"Yes, indeed," agreed Mr. Blake. "But, like everything else in this world, you can't have anything without working for it."

"I thought all you had to do in a garden," said Mab, "was to plant the seed and it would grow into cabbage, radishes, corn, beans or whatever you wanted."

"You are beginning to learn otherwise," spoke her father, "and it is a good thing. Mother Nature is wise and good, but she does not make it too easy for us. She will grow beautiful flowers, and useful fruits and vegetables from tiny seeds, but she also grows bad weeds and sends eating-bugs that we must fight against, if we want things to grow on our farms and gardens. So we still have much work before us to make our gardens a success."

"We haven't had much to eat from them yet," said Mother Blake, who had been hoeing among her carrots. "I hope we can pick something soon."

"We had radishes," said Hal.

"And well soon have tomatoes," added his father. "Now that I have driven away the eating worms the vines will grow better and the tomatoes will ripen faster."

A week later on some of the vines there were quite large green tomatoes. Hal and Mab watched them eagerly, noting how they grew and swelled larger, until, one day, Mab came running in, crying:

"Oh, one tomato has a red cheek!"

"That's where it got sunburned," said her father with a smile. "That shows they are getting ripe. Soon we will have some for the table."

In a few days more tomatoes on the vines had red, rosy cheeks, some being red all over. These Daddy Blake let Hal and Mab pick, and they brought them in the house.

"Oh, we shall have some of our own tomatoes for lunch!" cried Mother Blake when she saw them. "How fine! Our garden is beginning to give us back something to pay us for all the work we put on it."

"But these are Daddy's tomatoes," said Hal. "He had the first thing, after the radishes, for the table from his garden, and Mab and I haven't anything. Daddy'll get his own prize."

"No, I promise you I will not take the prize for these tomatoes, even if I did raise them in my part of the garden," said Daddy Blake with a smile. "And I won't count the radishes we had before the tomatoes were ripe, either. Those belonged to all of us.

"The prize isn't going to be given away until all the crops are harvested, or brought in, and then we'll see who has the most and the best of things that will keep over Winter."

"Can you keep tomatoes all Winter?" asked Mab of her father.

"Well, no, not exactly. But Mother can put them into cans, after they have been cooked, and she can make ketchup and spices of them—chili sauce and the like—as well as pickles, so, after all, you might say my tomatoes will last all Winter.

"Sometimes you can keep tomatoes fresh for quite a while down in a cool, dry cellar, if you pull the vines up by the roots, with the tomatoes still on them, and cover the roots with dirt. But they will not keep quite all Winter, I believe. At any rate I'm not going to keep ours that way. We'll can them."

Mother Blake sliced the garden tomatoes for supper. She also made a dressing for them, with oil, vinegar and spices, though Hal and Mab liked their tomatoes best with just salt on.

"Tomatoes are not only good to eat—I mean they taste good—but they are healthful for one," said Daddy Blake. "It is not so many years ago that no one ate tomatoes. They feared they were poison, and in some parts of the country they were called Ladies' or Love Apples. But now many, many thousands of cans of tomatoes are put up every year, so that we may have them in Winter as well as in Summer, though of course the canned ones are not as nice tasting as the ones fresh from the garden, such as we have now."

It was not long before there was lettuce from the Blake garden, and Mother Blake said it was the best she had ever eaten. Lettuce, too, Daddy Blake explained, would not keep over Winter, though it is sold in many stores when there is snow on the ground. But it comes from down South, where there is no Winter, being sent up on fast express trains.

"Lettuce is also as good to eat as are tomatoes," remarked Daddy Blake. "It is said to be good for persons who have too many nerves, or, rather, for those whose nerves are not in good condition."

One day, when Hal and Mab came home from school, they hurried out, after leaving their books in the house, for they wanted to play some games."

"Aren't you going to work in your gardens a little while?" asked their mother. "Daddy is out there."

"Is he?" cried Hal. "Did he come home early?"

"Yes, on purpose to hoe among his tomatoes, I think he is cutting down the weeds which grew very fast since the last rain we had."

"Our parts of the garden are all right," said Hal. "My corn doesn't need hoeing."

"Nor my beans," said Mab. "But let's go out and see Daddy, Hal. Maybe he'll tell us something new about the garden."

"Well, where are your hoes, toodlekins?" called Daddy Blake, when he saw the two children coming toward him.

"There aren't any weeds in my corn," said Hal.

"Nor in my beans," added Mab.

"Not very many, it is true," said Daddy Blake. "But still there are some, and if you cut down the weeds when they are small, and when there are not many of them, you will find it easier to keep your garden looking neat, and, at the same time, make sure your crops will grow better, than if you wait and only hoe when the weeds are big.

"Gardens should be made to look nice, as well as be made free from weeds just because it is a good thing for the plants," went on Daddy Blake. "A good gardener takes pride in his garden. He wants to see every weed cut down. Besides, hoeing around your corn and beans makes the dirt nice and finely pulverized—like the pulverized sugar with which Mother makes icing for the cakes. And the finer the dirt is around the roots of a plant the more moisture it will hold and the better it will be for whatever is growing, as I have told you before."

"Well, we'll hoe a little bit," said Hal.

He and his sister got their hoes and soon they were so interested in cutting down the weeds in between the rows that they forgot about going off to play. Hal noticed that the ears of corn on his stalks were getting larger inside the green husk that kept the soft and tender kernels from being broken, as might have happened if they were out in the air, as tomatoes grow.

And so the gardens grew, just as did that of "Mistress Mary, quite contrary," about whom you may read in Mother Goose, or some book like that. Sometimes it rained and again it was quite dry, with a hot sun beating down out of the blue sky.

"If we don't get rain pretty soon we shall have to water the gardens," said Daddy Blake one night after about a week of very dry weather. Around the roots of the many plants the earth was caked and hard, so that very little air could get down to nourish the growing things.

"What do people do who have gardens where it doesn't rain as often as it does here, Daddy?" asked Mab.

"Well in very dry countries, such as some parts of ours near the places called deserts," said Mr. Blake, "men build large dams, and hold the water back in big ponds or lakes so it will last from one rainy season to another. The water is let run from the lake through little ditches, or pipes, so that the thirsty plants may drink. This is called the irrigation method, for to irrigate means to wet, soak or moisten with water. Each farmer or gardener is allowed to buy as much water as he needs, opening little gates at the ends of the main ditches or sluices, and letting the water run over his dry ground, in which he has dug furrows to lead the water where he most needs it.

"And sometimes, when there is too little water to use much of it this way, the gardeners do what they call intensive cultivation. Those are big words, but they mean that the man just hoes his ground every day around his plants, instead of perhaps once a week.

"You know there is moisture in the air, and at night dew falls. This wets the ground a little, and by digging and turning over the earth around the roots of his plants, the gardener makes it very fine so it holds the moisture longer. In this way a little bit of rain, or dew, lasts a long time. Come out now, and I'll show you something you perhaps have not noticed."

Daddy took Hal and Mab to the garden, and with a hoe he pointed to a place around Hal's corn stalks where the dry ground was hard, and baked by the sun.

A few strokes of the hoe and Daddy Blake had turned up some of the underlying earth. Hal and Mab saw that it was darker in color than that on top, and when they put their hands down in it the earth felt moist.

"What makes it?" asked Mab.

"Because the underneath part of the ground held the moisture in it. The top part was baked dry and the moisture had all gone away—evaporated in the sun, if you want to use big words, just as water dries in your hands after you wash them, even if you do not soak it up with a towel."

"Does a towel soak up water?" asked Mab. "I thought it just wiped it off our hands."

"No, the towel is like a sponge," said Daddy Blake. "The fuzzier the towel the more like a sponge it is. Each little bit of linen or cotton, is really a tiny hollow tube—a capillary tube it is called—and these tubes suck up the water on your hands as the same fuzzy capillary tubes in a piece of blotting paper suck up the ink. A towel is a sponge or a blotter. And the earth is a sort of sponge when it comes to sucking up the rain and dew. It also holds the water near the plant, when the ground is finely pulverized, so the tomato vine, the corn stalk or the bean bush can drink when it gets thirsty."

"My! There's a lot to know about a garden; isn't there?" said Mab with a sigh.

"Yes, there is," agreed Hal. "I don't s'pose we'll ever know it all."

"No," said his father, "you will not. There will always be something better to learn, not only for you but for everyone. But learn all you can, and learn, first of all, that plants must have sunshine, air and water to make them grow. Now we'll water the garden."

There were no signs of rain, and though the ground was a little moist in some parts of the garden Daddy Blake thought all the growing things would be better for a wetting from the hose. So he attached it to the faucet and let Hal and Mab take turns sprinkling. As the drops fell on the thirsty ground there floated up a most delicious smell, like the early spring rain, which helps Mother Nature to awaken the sleeping grass and flowers.

"I guess my corn is wet enough," said Hal, after a bit. He had only been sprinkling a little while when he heard one of his boy friends calling him from the street in front.

