"let's wait and see who it is, hal," whispered mab to her brother as they stood on the stairs.
"maybe it's somebody come to find out about a garden," added the little boy. "daddy knows lots about how to make things grow, and maybe, on account of the war, everybody's got to plant corn and beans and things."
"i don't like war and soldiers," spoke mab, while daddy blake went to the front door. "i don't care when you play soldier, and make believe shoot your pop gun, but i don't like real guns. maybe this is somebody come to tell daddy to go to war."
"i hope not!" exclaimed hal.
when daddy blake opened the door the children heard some one saying:
"i guess this little fellow belongs to you, mr. blake. i found him over in my garden, digging away. maybe he was planting a bone, thinking he could grow some roast beef," and a man's laugh was heard. then came a sharp little bark.
"oh, it's roly-poly!" cried hal.
"he must have run away and we didn't miss him 'cause we talked so much about the garden," added mab. "i wonder where he was?"
"yes, that's my children's dog," said mr. blake to the man who had brought home roly-poly. "so he was in your garden; eh?"
"well, yes, in the place where i'm going to make a garden. my name is porter, i live next door. only moved in last week and we haven't gotten acquainted yet."
"that's right," said mr. blake. "well, i'm glad to know you, mr. porter. hal and mab will be pleased to have roly-poly back, i'm also glad to know you're going to have a garden. i'm going to start my two youngsters with one, and if roly-poly comes over, and digs out your seeds, let me know and i'll keep him shut up."
"i will, and you do the same with my chickens. they're bad for scratching in a garden, though i plan to keep them in their own yard. so your boy and girl are going to have gardens; are they?"
"yes. i want them to learn all they can about such things."
"i've got a boy, but he's too young to start yet. sammie is only five," said mr. porter. "well, doggie, i guess you're glad to get back home," and he gave roly-poly to mr. blake who thanked his neighbor, asking him to call again.
"here, hal and mab!" called their father. "after this you must keep watch of your pet. i guess there will be many gardens on our street this summer, and no dogs will be allowed in them until after the things are well grown. so watch roly-poly."
hal and mab promised they would, and mab said:
"oh, that's a cute little boy next door. he has red hair."
"his name is sammie," said mr. blake. "now off to bed with you, toodlekins!" and he made believe roly-poly threw kisses from his paws to hal and mab.
daddy blake had to go away early the next morning, to be gone three days, so he did not have time to tell hal and mab why it was that seeds grew when planted in the ground. but before going to school on monday the brother and sister saw to it that the glass covered box in which the tomato plants were soon to grow, was put in a sunny window.
on the way to school they looked in the big yard of mr. porter who lived next door. he was raking up some dried leaves and grass and a small, red-haired boy was watching him.
"hello, little ones!" called mr. porter. "have you got your garden started yet?"
"not yet," answered hal.
"but we got tomato seeds planted in the house," said mab.
"yes, and i must do that too. we'll see who'll have the finest garden," went on mr. porter. "how's your poodle dog?"
"oh, we got him shut up so he can't hurt your garden," hal said.
"don't worry about that yet," went on the neighbor. "i haven't planted any seeds yet, and shall not until it gets warmer. so you may let your dog run loose."
"all right. i guess i will," cried hal, running back to the house.
"you'll be late for school!" warned mab.
"i'll run fast!" promised her brother. "roly-poly cried when i shut him up. i want to let him out."
soon the little dog came running out of the barn where hal had locked him. over into mr. porter's yard ran roly and sammie laughed when he saw hal's pet rolling around in the pile of dried leaves mr. porter had raked together.
"roly, you be a good dog!" warned mab, shaking her finger at him.
"i get him a cookie!" said sammie with a laugh as he toddled toward the house.
