“THUNDERIN’ SNAILS!” exclaimed Paddy Pinn, shortly after the little
folks had helped the robin get his breakfast, as he picked up one of the
tiny garden hoes the Teenie Weenies use. “I’d bust this hoe with one
dig, that’s what I’d do,” and the big fellow burst out in a loud laugh.
“Well, that’s the best we’ve got to offer you,” said the Old Soldier.
“I’ll make one for myself before a grasshopper can shake his left hind
foot, that’s what I’ll do,” cried Paddy, and he ran off towards the rose
bush under which the Teenie Weenies lived. In a few minutes he returned
with a big thorn, which he had cut from a dead brier, and, using a match
for a handle, he made a fine hoe by tying the thorn to the match.
“There!” he exclaimed holding it up. “That’s what I call a man’s sized
hoe, that’s what I do.”
[‡Illustration: Decoration]
The little people set out for the garden, as the General had ordered
them to hoe the lima beans. A number of seeds had been planted, for the
Teenie Weenies were fond of lima beans and they usually had to store
away about two hundred and fifty beans to last them through the winter.
“It will take quite a few more beans this winter,” said the General,
“for our family is larger now.”
“Why the Dunce can eat twenty himself,” laughed the Cook.
“You bet I could,” cried the Dunce, who was always hungry. “I could eat
a whole lima bean right this minute.”
“Why you couldn’t eat half a bean at once,” said the Old Soldier.
“Well, I bet a grape seed I could eat a third of a bean, anyhow,”
answered the Dunce.
The Teenie Weenie garden was hidden away where grown-up people would not
be likely to tramp on the plants and as the little folks trudged along
Gogo struck up the following song, while all the rest joined in the
chorus:
“Beans they take the place of meat,
And so if we all wish to eat,
We must take our rake and hoe
And scratch the earth to make ’em grow.