"Oh, your corn isn't half wet enough," laughed Daddy Blake. "It is almost better not to water the garden at all than not to give it enough, for it only hardens the dirt on top. Give the corn a good soaking, just as if it had rained hard. A good watering for the garden means about two quarts of water to every square foot in your plots. Don't be afraid of the water. Your plants will do so much better for it. But don't spray them too heavily, so the dirt is washed away. Let the hose point up in the air, and then the drops will fall like rain."

Hal kept the hose longer, giving his corn a good wetting, and he could almost see the green stalks stand up straighter when he had finished. They were refreshed, just as a tired horse is made to feel, better, after a hot day in the streets, when he has a cool drink and is sprinkled with the hose.

"Roly, get out the way or you'll be all wet!" cried Mab, as the little poodle dog ran around her beans when she was watering them.

"Bow-wow!" barked Roly, just as if he said he didn't care.

"Well, if you want to get wet—all right!" laughed Mab. "Here it comes!"

She pointed the hose straight at Roly and in a second he was wet through.

"Ki-yi! Ki-yi! Ki-yi!" he yelped as he ran out of the garden. "Bow-wow! Ki-yi!"

"Well, it will cool him off, and I guess he wanted it after all," said Daddy Blake. "But Roly is a good little dog. He only dug once in the garden since he came back, but I tapped him on the end of his nose with my finger, and scolded him, and he hasn't done it since."

The next day Daddy Blake took Hal and Mab to the garden again, and showed them how he was building little wooden frames under his tomatoes to keep the red vegetables off the ground where they might lie in the mud and sand and get dirty.

"The frames help to hold up the vines so they will not break when the tomatoes get too heavy for them," said Mr. Blake.

"Plants have lots of trouble," said Hal. "You have to put their seeds in the ground, keep the weeds away from them, hoe them, water them, and keep the bugs and worms away. Is there anything else that can happen to things in a garden, Daddy?"

"Yes, sometimes heavy hail storms come and beat down the plants, or tear the leaves to ribbons so the plants die, and bear nothing. This often happens to corn, which has broad leaves easily torn by hail."

"What is hail?" asked Hal.

"Well, it's a sort of frozen rain," said Daddy Blake. "Often in a thunder shower the wind plays strange tricks. It whirls the rain drops about, first in some cool air, far above the earth and then whips them into some warm air. The cool air freezes the rain, and when it falls it is not in the shape of beautiful crystals, as is the snow, but is in hard, round balls, sometimes as large as marbles. Often the hail will break windows."

"I hope it doesn't hail in our nice garden," said Hal.

"It will hurt your corn worse than it would my beans," said Mab. "I hope it doesn't hail, too, Hal."

But two or three days after that, one evening when the Blakes were sitting on the steps after having worked in the garden, there came from the West low mutterings of thunder. Then the lightning began to flash and Daddy Blake said:

"We are going to have a shower, I think. Well, it will be good for the garden."

And soon the big drops began splashing down, followed by another sound.

"Oh, it's hailing!" cried Aunt Lolly. "Hear the hail stones!"

"I love to see it!" exclaimed Mab. "But I hope it doesn't hail very big stones."

However the stones from the sky—stones of ice that did not melt for some time after they rattled down—were rather large. They bounced up from the sidewalk and on the path around the Blake house.

"Where's Hal?" suddenly asked his father. "I want to show him and Mab how the inside of hail stones look. I'll run out and get some as soon as the shower slackens a little."

It was raining and hailing hard now, and the lightning was flashing brightly, while the thunder was rumbling like big cannon.

"Hal was here a minute ago," said his mother. "I wonder if he could have run out in the storm?"

Just then, from his porch, Mr. Porter called something to Daddy Blake. All Mab and her mother could hear was:

"Hal—hail—umbrella!"

"Oh, I hope nothing has happened to him!" said Mrs. Blake. "You had better go look for him, Daddy!"



CHAPTER VIII

THE CHILDREN'S MARKET

Daddy Blake caught up an umbrella from the hallway and ran out into the storm, going around the side path toward the back yard and lot where the children had made their gardens.

"Where is he going?" asked Mab.

"To look for Hal," answered her mother.

"Where is Hal?"

"He must have gone out in the storm to see what made it hail, I suppose."

"Oh, if one of the big hail stones hits him on the end of his nose he'll cry!" exclaimed Aunt Lolly.

"Well, he'll know better than to do it again," said Uncle Pennywait "Listen to Roly-Poly howling!"

The little poodle dog was afraid of thunder and lightning, and every time there was a storm he used to get in the darkest corner of the house and howl. He was doing this now as Daddy Blake ran to the garden to find where Hal was.

"He's back there—out where his corn is planted!" called Mr. Porter to Hal's father as Daddy Blake ran around the house. "I saw him from our kitchen window, and I thought I'd tell you."

"I'm glad you did!" shouted Mr. Blake. Both he and Mr. Porter had to shout to be heard above the noise of the storm; for the thunder was very loud, and the patter of the rain drops, and the rattle of the hail made a very great racket indeed.



When Daddy Blake turned around the corner of the house and started down the main path that led through the vegetable garden, he saw a strange sight. There stood Hal, in the midst of his little corn field, out in the pelting rain and hail, holding the biggest umbrella over as many of the stalks of corn as he could shelter. And Hal himself was dripping wet for the rain blew under the umbrella.

"What are you doing?" cried Mr. Blake.

"Keeping the hail off my corn," answered Hal. "You said the hail stones would tear the green leaves all to pieces and I don't want it to. Can't Mab come out and hold an umbrella, too? You've got one, Daddy, so you can help."

Mr. Blake wanted to laugh but he did not like to hurt Hal's feelings. Besides he was a little worried lest Hal take cold in the pelting storm. So he said:

"You must come in, Hal. Holding an umbrella over your corn would only save one hill from the hail and saving that one hill would not make up for you getting ill. We shall have to let the storm do its worst, and trust that not all the corn will be spoiled."

"Is that what the farmers do?" asked Hal, making his way between the rows of corn toward his father.

"Yes. They can't stop the hail and they can't cover the corn. Sometimes it doesn't do a great deal of damage, even though it tears many of the green leaves. This storm is beginning to stop now, so you had better come in."

"I didn't want my corn to be spoiled, so I couldn't win the prize," spoke Hal, as he went back to the house with his father, walking under the umbrella. "That's why I came out to keep off the frozen rain. It came down awful hard."

"Yes, it was a heavy storm for a few minutes," said Mr. Blake. "But it will soon be over, and the rain will do the gardens good, though the hail may hurt them some."

By the time Hal and his father reached the porch the hail had stopped and it was only raining. Mrs. Blake, Aunt Lolly and the others were anxiously waiting.

"I thought maybe he had been struck by lightning," said Mab.

"Pooh! I wasn't afraid!" boasted Hal.

"I guess you were thinking too much about your corn," said his father with a laugh. "It was very good of you, but you mustn't do such a thing again. Now you'll have to get dry clothes on. But wait until I show you how a hail stone looks inside."

Daddy Blake ran out into the storm and came back with a handful of the queer, frozen stones. He let Hal and Mab look at them, and then, taking a large one, he held it on top of the warm stove for a second, until the chunk of ice had melted in half.

"See the queer rings inside it," Daddy Blake said to the children and, looking, they noticed that the hail stone was made up of different layers of ice, just as some kinds of candy are made in sections.

"What makes it that way—like an onion," asked Hal, for the hail stone did look a bit like an onion that has been sliced through the centre.

"It is because the hail is made up of different layers of ice," answered Daddy Blake. "It is supposed that a hail stone is a frozen rain drop. In the tipper air it gets whirled about, first going into a cold part that freezes it. Then the frozen rain drop is tossed down into some warm air, or a cloud where there is water. This water clings to the frozen centre and then is whirled upward again. There is another freeze, and so it goes on, first getting wet and then freezing until, after having been built up of many layers of ice and frozen rain, the hail stone falls to the ground."

"My!" exclaimed Mab. "I didn't know hail stones were so wonderful."

"Neither did I," added Hal.

When Hal had changed his clothes he told how it was he happened to run out into the garden during the heavy hail storm. He had seen the big frozen chunks of rain coming down, and he remembered what his father had said about it spoiling garden and farm crops. So Hal, when no one was looking, got a big umbrella from the rack and went out to hold it over his corn. Mr. Porter happened to see him and told Mr. Blake.

The shower did not last very long, and when it was over Daddy Blake took Hal and Mab into the garden to see what damage had been done. The ground was so muddy they had to wear rubbers.

"Oh, a lot of my beans are beaten down!" cried Mab, as she looked at her bushes.

"They'll straighten up again when the sun comes out," said her father. "If they don't you can hold them up with your hand and hoe more dirt around their roots. That's what I shall have to do with my tomatoes, too. The fruit is getting too heavy for the vines. However no great harm will be done."

"A lot of my corn is torn," said Hal. "It's too bad!"

"Not enough is torn to spoil the ears," said Daddy Blake. "A gardener must expect to have a little damage done to his crops by the storms. Of course it isn't nice, but it is part of the garden game. Sometimes whole orchards, big green houses and large fields of grain are ruined by hail storms. We were lucky."

"What does a farmer do when his whole crop is spoiled by a big storm?" asked Hal.

