Daddy Takes Us to the Garden Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  THE POTATOES' EYES

  Hal and Mab ran after their father as he hurried out into the yard. Theycould hear Sammie crying more loudly now, and above his voice sounded agrowling and barking noise.

  One part of the fence, between the Blake yard and that where Mr. Porterhad made his garden, was low, so that the two children could look over.They saw Sammie standing near the fence, greatly frightened, and lookingat a tangle of morning glory vines in which something was wiggling aroundand making a great fuss.

  "Oh, what is it?" asked Hal.

  "It's a--it's a lion!" cried the frightened Sammie. "A great--great biglion, all fuzzy like!"

  "Oh, it couldn't be a lion, Sammie," said Mr. Blake. "Tell me what it isthat scared you."

  "'Tis a lion," said Sammie again. "He ran after me an' I ran an' he ran inthe bushes an' he's there now. He barked at me!"

  "Ho! If he barked it's a DOG," cried Hal. "Where is he, Sammie?"

  "In there," and Sammie pointed to the tangle of morning glory vines. Justthen Mab saw something that made her call out:

  "Why it is a dog. It's OUR dog--Roly-Poly!"

  "Are you sure?" asked her father. "Roly is over at Mr. Thompson's houseyou know," for the little poodle had been sent away while the garden wasbeing made. Mr. Thompson had planted nothing, having too small a yard.

  "I don't care!" exclaimed Mab. "I DID see Roly. He's in the bushesthere--under the morning glories."

  "Well, if it's your dog Roly I would not be so frightened of HIM," saidSammie. "Only I thinked he was a LION."

  "Here, Roly! Roly-Poly, come on out!" cried Hal, and out came a veryqueer-looking dog indeed. It was Roly, but how he had changed. He was allstuck over with leaves, grass and bits of bark from the trees. Hecertainly did "fuzzy," as Sammie had said, and not at all like the nice,clean poodle he had been.

  "Oh, whatever is the matter with him?" cried Mab.

  "He's got a lot of leaves stuck on him," added Hal. "Come here, Roly, andI'll pull 'em off for you."

  Roly came running over to Hal, but when the little boy tried to get theleaves, grass and bits of bark off his pet he found out what was thematter.

  "Roly's all stuck up in fly paper!" cried Hal. "Look!"

  "In fly paper?" asked Mr. Blake. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, he must have sat down in some fly paper, and it stuck to him allover, and then he rolled in the leaves and grass," answered Hal.

  "And then the leaves and grass stuck to the fly paper," added Mab. "Oh,you poor Roly-Poly!"

  The little poodle dog must have known how he looked, and he must have feltquite badly, for he just stretched out at the feet of Hal, who had jumpedover the fence, and he howled and howled and howled, Roly-Poly did.

  "I wonder how it happened?" asked Mr. Blake. "But we must take Roly-Polyin the house and wash him. Then he'll feel better and look better. Did hescare you very much, Sammie?"

  "A--a little bit. When I saw him in our yard, all fuzzy like, I thoughtsure he was a lion."

  Mrs. Porter came out, having heard her little boy crying, and when she sawRoly-Poly she laughed.

  Then she said:

  "You poor dog. Come over and I'll squirt the hose on you. That will takeoff some of the fly paper."

  "Oh, let me squirt it!" cried Hal. "Roly loves to be squirted on! Let medo it!"

  "I'm going to help," added Mab.

  "An' me, too!" called Sammie.

  "They'll drown the poor dog," spoke Mr. Blake, laughing. "I guess I'dbetter take a hand in this myself."

  "What's the matter?" asked Aunt Lolly from the back steps. "Is the houseon fire?" She was always afraid that would happen.

  "No, it's just Roly-Poly and some sticky fly paper," answered Mr. Blake."He must have run home to get a bath after he got all tangled up in thesticky stuff at the Thompson house."

