"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.