"Well, generally a farmer raises many crops, so that if one fails he can make money on the others. That is what makes it hard to be a farmer, or, rather, one of the things that make it hard. He never can tell whether or not he is going to have a good crop of anything. Sometimes it may be storms that spoil his wheat or hay, and again it may be dry weather, with not enough rain, or bugs and worms may eat up many of his growing things. So you see a farmer, or a man who has a larger garden, must grow many crops so that if he loses one he may have others to keep him through the Winter, either by selling the things he raises, or by eating them himself."

The next day there was no school, and Hal and Mab spent much time in their garden. The sun came out bright and warm, and the children said they could almost SEE the things growing. Mab declared that her bean vines grew almost an inch that one day, and it may be that they did. Beans grow very fast. If you have ever watched them going up a pole you would know this to be true.

With their hoes the children piled more dirt around the roots of the garden plants where the rain had washed the soil away, and thus the bushes and stalks were helped to stand up straighter. Some straightened up of themselves when they had dried in the sun.

"Well, I think we are going to have some good crops," said Daddy Blake when he went to the garden with Hal and Mab a few days after the storm. "In fact we are going to have more of some things than we can use."

"Will we have to throw them away?" asked Hal.

"No indeed!" laughed his father. "That would be wrong at a time when we must save all the food we can. But we will do as the farmer does who raises a large crop of anything. We will start a little store and sell what we do not need."

"A REAL store?" cried Mab, with shining eyes.

"And sell things for REAL money?" asked Hal.

"Of course!" laughed their father, "though you may give your friends anything from your garden that you wish to."

"Where will we keep the store?" asked Hal. "And who will we sell the things to?"

"And what will we sell?" asked Mab. "What have we too much of, Daddy?"

"My! You children certainly can ask questions!" exclaimed Mr. Blake.

"Now let me see! In the first place I think if you keep the store out on the front lawn, near the street, it will be the best place, I'll put an old door across two boxes and that will be your store counter. And you can sell things to persons that pass along the street. Some in automobiles may stop and buy, and others, on their way to the big stores, may stop to get your vegetables because they will be so fresh. The fresher a vegetable is the better. That is it should be eaten as soon as possible after it is taken from the garden, else it loses much of its flavor."

"But will people give us real money for our garden truck?" asked Hal. He had heard his father and Uncle Pennywait speak of garden "truck" so he knew it must be the right word.

"Indeed they'll be glad to pay you real money," said Mr. Blake with a smile. "Persons who have no garden of their own are very glad to buy fresh vegetables. You'll soon see."

"But what are we going to sell?" asked Mab.

"Oh, yes, I forgot your question," said her father. "Well, there are more tomatoes than your mother has time to can, or make into ketchup just now. She will have plenty more later on. And I think there will be more of your beans, Mab, than you will care to keep over Winter, or use green. So you can sell some of my tomatoes and some of your beans."

"My corn isn't ripe yet," said Hal. "The ears are awful little."

"No, you must wait a while about your corn. But Mother's carrots are ready to pull, and she has more than we will need over Winter. You may sell some of those, Hal."

"Oh, won't it be fun—having a real store!" cried the little boy. "Come on, Mab, we'll get ready! I'm going to pull the carrots."

"And I'll pull the beans!" cried Mab. "Will you get the tomatoes, Daddy?"

"Yes, but you had better let me show you a little bit about getting the things ready for your market store. The nicer your vegetables look, and the more tastefully you set them out, the more quickly will people stop to look at them and buy them. Wise gardeners and store-keepers know this and it is a good thing to learn."

So Daddy Blake first showed Mab how to pick her string beans, taking off only those of full size, leaving the small to grow larger, when there would be more to eat in each pod. The beans were kept up off the ground with strings running to sticks at the of each row.

"If the beans touch the ground they not only get dirty," Mr. Blake, "but they often are covered with brown, rusty spots and they soon rot. Persons like to buy nice, clean beans, free from dirt. So have yours that way, Mab."

Mab put the beans site picked into clean strawberry boxes, and set them in the shade out of the sun until it was time to open the store on the lawn near the street.

Hal's father showed how to pull from the brown earth the yellow carrots from Mother Blake's part of the garden. Only carrots of good size were pulled, the small ones being left to grow larger. The carrots were tied in bunches of six each, and the bright yellow, pointed bottoms, with the green tops, made a pretty picture as they were laid in a pile in the shade.

"Now I'll pick some tomatoes and your garden store will be ready for customers," said Daddy Blake.

His vines were laden with ripe, red tomatoes and these were carefully picked and placed in strawberry boxes also, a few being set aside for lunch, as was done with Mab's beans and Mother Blake's carrots.

A little later Hal and Mab took their places behind a broad wooden counter, placed on two boxes out in front of their house. On the board were set the boxes of red tomatoes, those of the green and yellow string beans and the pile of yellow carrots.

"Now you are all ready for your customers," said Daddy Blake, as he helped the children put the last touches to their vegetable store.

"Oh, I wonder if we'll sell anything?" spoke Mab, eagerly.

"I hope so," answered Hal. "Oh, Look! Here comes a big automobile with two ladies in it, and they're steering right toward us!"

"I hope they don't upset our counter," said Mab slowly, as she watched the big auto approach.



CHAPTER IX

SAMMIE PLANTS TOMATOES

"Look at the lovely vegetables!" exclaimed one of the ladies in the automobile, as she glanced at what Hal and Mab had spread out on their store counter—the old barn door set on the two boxes.

"Are they nice and fresh, children?" asked the second lady, as she put a funny pair of spectacles, on a stick, up to her nose, and looked at the string beans through the shiny glass.

"Oh, yes'm, they're very fresh!" answered Hal. "Daddy and us just picked 'em from our garden."

"We have more than we can eat, and mother hasn't time to can the tomatoes," explained Mab, for their father had left them alone, to say and do as they thought best.

"They certainly look nice," went on the first lady, "And how well the children have arranged them."

"Like a picture," added the other. "See how pretty the red, green and yellow colors show. I must have some tomatoes and beans."

"And I want some of those carrots. They say carrots make your eyes bright."

Hal and Mab thought the ladies eyes were bright enough, especially when the sun shone and glittered on the funny stick-spectacles. The automobile had stopped and the chauffeur got down off the front seat behind the steering wheel and walked toward the children's new vegetable store.

"How much are your tomatoes?" asked the lady who had first spoken.

"Eight cents a quart," answered Hal, his father telling him to ask that price, which was what they were selling for at the store. "And they're just picked," added the little boy.

"I can see they are," spoke the lady. "I'll take three quarts, and you may keep the extra penny for yourselves," she added as she handed Hal a bright twenty-five-cent piece.

Hal and his sister were so excited by this, their first sale, and at getting real money, that they could hardly put the three quarts of red tomatoes in the paper bags Daddy Blake had brought for them from the store. They did spill some, but as the tomatoes fell on the soft grass they were not broken.

"I want some beans and carrots," said the other lady, and the chauffeur helped Hal and Mab put them in bags, and brought the money back to the children. The beans and carrots were sold for thirty cents, so that Hal and Mab now have fifty-five cents for their garden stuff.

"Isn't it a lot of money!" cried Hal, when the auto had rolled away down the street, and he and his sister looked at the shining coins.

"Well get rich," exclaimed Mab, gleefully.

A little later a lady in a carriage stopped to buy some beans, and after that a man, walking along the street, bought a quart of tomatoes. Later on a little girl and her mother stopped and looked at the carrots, buying one bunch.

"I want my little girl to eat them as they are good for her," said the lady, "but she says she doesn't like them, though I boil them in milk for her."

"But they don't taste like anything," complained the little girl.

"Our carrots are nice and sweet," said Mab. "You'll like these. My brother and I eat them."

"They look nice and yellow," said the little girl. "Maybe I will like these."

Hal and Mab had sold several boxes of beans and tomatoes and about half a dozen bunches of carrots, in an hour, and now they began putting their store counter in order again, for it was rather untidy. Daddy Blake had told them to do this.

Once or twice the children could not make the right change when customers stopped to buy things, but Aunt Lolly was near at hand, on the porch, and she came to their aid, so there was no trouble.

It was rather early in the morning when Hal and Mab started their store, and by noon they had sold everything, and had taken in over two dollars in "real" money.

"Isn't it a lot!" cried Hal, as he saw the pile of copper, nickle and silver coins in the little box they used for a cash drawer.

"A big pile," answered Mab. "We'll sell more things to-morrow."

"No, I think not," spoke Daddy Blake, coming along just then. "We must not take too much from our garden to sell. But you have done better than I thought you would. Over two dollars!"

"What shall we do with it?" asked Hal.

"Well, you may have some to spend, but we'll save most of it," his father answered. "This is the first money you ever earned from your garden, and I want you to think about it. Just think what Mother Nature did for you, with your help, of course.

"In the ground you planted some tiny seeds and now they have turned into money. No magician's trick could be more wonderful than that. This money will pay for almost all the seed I bought for the garden. Of course our work counts for something, but then we have to work anyhow."

Hal and Mab began to understand what a wonderful earth this of ours is, and how much comes out of the brown soil which, with the help of the air, the rain and sunlight, can take a tiny seed, no larger than the head of a pin, and make from it a great, big green tomato vine, that blossoms and then has on it red tomatoes, which may be eaten or sold for money. And the beans and carrots did the same, each one coming from a small seed.