  By using the hose, and by greasing the fly paper, which really loosened itmore than water did, and then by using soap suds and a brush, Roly-Polywas finally cleaned. Then on their way to school Hal and Mab stopped atthe Thompson home to find out what had happened.

  "Roly-Poly was very good, all the while he was here," said Mrs. Thompson,"though at first he was lonesome for you. He would have run back to yourhouse if I had let him out, but I knew he might make trouble in yourgarden so I kept him here.

  "This morning I put some of the sticky fly paper around the house and lefta window open in the room where Roly was sleeping. The wind must haveblown the sticky paper on his curly coat of hair and this so frightenedhim that he jumped out of the window and ran back home to you."

  "Only he went in the yard next door, instead of in ours," said Mab, "andhe hid under the morning glory vines."

  "And on his way," added Hal, "he rolled in dried leaves and grass until hewas all covered, and he looked twice as big as he is now."

  "And Sammie thought he was a lion," went on Mab.

  "Are you going to bring Roly-Poly back to me to keep?" asked Mrs.Thompson.

  "Thank you, no," answered Hal. "Daddy says our garden is growing so wellnow that Roly can't do much harm. Besides we're going to teach him hemustn't dig holes, to hide his bones, in places where we have thingsplanted. So we'll keep Roly now."

  "And we're much obliged to you for being so nice to him," added Mab, "andwe're sorry he spoiled your fly paper."

  "Oh, I have plenty more fly paper," laughed Mrs. Thompson. "I'm only sorrypoor Roly was so stuck up. Good-bye!"

  Hal and Mab hurried on to school, laughing over what had happened to theirpet poodle. When their lessons were done they went back to their garden,anxious to see if Roly had been good, and had not dug up any corn orbeans.

  "Everything is all right," said Mab, as she looked at her bush beans,which were now in blossom. Soon the blossoms would drop off and in theirplaces would come tiny bean pods.

  "Oh, see Uncle Pennyweight!" cried Mab, when she had found that Roly waspeacefully sleeping on the shady porch. "What's he doing?"

  "Planting something, I guess," replied Hal after he had looked at hisgrowing corn, and hoed around a few hills.

  "And Aunt Lolly is working in her part of the garden," went on Mab. "Iwonder if they'll win that ten dollar gold piece prize, Hal?"

  "I hope one of us wins it, Mab. If I win I'll give you half."

  "And I'll give you half if I win, 'cause you helped me hoe my beans oneday when there was so many weeds in 'em."

  Daddy Blake had put the ten dollar gold piece in a little box on thedining room mantle, and every day Hal or Mab looked to make sure the prizewas there.

  "What you doin' Uncle Pennywait?" asked Mab as she and her brother wentover to the vacant lot next door, where part of the Blake garden had beenplanted.

  "I'm taking the eyes out of the potatoes," answered Uncle Pennywait.

  "Eyes out of potatoes!" cried Hal. "I didn't know they had any."

  "Of course they have!" laughed his uncle. "Else how could they see to getout of their brown skin-jackets when they want to go swimming in thekettle of hot water?"

  "Oh, he's only fooling us; isn't he Aunt Lolly?" asked Hal. His aunt washoeing some weeds away from between the hills of cucumbers she hadplanted, for she was going to raise some of them, as well as pumpkins,which last had been planted in between the rows of Hal's corn.

  "Well, Uncle Pennywait may be fooling you a little," said Aunt Lolly, "butI did see him cutting some eyes from the potatoes."

  Hal and Mab looked at one another. They did not know what to think now. Itwas seldom that both Aunt Lolly and Uncle Pennywait joked at the sametime.

  "Come over here and I'll show you," called Uncle Pennywait when he hadlaughed at the funny looks on the faces of the two children. "See," hewent on, "these are the 'eyes' of the potato, though the right name, ofcourse, is seeds."

  He pointed to the little spots you may see on any potato you pick up,unless it is one to small to have them. The spots are near the ends and inthe middle, and they look like little dimples. Some of them may look very
much like eyes, and that is what most gardeners and farmers call them, butthey are really the potato's seeds.