"sammie likes dogs," said his father as hal and mab hurried on to school.
mr. blake was away longer than he thought he would be, and it was over a week before he came back home. each day hal and mab had placed the box of tomato seeds in the warm sun before going to school, moving it when they came home at noon and in the afternoon they also changed it so that the soil would always be where the warm sun could shine on it. they sprinkled water in the box, as their father had told them to do.
then, the day when daddy blake came back from his business trip, hal, looking at the tomato box, cried:
"oh, mab! look! there are a lot of little green leaves here."
"yes, the tomatoes are beginning to grow," said daddy blake, when he had taken a look.
"what makes the seeds grow and green leaves come out?" asked hal.
"well, as i said, mother nature does it and no one can tell how," said daddy blake. "but somewhere inside this tiny little thing," and he held out in his hand a tomato seed, "somewhere there is hidden a spark of life. what it looks like we can not say. it is deep in the heart of the seed."
"do seeds have hearts?" asked mab.
"well, no, not exactly," her father answered. "but we speak of the middle of a tree as it's heart and i suppose the middle of a seed, where its life is, is its heart. so this seed is really alive, though it doesn't seem so."
"it looks like a little yellow stone—the kind that comes in sand," spoke hal.
"and yet it is alive," said his father. "it can not move about now, though when it is planted it begins to grow and it can move. it can push its leaves up from under the earth. just now it is asleep, and has no life that we can see."
"what will bring it to life and make it wake up?" asked hal.
"the warm dirt in which it is planted, the sunlight, the air and the water you sprinkle on it," said mr. blake. "if you kept this seed cold and dry it might sleep for many many years, but as soon as you put it under the warm, wet soil, and set the box of dirt where the sun can shine on it, then the seed begins to awaken. something inside it—a germ some call it—begins to swell. it gets larger—the seed is germinating. the hard outside shell, or husk, gets soft and breaks open. the heart inside swells larger and larger. a tiny root appears and begins to dig its way down deeper in the ground to find things to eat. at the same time another part of the seed turns into leaves and these grow up. it is the green leaves you see first, peeping up above the ground, that tell you the seed has germinated and is growing."
"isn't it funny!" said hal. "one part of the seed grows down and the other part grows up."
"yes," said daddy blake. "that's the way seeds grow. each day you will see these little tomato plants growing more and more, and, as soon as they are large enough, we will set them out in the garden."
hal and mab thought it was wonderful that a single, tiny seed of the tomato—a seed that looked scarcely larger than the head of a pin—should have locked up in its heart such things as roots and leaves, and that, after a while, great, big red tomatoes would hang down from the green tomato vine—all from one little seed.
"it's wonderful—just like when the man in the show took a rabbit, a guinea pig and a lot of silk ribbon out of daddy's hat," spoke hal.
"it is more wonderful," said mr. blake. "for the man in the show put the things in my hat by a trick, when you were not looking, and only took them out again to make you think they were there all the while. but roots, seeds and tomatoes are not exactly inside the seed all the while. the germ—the life—is there, and after it starts to grow the leaves, roots and tomatoes are made from the soil, the air, the water and the sunshine."
"are there tomatoes in the air?" asked mab.
"well, if it were not for the things in the air, the oxygen, the nitrogen and other gases, about which you are too young to understand now, we could not live grow, and neither could plants. plants also have to have water to drink, as we do, and food to eat, only they eat the things found in the dirt, and we can not do that. at least not until they are changed into fruits, grain or vegetables."
hal and mab never tired looking at the tomato plants growing in the box in the house. each day the tiny green leaves became larger and raised themselves higher and higher from the earth.
"soon they will be large enough to transplant, or set out in the garden," said daddy blake.
two or three days after their father had told hal and mab why seeds grow, the children, coming home from school, saw something strange in their garden.
there was a man, with a team of horses and the brown earth was being torn up by a big shiny thing which the horses were pulling as the man drove them.
"oh, what's that in our garden?" cried hal to uncle pennywait.
"it's a man plowing," said hal's uncle.