Sammie Porter came out two or three times and watched Hal and Mab selling things at their vegetable store. The little boy seemed to be wondering what was going on, and Hal and Mab told him as well as they could.

"Sammie goin' to have a 'mato store," he said when the two Blake children had sold all their things, and were moving their empty boxes and door into the barn. "Me goin' to sell 'matoes."

"I wonder what he will do?" said Mab.

"Maybe he'll take a lot of things from his father's garden," suggested Hal. "We better tell him not to."

"Well, Mr. Porter is working among his potatoes so I guess Sammie can't do much harm," Mab said.

A little later she and Hal happened to look out in front and they saw a queer sight. Sammie was drawing along the sidewalk his little express wagon, in which he had piled some tomatoes. They were large, ripe ones, and he must have picked them from his father's vines, since he could not get through the fence into the Blake gardens.

"Oh, Sammie!" cried Mab, running out to him, "What are you doing with those tomatoes?"

"Sammie goin' have a 'mato store an' sell 'em like you an' Hal. You want come my 'mato store?" he asked, looking up and smiling.

"No, I guess we have all the tomatoes we want," laughed Hal.

Sammie did not seem to worry about this. Maybe he thought some one else would buy his vegetables. He wheeled his cart up near his own front fence, on the grass and sat down beside it.

"'Mato store all ready," he said. "People come an' buy now."

But though several persons passed they did not ask Sammie how much his tomatoes were. They may have thought he was only playing, and that his tomatoes were not good ones, though they really were nice and fresh.

"We'd better go tell his father or mother," suggested Mab to her brother. "I don't believe they know he's here."

"Guess they don't," Hal agreed. "Come on; he might get hurt out there all alone."

Brother and sister started into the Porter yard. They did not see Sammie's mother, but his father was down in the back end of his lot, weeding an onion bed.

"Hello, children!" called Mr. Porter. "Did you come over to see how my garden is growing?"

"We came to tell you about Sammie," said Mab. "He's out—"

"Hello! Where IS that little tyke?" cried Mr. Porter suddenly. "He was here a little while ago, making believe hoe the weeds out of the potatoes. I don't see him," he added, straightening up and looking among the rows of vegetables.

"He's out in front trying to sell tomatoes," said Hal.

"Oh my!" cried Sammie's father. "I told him not to pick anything, but you simply can't watch him all the while."

He ran out toward the front of the house, Hal and Mab following. They saw Sammie seated on the ground near his express wagon, and he was squeezing a big red tomato, the juice and seeds running all over him.

"Sammie boy! What in the world are doing?" cried his father.

"Sammie plantin' 'mato," was the answer. "Nobody come to my store like Hal's an' Mab's, so plant my 'matos."

Then they saw where he had dug a hole in the ground with a stick, into this he was letting some of the tomato juice and seeds run, as he squeezed them between his chubby fingers.

"Oh, but you are a sight!" said Mr. Porter with a shake of his head. "What your mother will say I don't dare guess! Here! Drop that tomato, Sammie! You've got more all over you than you have in the hole. What are you trying to do?"

"Make a 'mato garden," was Sammie's answer as his father picked him up. "I put seeds in ground and make more 'matoes grow."

"But you musn't do it out here," said Mr. Porter, trying not to laugh, though Sammie was a queer sight. "Besides, I told you not to pick my tomatoes. You have wasted nearly a quart. Now come in and your mother will wash you."

Into the house he carried the tomato-besmirched little boy, while Hal and Mab pulled in the express wagon with what were left of the vegetables. Sammie had squeezed three of the big, ripe tomatoes into a soft pulp letting the juice and seeds run all over.

"And a tomato has lots of juice and seeds," said Mab as she and Hal told Daddy and Mother Blake, afterward, what had happened.

"Yes, nearly all vegetables have plenty of seeds," said their father. "Mother Nature provides them so there may never be any lack. If each tomato, squash or pumpkin or if each bean or pea pod only had one seed in, that one might not be a good one. That is it might not have inside it that strange germ of life, which starts it growing after it is planted.

"So, instead of one seed there are hundreds, as in a watermelon or muskmelon. And nearly all of them are fertile, or good, so that other melons may be raised from them.

"You see I only bought a small package of tomato seeds, and yet from them we will have hundreds of tomatoes, and each tomato may have a hundred seeds or more, and each of those seeds may be grown into a vine that will have hundreds of tomatoes on, each with a hundred seeds in it and each of these seeds—"

"Oh, Daddy! Please stop!" begged Mab with a laugh. "It's like the story of the rats and the grains of corn!"

"Yes, there is no end to the increase that Mother Nature gives to us," said Daddy Blake. "The earth is a wonderful place. It is like a big arithmetic table—it multiplies one seed into many."

The long Summer vacation was now at hand. Hal and Mab did not have to go to school, and they could spend more time in the garden with their mother, with Uncle Pennywait or Aunt Lolly, while Daddy Blake, every chance he had, used the hoe often to keep down the weeds.

"There is nothing like hoeing to make your garden, a success," he told the children.

"Do they hoe on big farms?" asked Hal.

"Well, on some, yes. I'll take you children to a farm, perhaps before the Summer is over, and you can see how they do it. Instead of hoeing, though, where there is a big field of corn or potatoes, the farmer runs a cultivator through the rows. The cultivator is like a lot of hoes joined together, and it loosens the dirt, cuts down the weeds and piles the soft, brown soil around the roots of the plants just where it is most needed. But our garden is too small for a horse cultivator—that is one drawn by a horse. The one I shove along by hand is enough for me."

Of course Hal and Mab did not spend all their time in the garden. They sometimes wanted to play with their boy and girl chums. For though it was fun to watch the things growing, to help them by hoeing, by keeping away the weeds and the bugs and worms, yet there was work in all this. And Daddy Blake believed, as do many fathers, that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." So Hal and Mab had their play times.

One day Mrs. Blake asked Hal and Mab to pick as many of the ripe tomatoes they could find on the vines.

"Are we going to have another store and sell them?" asked Hal.

"No, I am going to can some, and make chili sauce of the others," answered his mother. "In that way we will have tomatoes to eat next Winter."

It was more fun for Hal and Mab to pick the ripe tomatoes than it was to hoe in the garden, and soon, with the help of Uncle Pennywait, they had gathered several baskets full of the red vegetables. Then Aunt Lolly and Mother Blake made themselves busy in the kitchen. They boiled and stewed and cooked on the stove and there floated out of the door and windows a sweet, spicy smell.

"Oh, isn't that good!" cried Mab.

"It will taste good next Winter!" laughed their uncle.

"And to think it comes out of our garden—the tomato part, I mean," spoke Mab.

"Come on!" called Hal, after a while, when they had picked all the tomatoes Mother Blake needed.

"Where you going?" asked Mab.

"Over to Charlie Simpson's and have some fun. He's got a new dog."

"Wait a minute and I'll give you each a penny!" called their uncle, and Hal and Mab were very glad to wait, for they were hungry after having picked the tomatoes.

Very early the next morning the Blake family was awakened by the loud ringing of their door bell.

"Oh, my goodness! I hope the house isn't on fire!" cried Aunt Lolly, quickly getting out of bed.

"It's Mr. Porter. He's at our front door," reported Hal, who had looked from the window of his room, from which the front steps could be seen.

"What's the matter? What is it; a message—a telegram?" asked Mr. Blake, as he, too, looked from Hal's window. "What has happened?"

Mrs. Blake and the children waited anxiously to hear what the answer would be.



CHAPTER X

WHITE CELERY

"In our garden you say!" cried Daddy Blake, with his head out of the window. What it was Mr. Porter had told their father, to make him exclaim like that, neither Hal nor Mab could guess. For they could not tell what Mr. Porter, who now was calling from down on the sidewalk in front, was saying.

"That's too bad!" Daddy Blake went on, as he drew his head in from the window. "I'll come down right away."

"Oh, what is it?" anxiously asked his wife as he hurried to his room to change from his bath robe into outdoor clothes. "Has anything happened?"

"I'm afraid there has," answered Daddy Blake.

"Is anyone ill that Mr. Porter wants you to come out in such a hurry. Is little Sammie hurt in our garden?"

"No, but it's something in our garden," replied her husband.

"What? Oh, don't tell me the garden is on fire?" cried Aunt Lolly.

"How could a green garden burn?" asked Uncle Pennywait, laughing.

"It's somebody cows in our garden—in Hal's corn, too, I expect," said Daddy Blake. "Mr. Porter saw them and told me. We ought to have Little Boy Blue here to drive them out with his horn. But I'll have to use a stick, I guess."

"Oh!" cried Hal "Cows in my corn! They'll eat it all up!"

"That's what they will, and Mab's beans and Aunt Lolly's green peas and other things if I don't get them out," said Daddy Blake from his room where he was quickly dressing.

"Where you going, Hal?" asked Mab as she saw her little brother come from his room half dressed.

"I'm going with Daddy, to the garden, to drive out the cows!"