  Mab and Hal watched what Uncle Pennywait was doing. He had a basket inwhich were some large potatoes and these he was cutting into chunks,letting them fall into another basket. In each chunk their uncle cut thechildren noticed several "eyes."

  "What are you doing?" asked Hal.

  "I am getting ready to plant a second crop of potatoes," said UnclePennywait. "The first ones I planted in my garden were early ones. Soon wewill be eating them on the table. They are not the kind that will keepwell all winter, and I am planting that kind now. I am going to win theten dollar prize by raising a bigger crop of potatoes than you can raiseof corn or beans, little ones," and he smiled at Hal and Mab.

  Then he went on cutting the eyes out of the potatoes, while the childrenwatched him. They saw that each potato chunk had in it two or three of thequeer dimple-spots.

  "A potato is not like other things that grow in the garden," said UnclePennywait. "It does not have its seeds separate from it, as beans havetheirs in a pod, or as corn has its kernels or seeds on a cob, or apumpkin or apple has seeds inside it. A potato's seeds are part of itself,buried in the white part that we cook for the table, and each potato hasin it many seeds or eyes.

  "Of course I could plant whole potatoes, one in each hill, but that wouldbe wasting seed, so I cut the potatoes up into chunks and plant the littlechunks, each one with two or more seeds in it."

  "And do you only plant one chunk?" asked Mab.

  "No, I drop in two or three, according to the size and the number of eyes.This is done so that if one set of seeds doesn't grow the other will. Nowyou watch me."

  Uncle Pennywait had smoothed off a nice bit of his garden where, as yet,he had planted nothing, and into the long earth-rows of this he now beganto plant his potato seed. He walked along the rows with a bag of thecut-up pieces hung around his neck, and as he dropped in the white chunkshe covered them with dirt by using a hoe.

  "When my potatoes grow up into nice green vines, and the striped bugs cometo have a feast on them, you may help me drive the bad creatures away,"said Uncle Pennywait to the children. "In fact some of my early potatoesneed looking after now."

  "Are there bugs on them?" asked Mab, when her uncle had finished hisplanting.

  "Indeed there are! Come and I'll show you."

  Over they went to the early-potato part of Uncle Pennywait's garden.There, on many of the green vines, were a lot of blackish and yellowishbugs, crawling and eating the leaves.

  "We'll just give them a dinner of Paris Green," said Uncle Pennywait, "andthey won't eat any more of my vines."

  "What's Paris Green?" asked Mab.

  "It is a deadly poison, for grown folks or children as well as bugs, andyou must never touch it, or handle it, unless I am with you, or yourfather is near," said Uncle Pennywait. "Here is some of it."

  He showed the children a bright, green powder, some of which he stirredinto a sprinkling pot full of water. This water he sprayed over the potatovines.

  "The poison in the water goes on the potato leaves," explained UnclePennywait, "and when the bugs eat the leaves they also eat the poison, anddie. We have to kill them or they would eat away the leaves of the vinesuntil they all died, and we would have no potatoes. The potato bugs arevery harmful, and we must get rid of them."

  Then he let Hal and Mab sprinkle the potato vines with the Paris Green,afterward making the children carefully wash their hands so there would beno danger.

  "Is that the only way to drive away the potato bugs?" asked Hal.

  "Sometimes farmers go through their potato field and knock the bugs fromthe vines into a can full of kerosene oil," said Uncle Pennywait, "or theymay use another poison instead of Paris Green. But the bugs must be killedif we are to have potatoes."

  Just then Mab saw Aunt Lolly going into her garden with a bottle in herhand.

  "Are you going to poison bugs too?" asked the little girl.

  "No, I am going to make a cucumber grow inside this," was the answer.

  "Make a cucumber grow in a bottle?" exclaimed Hal. "Why, how funny!"

  "Let's go see!" cried Mab, and together they ran over to Aunt Lolly'sgarden.