grown and so many pecan trees had been cut down to make way for cotton crops or for use in building wagons, farm implements, and furniture, that the number of pecan trees was gettin’ thin. But in 1906, an interesting thing happened.

"Texas Governor James Hogg and his daughter visited Hogg’s law partner in Houston. That night, Governor Hogg commented that when he died he did not want a stone monument at his grave. Instead he said, ‘Let my children plant at the head of my grave a pecan tree and at my feet an old walnut tree. And when these trees shall bear...'"