"No, you'd better stay here," his father said. "The cows might run wild when I drive them out, and step on you. It isn't any fun to be stepped on by a cow."

Hal thought this might be true, so he stayed in while Mr. Blake hurried out to the yard in the early morning. Hal and Mab looked from the windows at the back of the house but they could not see much of the garden on account of the thick, leafy trees. They could hear their father and Mr. Porter talking, though.

Then while they waited, they heard the mooing of cows, a little later there was a rushing sound at one side of the house, and next several of the big creatures ran out of the side gate into the street.

Daddy Blake made sure the gate was fastened, so the cows could not get in again, and then he came into the house.

"Is my corn all eaten up?" asked Hal, anxiously as he thought of the prize ten dollar gold piece. "Is it all gone, Daddy?"

"No, not very much, though some is trampled down."

"Is the whole garden spoiled?" asked Mab.

"Well, a little corner of it is. The cows got in among the green peas and they liked them so well they stayed there eating, not going far from where they were planted. So, though we may lose some corn and peas, nothing much else is harmed."

"Whose cows were they?" asked Aunt Lolly.

"Mr. Porter says they belong to a milkman who lives on the other side of the town. They must have gotten out of their pasture during the night and then then came here to our garden. They broke down part of the fence to get in."

"That milkman ought to be made to pay for what his cows ate," said Uncle Pennywait.

"Perhaps he will," said Mr. Blake. "Mr. Porter says the man is very good and honest. We won't make a fuss until we see what he will do."

Hal and Mab were anxious to see what had happened to their garden, and so, as soon as they were dressed, they went out along the paths that were made among the different plots where the potatoes, beans, peas, lettuce and various vegetables were growing.

"Oh, look at my corn!" cried Hal "It's all spoiled!"

"No, not all, though you will lose several hills," said his father.

"And my beans are all trampled down," wailed Mab.

"Never mind," consoled Uncle Pennywait. "They'll still grow, even if the vines are not as nice as before. A wind storm would have made them look the same way."

"And as long as both your crops are damaged, and each about the same amount," said Daddy Blake to Hal and Mab, "you will still be even for winning the prize of ten dollars in gold. That is if Uncle Pennywait doesn't get ahead of you," he added with a sly wink at Aunt Lolly's husband.

Hal and Mab hurried to look mere closely at their garden plots. Hal found, just as he had after the hail storm, that, fey hoeing dirt higher around his hills of corn he could make some of the stalks that had been trampled down, stand up straight. And Mab's beans could also be improved.

"But the cows certainly ate a lot of green peas," said Daddy Blake with a sigh as he looked at the place where they had been growing. "Still I'd rather have them spoiled than the potatoes, as peas are easier to get in Winter than are potatoes—at least for us."

The cows wandered up and down the village street until their owner and some of his men came for them. Then, when the milkman heard how his animals had damaged Mr. Blake's garden, an offer of payment was made.

Some of Daddy Blake's neighbors told what they thought the milkman should pay, and he did. He said he was very sorry his cows had made so much trouble, and hereafter, he said, he would see that they did not break out of their pasture.

"I saw them in your garden, Mr. Blake, as soon as I got up," said Mr. Porter. "I arose earlier than I usually do as I wanted to hoe my lima beans before I went to work. I thought I'd call you before the cows ate everything."

"I'm glad you did," spoke Hal's father. "We saved most of the garden, anyhow."

It took two or three days of hard work in the Blake garden until it looked as nicely as it had done before the cows broke in. Even then the pea vines were only about half as many in number as at first, and they had been delicious, sweet peas, that Mother Blake had counted on serving at many meals.

"But I guess the cows enjoyed them as much as we did," she said. "Anyhow there is no use in worrying over what can't be helped."

"Did the cows hurt the egg plants?" asked Aunt Lolly.

"No, they didn't get in that part of the garden," answered Mrs. Blake. "I think well have some for dinner."

"What—Cows or egg plant?" asked Uncle Pennywait, winking his left eye at Mab as he made this joke.

"Egg plant, of course!" laughed Mrs. Blake. "Suppose you go bring one in for me, Uncle Pennywait."

"We'll come, too!" cried Hal and Mab, while the little girl, as she took hold of her uncle's hand, asked:

"Is there really an egg plant? I thought hens laid eggs, and we haven't any hens in our garden."

"There is a plant named egg," Uncle Pennywait said. "I'll show you some. It's down in the far end of the garden."

Hal and Mab had been so busy with their own part of the garden, hoeing and weeding their corn and beans, that they really did not know all the things Daddy Blake had planted. But when Uncle Pennywait showed them where, growing in a long row, were some big purple-colored things, that looked like small footballs amid the green leaves, Hal cried:

"Are those egg plants?"

"They are," said his uncle.

"And do we eat them?" asked Mab.

"Surely; and very good they are, too!"

"What makes them call 'em egg plants?" Hal wanted to know. "Do they taste like eggs just like oyster plant tastes like stewed oysters?"

"And how do they cook 'em?" asked Mab.

"Well, you children certainly haven't forgotten to ask questions since your Daddy began telling you things about the woods, fields, flowers and birds," laughed Uncle Pennywait.

"Let me see, now. Well, to begin with, these are called egg plants because they are shaped like an egg you see, only much larger, of course," and Uncle Pennywait held up one he had cut off the stem where it had been growing. "They taste a little like eggs because, when they are fried, some persons dip them in egg batter. But first they cut them in slices, after they are peeled, and soak them in salt water."

"What for?" asked Hal.

"Oh, maybe to make them nice and crisp, or maybe to draw out a strong flavor they have; I really don't know about that part of it. At any rate we're going to have some fried egg plant for lunch, and I like it."

So did Hal and Mab, when they had tasted it. They were beginning to find out that many things good to eat grew in their garden.

About a week after this some of Hal's corn ears were large enough to pick and very delicious they were boiled, and eaten from the cob with salt and butter on. Mother Blake also cooked some of the lima beans Mab had planted when she made her garden, and the corn and beans, cooked together, made a dish called "succotash," which name the Indians gave it many years ago.

"What does the name mean?" asked Hal.

"I can't answer that, for I don't know," replied Daddy Blake.

"I know what it means," said Uncle Pennywait.

"What?" asked Mab.

"It means fine, good, very good," replied her uncle. "Or, if it doesn't, it ought to. Those Indians knew what was good, all right! I'll have some more, Mother Blake," and he passed his dish the second time.

One day, when Hal and Mab had finished cutting down some weeds in their garden plots they saw their father carrying some long boards down to the lower end of the lot next door.

"Are you going to build a bridge, Daddy?" asked Hal, for there was a little brook not far away.

"No, I am going to make my celery grow white?" he answered.

"Make celery grow white?" exclaimed Mab. "I thought it grew white, or light green, all of itself."

"No," replied her father, "it doesn't. If celery were left to grow as it comes up from seed the stalks would be green, or at least only the hearts, or the most inside part, would be white.

"To make celery white all over we have to keep the sun from shining on it. For it is the rays of the sun, together with the juices, or sap, inside leaves and plants, that makes them green. Celery has to be bleached, and one way of doing it is to set long boards on each side of the row of celery plants, fastening them close up, and covering them with straw and dirt to keep out all the light.

"Some farmers bank up the dirt on both sides of their plants, not using any boards, but I like the boards because they are clean, and keep the soil from getting inside the celery stalks. Another way is to put a small wooden tube, or barrel around each plant so that no sunlight can get to the sides of the stalk to make them green."

"Isn't it queer," said Mab. "I thought celery always grew white, like we get it at the table. And so it has to be bleached. If you keep the light from anything green will it turn white, Daddy?"

"Well, almost anything, like plants. Children turn pale if they do not get enough sunlight and so does celery. Only we like pale celery but it is not healthful for children to be too white. Just try a little experiment yourself. Take a flat stone and put it over some grass. In a week or so lift up the stone and see what has happened."

Hal and Mab did this, after they had helped their father put the boards on the celery. Then, a week later, they lifted up the stone which they had laid over a spot on the lawn.

"Why, the green grass has all turned white!" cried Hal. And so it had.

"That's how my celery will turn," said his father. "The grass grew pale from being in the dark so long. It did not like it, and if you left the stone there too long the grass would die. Now take it away and in a day or so the grass will be green again."

And that's exactly what happened. The sun had tanned the grass green as it tans children brown at the seashore.

One day, when Mab and Hal had started out with their father who was going to show them how to dig potatoes, which is not as easy as it sounds, the children suddenly heard a yelping and barking sound in Mr. Porter's garden.

"There's Roly-Poly in trouble again!" called Mr. Blake.

"Yes, and he's hurt, too!" added Hal, for the little poodle was yelping as if in pain.

"Oh, what has happened to him?" cried Mab. "Hurry, Daddy, please, and see!"



CHAPTER XI

GATHERING CROPS

Hal, Mab and their father ran to the gate in the fence that was between their yard and the garden of Mr. Porter. Down where their neighbor's lima beans were planted, and where they were climbing up the poles, they heard the barking and yelping of Roly-Poly sounding loudly.

"He's there!" cried Mab.

"Here, Roly! Come here! Come on, little doggie!" called Hal, thinking, for a moment, that perhaps his pet was barking at a cat, as sometimes Roly did, though he really would not have hurt pussy.

