"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