"but won't he spoil the garden?" mab wanted to know.
"he's just starting to make it," uncle pennywait answered. "didn't daddy blake tell you that the ground must be plowed or chopped up, and then finely pulverized or smoothed, so the seeds would grow better?"
"oh, yet, so he did," hal said.
"well, this is the first start of making a garden," went on uncle pennywait. "the ground must be plowed or spaded. spading is all right for a small garden, but when you have a large one, or a farm, you must use a plow."
mr. blake owned a large yard back of his house, and next door, on the other side from where the new porter family lived, was a large vacant lot. the children's father had hired this lot to use as part of his garden.
hal and mab watched the man plowing. he held the two curved handles of the plow, and it was the sharp steel "share" of this that they had seen shining in the sun as it cut through the brown soil. a plow cuts through the soil as the horses pull it after them, and it is so shaped that the upper part of the earth is turned over, bringing up to the top, where the sun can shine on it, the underneath part. the undersoil is richer and better for seeds to start growing in than the upper part, where the rain may wash away the plant-food things that are needed to make a good garden.
"but daddy said the ground had to be smooth to make a garden," said mab. "the plowing man is making it all rough."
"yes, it does look rough now," said daddy blake, as he came along just then, in time to watch the man plowing. "those long lines of overturned soil which you children see are called furrows."
"could you plant anything in them?" asked hal.
"well, you could, yes. but it would not grow very well, and when the corn, beans or whatever you planted came up, you could not work around them well to cut down the weeds. it would be too rough. so after the man has plowed the ground he will harrow it."
"what's that?" asked hal
"well a harrow is something like a big rake," explained daddy blake. "there are three kinds of harrows, but they don't often use more than one kind for a garden. the man will use a tooth harrow. it is called that because it is made of iron spikes, or teeth, driven through some long beams of wood. the teeth stick through and when they are dragged over the plowed ground they make it quite smooth. when i take you to the farm i can tell you about and show you other kinds of harrows or big rakes."
it took the man with the plow the rest of the day to turn over the soil in the blake garden, and hal and mab looked on every minute they had out of school. mr. porter's garden, next door, was plowed too.
when hal and mab went to the fence to see how mr. porter's ground looked they saw little sammie standing near. the red-haired boy was looking at something on the ground.
"what is it?" asked hal.
"big snake," was the answer. "i don't like a snake. i'm goin' home," and he started to run.
"oh, a snake!" cried mab. "i don't like snakes either;" and she turned to go away.
"where's the snake, sammie? show me!" said hal.
"see him crawlin'?" and red-haired sammie pointed. "i guess he goin' to bite! i run!" and away he started, but he fell down on the rough ground. he did not cry, however, but picked himself up and kept on.
"that isn't a snake!" called hal with a laugh, "it's only a big angle worm. that won't hurt you, sammie! don't be afraid."
"dat no snake?" the little boy wanted to know.
"no. only a fish worm. don't you remember how we went fishing with daddy, mab?" asked her brother.
"yes, i do. but i thought it was a snake."
hal had jumped over the fence and picked up the worm. it was a large one and had been crawling about the newly-plowed field.
"oh, i don't like 'em," said mab with a little shiver.
"worms are good," said mr. porter coming out into his garden.
"you mean good for fishing?" asked hal
"yes, and good for gardens, too. they wiggle through the ground and sort of chew it up so it does not get so hard. the earth around the roots of trees and plants ought to be kept loose and dug up so the air and water can get through easier. so worms in a garden help to make the plants grow."
"i didn't know that," said hal, as he put down the big worm, which at once began to crawl slowly along, stretching itself out until it was almost twice as big as at first.
in a few days the weather was much warmer, and the soil in the two gardens began to dry out. the man came with the spiked, or tooth, harrow, and his horses dragged this over the ground several times. soon the soil was quite smooth, the big lumps or clods of earth being broken up into little fine chunks.