"Why doesn't he come?" asked Mab, coming to a stop, while her father looked around, trying to see the poodle among the growing things in the garden.

"Maybe he's caught and can't come," suggested Hal.

"Caught how?" asked Mab.

"Well, maybe he's all tangled up in the bean vines like he was in the morning glories the day he sat down in the fly paper," Hal answered.

"Oh, Roly! Are you hurt?" cried Mab.

"Bow-wow! Ki-yi!" was all the answer the little poodle dog gave, and, though it might have meant a great deal in dog language Mab and Hal could not understand it. But Roly-Poly was trying to make his friends know that something had happened to him.

"I'll find him," said Mr. Blake. "You children had better stay back there," and he motioned to them not to come any farther. Hal and Mab stood still.

"What is it? What's the matter?" Mr. Porter, coming from another part of the garden where he had been pulling up some turnips. "Has anything happened?"

"Something has happened to Roly-Poly," replied Hal.

"Hear him howl?" inquired Mab.

"I should say I did!" cried Mr. Porter. "And I guess I know what's the matter to. He's in the trap."

"In the trap?" cried Hal in surprise. "What trap?"

Mr. Porter did not answer. He ran down to where Daddy Blake was poking among the green vines and bushes, trying to find Roly.

"Come on!" exclaimed Hal. "Let's go see what it is."

"Daddy told us to stay here," said Mab. "We can't go."

Hal knew that, and, much as he wanted to see what was going on, he would not disobey his father. Mab, too, would have liked to run down where Daddy Blake and Mr. Porter were.

"Bow-wow! Ki-yi!" barked and howled Roly again, and then the children heard their father and his friend, the man next door, laughing.

"I guess Roly can't be hurt very much or Daddy wouldn't laugh," said Mab.

"I guess not," agreed Hal. "I wish we could go see what it is."

Just then their father came out from among the tall lima beans. He had Roly in his arms, and the little poodle dog was cuddled up as though he did not want to leave them.

"Is he hurt?" asked Mab.

"A little," her father answered.

"Where?" Hal wanted to know.

"On his tail. It was pinched a little in the mole trap, where he was caught fast. But we got you out; didn't we Roly-Poly?"

"Bow-wow; Ki-yi!" yelped the poodle.

"Was he in the mole trap?" asked Hal.

"And what is a mole trap?" asked Mab.

"Well, I see I'll have to tell you more about the garden," answered Daddy Blake with a laugh, as he gave Roly over to his little girl and boy, who eagerly petted him. "For the mole is one of the garden pests, and the trap, Mr. Porter set to catch some who were spoiling his things, caught Roly-Poly instead."

"Is a mole a worm?" Hal wanted to know. "Or is it like a potato bug?"

"It's a little animal like a mouse," said his father, "only it is blind. It lives underground, in the dark all the while, so really it has no use for eyes, any more than have the blind fish in the big Kentucky cave.

"But, though a mole is blind, it does not stop him from turning up the ground and uprooting many plants. He really doesn't mean to do it, but we have to catch him just the same."

"Oh, I'd like to see a blind mole," said Mab.

"I can't show you one just now," spoke Mr. Porter, "but I can show you how they dig underground, and the damage they do to lawns and gardens. Maybe, if your dog Roly will keep out of my mole trap, I can catch one of the creatures and show you how it looks. Come down here."

Mr. Porter led the way to that part of the garden where Roly had been caught by his little tail. On the ground, among the rows of beans, sometimes going right under them and spoiling the roots, was a long ridge of dirt, in a sort of wavy line. With his fingers Daddy Blake tore up some of the earth, and opened a regular little tunnel under ground.

"The mole," said Daddy Blake, "tunnels, or digs, his way in the dark, underground, to find grubs and worms which he eats. He had two front claws, very strong, just purposely made for digging, and you would be surprised to see how soon a mole can dig himself underground, even if you put him on top of a hard, dirt road.

"It is when the blind mole tunnels along, smelling here and there for grubs and worms, that he uproots the plants and for that reason we have to catch him. There are some traps that have sharp points which go down through the ground with a strong spring to push them, whenever a digging mole gets too near. But the trap Mr. Porter set was a spring trap without any sharp points to it, which he thought might catch a mole alive. Instead it caught Roly, who was digging away to find a buried bone, maybe."

"Is he all right now?" asked Mab.

"Yes, his tail was only pinched a little but Roly's tail is very tender I guess, for he howled very loudly."

"I wish I could see a mole," said Hal.

"So do I," echoed his sister.

But all they could see was the place where the mole had dug. And perhaps you may see, in your garden or on your lawn, a little raised ridge, or long, low hill of dirt, some morning. If you poke your finger, or a stick, down in it you will find that underneath it is hollow.

This is a place where a mole has dug his tunnel in the night to get things to eat. Moles dig deep down, too, under the surface where no one can see them, and when they do not uproot the grass or the garden plants, they do little harm. It is only when they come near the top that you can see the ridge they make.

Sometimes cats catch moles when they come out on top of the ground, thinking them a sort of mouse. The mole's fur is very fine and soft, and would make a fine cloak, only it would take many skins to make one large enough to wear.

"Well, I'm glad Roly-Poly is all right," said Mab, as she took the little dog from Hal, who was holding hint, and petted him on his head.

"Yes, you may put him down now," spoke her father. "And we'll go dig the potatoes. Mother wants some for dinner, and I want to show you children how to get them out of the ground. For we will soon be digging them to put away for winter."

When Hal and Mab reached the potato part of the garden, which was the largest of all the plots, the children saw that many of the green vines were getting brown and withered.

"Why, the vines are dying!" exclaimed Mab. "Did a mole spoil them, Daddy?"

"No, but the potatoes have grown as large as they ever will be, and, there being no more need of the vine, it is drying up. It has gone to seed, just as a dandelion goes to seed, in a way, though we call the potatoes 'tubers' instead of seed. There may be potato seeds, that come when the potato blossom dries up, for all I know, but I have always planted the eyes of the tubers and so does everyone else. Now to show you how to dig."



Mr. Blake had planted two kinds of potatoes, early and late, and it was the vines of the early ones that had dried up. Later on the others would dry, and then it would be time to dig their tubers to put down cellar for the long Winter.

"First you pull up the vine," said Daddy Blake, and he tore one from the earth, many of the potatoes clinging to it. These he picked off and put in the basket. Then, with a potato hook, which is something like a spading fork, only with the prongs curved downward like a rake, Daddy Blake began scraping away the dirt from the side of the hill of potatoes.

"When a farmer has a big field of potatoes," said the children's father, "he may use a machine potato-digger. This is drawn by horses, who walk between the rows, drawing the machine right over where the potato vines are growing. The machine has iron prongs which dig under the dirt like giant fingers, turning out the potatoes which are tossed between the rows of dirt so men, who follow, may pick them up. But we'll dig ours by hand. And in digging potatoes you must be careful not to stick your fork, spade or whatever you use, into the potato tubers, and so cutting them."

"Why can't we do that?" asked Hal.

"Because a potato that is cut, pierced or bruised badly will not keep as well as one that is sound and good. It rots more quickly, and one rotten potato in a bin of good ones will cause many others to spoil, just as one rotten apple in a barrel of sound ones will spoil a great many. So be careful when you dig your potatoes."

Hal and Mab watched Daddy Blake, and then he let them pull a vine and dig in the hill after the brown tubers. Out they came tumbling and rolling, as if glad to get into the light and sunshine. For they had been down under the dark earth ever since the eyes were planted in the Spring, growing from tiny potatoes Into large ones.

When Mab dug up her hill of potatoes, after she had picked up all there were in it, her father saw her carefully looking among the clods of brown soil.

"What have you lost, Mab?" he asked.

"I was looking for the eye pieces you planted when you made your potato garden," she answered.

"Oh, they have turned into these many potatoes," laughed Mr. Blake. "That is the magical trick Mother Nature does for us. We plant a piece of potato, with 'eyes' in it, or we plant a seed, and up springs a plant on the roots of which are more potatoes, or, if it is a bean, it turns into a vine with many more beans on it. And the seed—that is the eye potato or the bean—disappears completely, just as a magician on the stage pretends to make your handkerchief disappear and change into a lemon. Mother Nature is very wonderful."

Hal and Mab thought so too.

The Summer was passing away. The days that had been long and full of sunshine until late in the evening were getting shorter. No longer was it light at five o'clock in the morning, and the golden ball did not stay up until after seven at night.

"The days are getting shorter and the nights longer," said Daddy Blake. "That means Winter is not far off, though we still have Autumn or Fall before us. And that will bring us the harvest days. We will soon begin to harvest, or bring in our crops."

"And then will we know who gets the prize?" asked Hal.

"Yes," his father answered. "I'll have to award the ten dollar gold prize then, but it will be some little time yet. Things are not all done growing, though they have done their best. From now on we will not have to worry so much about weeds, bugs and worms."

"Do they die, too, like the potato vines?" asked Mab.

"Yes, though many weeds will not be killed until a hard frost nips them. But the garden plants have gotten their full growth, and are not babies any more, so the weeds can not do them so much harm. Most of the bugs and worms, too, have died or been eaten by the birds. The birds are the gardener's best friend, for they eat many worms and bugs that could not be killed in any other way. So the more insect-eating birds you have around your garden the better. Even though the robins may take a few cherries they don't get paid half enough that way for the good work they do."

"How am I going to harvest my beans?" asked Mab. "There aren't many more green ones left to boil, for Mother canned a lot of them."

"What are left of your beans we will save dried, to make into baked beans this Winter," said her father.

"And what about my corn?" Hal wanted to know.

"Well, your mother canned some of that," answered his father, "that is the sweet kind. The yellow ears I will show you how to save for the chickens this winter, and there is another kind—well, I'll tell you about that a little later," and he smiled at the children.

"Oh, have I got three kinds of corn?" asked Hal, clapping his hands in delight.

"We'll see when we come to harvest it," said Daddy Blake.

"Maybe I'll win the prize with that!" exclaimed the little boy. "Come on, Mab! Let's go in and look at the ten dollar gold piece. I hope I win it!"

"I hope you do, too, Hal," said his sister. "But I'd like it myself, and I've got a awful lot of beans. My vines are covered with them—I mean dried ones, in pods like peas."

"I wish we could both have the prize," said Hal. "But if I win I'll give you half, Mab."

"So will I to you!" exclaimed the little girl.

As they ran toward the house they saw a farmer, from whom their mother often bought things, standing on the porch. In his hand he held what looked to be a big whip. There was a long wooden handle and fast to it was a shorter stick of wood.

"There's the flail I told Mr. Blake I'd bring him," said the farmer to Aunt Lolly, who had come to the door when he rang the bell.

"A flail," she repeated. "What is it for?"

"Well, I think Mr. Blake wants to whip some beans with it," and the farmer laughed, while Hal and Mab looked at him curiously.



CHAPTER XII

PUMPKIN PIE

"Oh, Hal!" murmured Mab, as she looked at the queer sticks the farmer had brought. "It does seem like a whip! I wonder if Daddy is going to whip Roly-Poly for getting in the mole trap?"

"Of course not!" laughed Hal. "Daddy never whips Roly anyhow, except sometimes to tap him on the nose with his finger when our poodle does something a little bad. Daddy would never use this big wooden whip, anyhow."

"The farmer-man said he was bringing it to Daddy to whip my beans," went on Mab. "I wonder what he means?"

Just then Daddy Blake himself came on the front stoop.

"Ah, so you have brought the flail?" he asked the farmer.

"Yes, and your little boy and girl here were afraid it was to use on their pet dog!" laughed the farmer, "I guess they never saw a flail before."

"I hardly think they did," said Mr. Blake. "But next year I intend to take them to a farm where they will learn many more things than I could teach them from just a garden."

"Daddy, but what is a flail?" asked Mab.

"A flail," said Mr. Blake, "is what the farmers used to use before threshing machines were invented. And I had Mr. Henderson bring this one from his farm to thresh out your beans, Mab, as we haven't enough to need a machine, even if we could get one."

"What does thresh mean?" asked Hal.

"It means to beat, or pound out," his father explained. "You see wheat, oats, barley, rye and other grains, when they grow on the stalks in the field, are shut up in a sort of envelope, or husk, just as a letter is sealed in an envelope. To get out the letter we have to tear or break the envelope. To get at the good part of grain—the part that is good to eat—we have to break the outer husk. It is the same way with peas or beans.

"When they are green we break the pods by hand and get out the peas or beans, but when they are dried it is easier to put a pile of pods on a wooden floor and beat them with a stick. This breaks the envelopes, or pods and the dried peas or beans rattle out. They fall to the bottom, and when the husks and vines are lifted off, and the dirt sifted out, there are our beans or peas, ready to eat after being cooked.

"The stick with which the beating is done is called a flail. One part is the handle, and the other part, which is fastened to the handle by a leather string, is called a swingle, or swiple, because it swings through the air, and beats down on the bean or pea pods.

"In the olden days wheat, rye and oats were threshed this way on a barn floor, and in the Bible you may read how sometimes oxen were driven around on the piles of grain on the threshing floor, so that they might tread out the good kernels from the husks, or envelopes that are not good to eat. But I'll tell you more about that when we get on the farm."

"When are we going to beat out my beans?" asked Mab.

"In a week or so, as soon as they get dried well, and are ripe enough so that they are hard, we will flail, or thresh them," answered Daddy Blake. "I am going to thresh some peas, too, to have them dried for this Winter."

Farmer Henderson left the flail which he had made for Daddy Blake, and Hal and Mab looked at it. They could whirl it around their heads, but their father told them to be careful not to hurt one another.

"I'm going to thresh some peas!" cried Hal.

"And I'll use it on my beans so I can get the ten dollar gold prize!" cried Mab.

There were busy times in the Blake home for the next few weeks, for there was much canning to be done, so that the vegetables raised in the garden during the Summer would keep to be eaten in the Winter.

"For that," said Daddy Blake, "is why Uncle Sam, which is another name for our government, wants us to grow things out of the earth. It is so that there may be plenty of food for all."

So tomatoes were canned, or made into ketchup and chili sauce, while some were used green in pickles. Aunt Lolly brought into the house the cucumber which had grown inside the glass bottle. It was the exact shape of the glass flask, and when this had been broken the cucumber even had on its side, in white letters, the name of the drug firm that made the bottle. For the name had been painted black by Aunt Lolly and as the rays of the sun could not go through the black paint the cucumber was white in those places and green all over elsewhere. The children's cucumbers also grew to funny shapes in their bottles.

Mother Blake, with Mab and Hal to help, pulled up her carrots, of which she had a good crop. The long yellow vegetables, like big ice cream cones, Uncle Pennywait said, were stored in a dark place in the cellar.

"You have a fine crop of carrots," said Daddy Blake.

"Do you think I'll win the prize?" asked his wife.

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised," he answered.

"Oh, if she should!" exclaimed Hal to his sister.

"Well," spoke Mab, with a long sigh, "of course I'd like to have that ten dollar gold piece MYSELF, but we ought to want MOTHER to have it, too."

"Of course," said Hal, and then he went out to look at his corn. It had grown very tall, and there were ears on every stalk. Much had been eaten during the Summer, boiled green, and sweet and good it was. Mother Blake had canned some plain corn, and had also put away more, mixed with lima beans, making succotash as the Indians used to do.

Daddy Blake soon began to dig the late potatoes, which would be kept down cellar in the dark to be eaten as they were needed during the long Winter.

"And I think we'll have enough to last us until Spring," he said, "and perhaps have some for seed. Our garden has been a great success, even if the hail did spoil some things and bugs and worms part of other crops."

The potatoes were really Uncle Pennywait's crop—at least he had planted most of them and called them his, for the tomatoes were Daddy Blake's. And Uncle Pennywait kept careful count of every quart and bushel of the potatoes that were eaten, or put away for Winter.

"Because I want that ten dollar prize," he said.

Hal and Mab looked at one another anxiously.

"Who would win it?" they wondered.

Finally there were some cold, sharp frosts, so that the tomato and other vines were all shriveled up when Hal and Mab went out to the garden to look at them.

"Oh, Daddy! Will they straighten up again?" they asked.

"No. Their work is done. We shall have to plant new seeds to make new vines, but we shall have to wait until Spring comes again. The earth is soon going to sleep for the Winter, when nothing will grow in it. But it is time to get in your corn and beans, children. You must cut your yellow corn, Hal, and the other kind, too, and let the ears get dry, ready for husking."

"What other kind of corn, Daddy?" Hal asked.

"Come and I'll show you," his father said.

Mr. Blake led the way down to the corn patch of the garden. At the end he plucked an ear of corn, stripped away the half dried husk, and showed Hal and Mab some sharp-pointed kernels.

"That's the kind of corn that pops," said the children's father. "I sowed a few hills for you without saying anything. I wanted it as a surprise."

"And will it really pop?" asked Hal, his eyes shining.

"Try some and see," advised Daddy Blake. And later, when the ears of popcorn had dried, and the kernels were shelled into the popper and shaken over the fire, they burst out into big, white bunches like snow flakes.

"What makes pop-corn?" asked Hal.

"Well the heat of the fire turns into steam the water that is inside the kernel of corn," said Mr. Blake. "Though you can not see it, there is water in corn, beans and all vegetables, even when they are dry."

"And, as I have told you before, when water gets too hot it turns into steam, and the gas or vapor, for that is what steam is, grows very big, as if you blew up a balloon, so that the steam bursts whatever it is inside of, unless the thing that holds it is very strong. Steam can even burst cannon balls, so you see it can easily burst, or pop the corn.

"Then, as the kernel bursts it puffs out and quickly dries into queer shapes by the heat of the fire. It is white because the inside of corn is really white, though the outside husk looks rather yellow sometimes."

So part of Hal's pop corn crop made something nice to eat during the long Winter evenings. But before those evenings came Hal and Mab had harvested all the things in the garden, with the help of their father and mother, Uncle Pennywait and Aunt Lolly.