"but it must be finer yet for some things, like lettuce and tomatoes," said mr. blake. "so i'll use a hand rake."
"can't we help too?" hal wanted to know.
"yes, i want you and mab to do as much garden work as you can. in that way you'll understand how to make things grow. and remember the more you work around in the garden, digging up the earth above the roots of your plants, keeping the weeds cut down, the better your things will grow. making a garden is not easy work, but, after all think what a wonderful lot the seeds and plants do for themselves. still we must help them."
"when can i plant my beans?" asked mab.
"well, pretty soon now. make your part of the garden, where you are going to plant your beans, as smooth as you can. then mark it off into rows. you should plant your beans in rows with the rows about two feet apart, and put the beans in each row so they are about four inches, one from the other. that will give the plants room enough to spread."
"how do i plant my corn?" asked hal.
"well, corn must be planted a little differently from beans," answered daddy blake. "you should have your rows from two to three feet apart and each hill of corn should be from a foot to a foot and a half from the next hill."
"does corn only grow on a hill?" asked hal.
"oh, no," laughed his father, "though on some farms and gardens the corn may be planted on the side of a hill. what i mean was that after your corn begins to grow, the ground is hoed around the corn stalks in a sort of little hill. that is done to keep it from blowing over, for corn grows very tall, in the west sometimes ten and twelve feet high.
"however that is yellow or field corn, from which corn meal is made. the kind you are going to plant, hal, is called sweet corn, such as we eat green from the cob after it is boiled. that may not grow so high. but in a day or so it will be time for your corn and beans to be planted, for spring is now fully here and the weather is warm enough."
hal and mab worked hard in their gardens. they raked the ground until it was quite smooth. daddy blake, his wife, aunt lollypop and uncle pennywait also raked and smoothed the parts of the garden where they were going to plant their seeds. sometimes the older folks helped the children.
next door mr. porter was planting his garden, and red-haired sammie thought he was helping. at least he picked up the stones and threw them at the fence. if roly-poly had been there maybe sammie would have thrown the stones for the little poodle dog to run after. but roly had been sent away for a few weeks, until the gardens had begun to grow. for roly never could see a nicely smoothed patch of ground without wanting to dig in it, and spoil it.
"we'll bring him back when the garden things are larger and well-enough grown so he can not hurt them," said daddy blake.
hal and mab planted their corn and beans. daddy blake showed his little girl how to punch holes in the brown earth along a straight row which her father made with the rake handle, and into the holes she dropped the beans, covering them with earth so that they were about two inches down from the top. hal's corn did not have to be planted quite so deep, and he dropped five kernels in a circle about as large around as a tea-saucer. this circle would, a little later, be hoed into one big hill of corn.
"how long before my beans will grow?" asked mab.
"and my corn?" hal wanted to know.
"well, beans begin to grow almost as soon as they are in the ground," answered her father, "but you can't see them until about a week. then the little leaves appear. hal's corn will take longer, maybe ten days, before any green shows. you must be patient."
hal and mab tried to be, but each day they went out in the garden and looked at where they had planted their beans and corn in the garden rows.
"i don't believe they're ever going to grow," said mab at last. "maybe some worms came and took my seeds. i'm going to dig some up and look."
"don't," begged hal.
but mab did. with a stick she poked in the earth until she saw something that made her call:
"oh, hal! look. my beans are all swelled up like a sponge."
hal looked, mab had dug up one bean. it had swelled and split apart, and inside the two halves of the bean something green showed.
"oh, mab! cover it up, quick!" he cried. "the beans are growing—they're sprouting! cover it up, quick!"
and mab did. now she was sure her beans were growing.
two mornings afterward she went out into her part of the garden before starting for school. she saw something very queer.
"oh, daddy! hal!" cried the little girl "my beans were planted wrong! they're growing upside down! the beans are all pushed upside down out of the ground. oh, my garden is spoiled!"