"We must get in the pea and bean vines," said Daddy Blake when he saw what a hard frost there had been. "Then we'll thresh them on the barn floor and it will be time soon, Hal, to husk your corn and bring in Aunt Lolly's pumpkins."

For about a dozen big yellow pumpkins were growing amid the stalks of corn, and very pretty they looked in the cool, crisp mornings, when the corn had turned brown from the frost.

Hal's father showed him how the farmers cut off a hill of the corn stalks, close to the ground, stacking them up in a little pile called a "shock." They were allowed to stand there until the wind and sun had dried the husks on the corn.

"Now we'll husk the corn," said Daddy Blake, after the peas and beans had been stored in the barn to dry until they were ready to be threshed or flailed.

He showed Hal and Mab how to strip back the dried husk, and break it off, together with the part of the stalk to which the ear of corn is fastened when it is growing. It was hard work, and the two children did not do much of this, leaving it for the older folk.

But they took turns using the flail, and thought this great fun. On a big cloth, on the floor of the barn, were spread the dried bean vines that had been pulled from Mab's part of the garden. Then the swinging end of the flail was whacked down on the dried vines and pods. Out popped the white beans as the pods were broken, and when the flail had been used long enough Daddy Blake lifted up the vines and crushed, dried pods, and there was left a pile of white beans.

"Oh, what a lot of them!" cried Mab, when they had been sifted, cleaned and put away. There were about two bushels of the dried, white beans, enough to last all Winter, baked or made into soup.

Some dried peas were threshed out also, but not so many of them, and they could be cooked soft again, after they were soaked in water. Then Hal's yellow corn was piled into two bushel baskets, and there were some of the ears left over.

As for Uncle Pennywait's potatoes, there were nearly ten bushels of them stored away down cellar, and Aunt Lolly had more than a dozen yellow pumpkins, one very big. Mother Blake's carrots measured over a barrel and there were many, many cans filled with Daddy Blake's tomatoes.

"Now who won the prize?" asked Mab, as she looked at her bushels of beans and then at Hal's corn. "Did Hal or did I?"

"Well," slowly said her father, "I think you both did so well, and you raised, each one, such fine crops, nearly the same in amount, that I'll have to give two prizes!"

"Two prizes!" cried Hal.

"Yes," went on his father. "Instead of dividing this one I'll make another. I brought another ten dollar gold piece from the bank to-day, and here is the first one," and he held up the two, shining, yellow pieces of money.

"Here is one for you, Hal," went on Daddy Blake, "and one for you, Mab," and he handed the children their prizes. "And how did you like being taken to the garden, instead of after flowers or to the woods?"

"It was fine!" cried Hal, looking eagerly at his golden prize.

"And we learned so much," added Mab. "I never knew, before, how many things can grow in the ground."

"Oh, you are just beginning to learn them," said her father. "Wait until you go to the farm."

"What about my prize?" asked Aunt Lolly with a laugh. "I'm sure my pumpkins will more than fill two bushel baskets."

"Perhaps they will," said Daddy Blake. "Well, I'll give you a prize for the first pumpkin pie you bake, Aunt Lolly. And Uncle Pennywait shall have a prize for his potatoes, while as for Mother—well we'll each give her a prize for the many good meals she got for us while we were working in the garden, and she'll get a special prize for her carrots, which will give you children red cheeks this Winter."

"Hurray!" cried Mab.

"Hurray!" echoed Hal. "It's better than Fourth of July."

A few days after this, when all the vegetables had been gathered in from the garden, which was now sear and brown because of heavy frosts, Mab and Hal heard their aunt calling them.

"Maybe she has some lollypops," said Hal.

"Let's go see," cried Mab.

"Here is something you may have for Hallowe'en which comes to-morrow night," said Aunt Lolly, and she pointed to a large pumpkin. "There'll be enough without this," she went on, "and I promised you one for a Jack-O'Lantern."

"Oh, won't it be fun to make one!" cried Hal.

Aunt Lolly showed them how to cut the top off the big pumpkin, leaving part of the vine for a handle, so that it could be lifted off and put on like a lid. Then the pumpkin was scooped out from the inside, so that eyes, a nose and mouth could be cut through the shell.

"To-morrow night you can put a lighted candle inside, and set it on the front porch for Hallowe'en," said Aunt Lolly, when the pumpkin lantern was finished.

The afternoon of Hallowe'en Hal and Mab, who were helping Daddy Blake rake up some of the dead vines in the garden, heard Sammie Porter crying on their front stoop.

"What's the matter?" asked Hal, running around the corner of the house.

"Oh-o-o-o-o!" cried Sammie. "Look at the pumpkin face!" and he pointed to the Jack-O'lantern into which the candle had not yet been put. "It's alive!" cried Sammie. "Look, it's rollin'!"

And so the scooped-out pumpkin was moving! It was rolling to and fro on the porch and, for a moment, Hal and Mab did not know what to think. Then, all of a sudden, they heard a noise like:

"Bow-wow! Ki-yi!"

"Oh, it's Roly-Poly!" exclaimed Mab.

"He's in the pumpkin," shouted Hal.

And so the little poodle dog was. He had crawled inside the big, hollowed lantern, while the lid was off, and had gone to sleep inside. Then Aunt Lolly, as she said afterward, came out, and, seeing the top off the pumpkin-face, had put it on, for fear it might get lost. Thus, not knowing it, she had shut Roly-Poly up inside the Jack-O'lantern and he had slept there until he felt hungry and awakened. Then he wiggled about, making the pumpkin move and roll over the stoop as if it were alive.

"Oh, what a funny little dog!" cried Mab, as she cuddled him up in her arms, when she took him from the pumpkin.

"He's a regular Hallowe'en dog!" laughed Hal.

That night Mr. Jack-of-the-lantern looked very funny as he grinned at Hal, Mab and the other Hallowe'en frolic-makers who passed the Blake stoop. The candle inside him blazed brightly, shining through his eyes, nose and through his mouth with the pumpkin-teeth.

"A garden makes fun, and it makes good things to eat," said Hal.

"I wonder what we'll see when Daddy takes us to the farm?" spoke Mab.

"It will be fun, anyhow," went on Hal. "We always have fun when we go anywhere with Daddy!"

And now, as the children's garden is finished, and all the vegetables are safely put away for the Winter, this book comes to an end. But there will be another soon, which I hope you will like. And, for a time, I'll say "good-bye!"

THE END

The next volume in this series will be called: "Daddy Takes Us To The Farm."



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G. HARVEY RALPHSON

Just the type of books that delight and fascinate the wide awake boys of today. Clean, wholesome and interesting; full of mystery and adventure. Each title is complete and unabridged. Printed on a good quality of paper from large, clear type and bound in cloth. Each book is wrapped in a special multi-colored jacket.

1. Boy Scouts in Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam 2. Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or, the Plot against Uncle Sam 3. Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or, the Key to the Treaty Box 4. Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or, Fighting Forest Fires 5. Boy Scouts in a Motor Boat; or Adventures on Columbia River 6. Boy Scouts in an Airship; or, the Warning from the Sky 7. Boy Scouts in a Submarine; or, Searching an Ocean Floor 8. Boy Scouts on Motorcycles; or, With the Flying Squadron 9. Boy Scouts beyond the Arctic Circle; or, the Lost Expedition 10. Boy Scout Camera Club; or, the Confessions of a Photograph 11. Boy Scout Electricians; or, the Hidden Dynamo 12. Boy Scouts in California; or, the Flag on the Cliff 13. Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; or, the Disappearing Fleet 14. Boy Scouts in Death Valley; or, the City in the Sky 15. Boy Scouts on Open Plains; or, the Roundup not Ordered 16. Boy Scouts in Southern Waters; or the Spanish Treasure Chest 17. Boy Scouts in Belgium; or, Imperiled in a Trap 18. Boy Scouts in the North Sea; or, the Mystery of a Sub 19. Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol 20. Boy Scouts with the Cossacks; or, a Guilty Secret

For Sale by all Book-sellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of 60 cents

M.A.DONOHUE.&.COMPANY 711.SOUTH.DEARBORN STREET..CHICAGO



CALUMET SERIES of POPULAR COPYRIGHTS

Apaches of New York Alfred Henry Lewis Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar Maurice Leblanc Battle, The Cleveland Moffett Black Motor Car, The Harris Burland Captain Love Theodore Roberts Cavalier of Virginia, A Theodore Roberts Champion, The John Collin Dane Comrades of Peril Randall Parrish Devil, The Van Westrum Dr. Nicholas Stone E. Spence DePue Devils Own, The Randall Parrish End of the Game, The Arthur Hornblow Every Man His Price Max Rittenberg Garrison's Finish W.B.M. Ferguson Harbor Master, The Theodore Roberts King of the Camorra E. Serav Land of the Frozen Suns Bertrand W. Sinclair Little Grey Girl Mary Openshaw Master of Fortune Cutliffe Hyne New England Folks Eugene W. Presbrey Night Winds Promise Varick Vanardy Red Nights of Paris Goron Return of the Night Wind Varick Vanardy True Detective Stories A.L. Drummond Watch-Dog, The Arthur Hornblow

For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of 50c.

M.A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 701-733 S. DEARBORN STREET :: CHICAGO

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