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THE DADDY SERIES FOR LITTLE FOLKS
DADDY TAKES US
TO THE GARDEN
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
_Author of_
_Uncle Wiggily and Alice in Wonderland_, _Uncle Wiggily
Longears_, _Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose_,
_Uncle Wiggily's Arabian Nights_
ILLUSTRATED BY EVA DEAN
MADE IN U.S.A.
M.A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
THE DADDY SERIES
By HOWARD R. GARIS
The stories tell of a little boy and girl who go to various places with
their dear Daddy. Each book contains something of value regarding nature
lore, outdoor sports and animal life.
Price 50 cents per volume.
HOWARD R. GARIS
* * * * *
Daddy Takes Us Camping
Daddy Takes Us Fishing
Daddy Takes Us to the Circus
Daddy Takes Us Skating
Daddy Takes Us Coasting
Daddy Takes Us to the Farm
Daddy Takes Us to the Garden
Daddy Takes Us Hunting Birds
Daddy Takes Us Hunting Flowers
Daddy Takes Us to the Woods
Copyright, 1914, by R.F. FENNO & COMPANY
* * * * *
DADDY TAKES US TO THE GARDEN
CONTENTS
* * * * *
CHAPTER PAGE
I A New Game 9
II Making A Garden 20
III Upside Down Beans 34
IV The First Radish 49
V The Potatoes' Eyes 59
VI The Corn Silk 70
VII Early Tomatoes 78
VIII The Children's Market 92
IX Sammie Plants Tomatoes 102
X White Celery 113
XI Gathering Crops 123
XII Pumpkin Pie 134
CHAPTER I
A NEW GAME
"Mother, what can we do now?"
"Tell us something to play, please! We want to have some fun!"
As Harry and Mabel Blake said this they walked slowly up the path toward
the front porch, on which their mother was sitting one early Spring day.
The two children did not look very happy.
"What can we do?" asked Hal, as he was called more often than Harry.
"There isn't any more fun," complained Mab, to which her name was often
shortened.
"Oh, my!" laughed Mother Blake. "Such a sadness! What doleful faces you
both have. I hope they don't freeze so and stay that way. It would be
dreadful!"
"It can't freeze," said Hal. "It's too warm. Daddy told us how cold it had
to be to freeze. The ther--ther--Oh, well the thing you tell how cold it
is--has to get down to where it says number 32 before there's ice."
"You mean the thermometer," said Mab.
"That's it," agreed Hal. "And look, the shiny thing--mercury, that's the
name of it--the mercury is at 60 now. It can't freeze, Mother."
"Well, I'm glad it can't, for I wouldn't want your face to turn into ice
the way it looked a little while ago."
"But there's no fun, Mother," and Mab, whose face, as had her brother's,
had lost its fretful look while they were talking about the thermometer,
again seemed cross and unhappy. "We can't have any fun!"
"Why don't you play some games?" asked Mrs. Blake, smiling at the two
children.
"We did," answered Hal. "We tried to play tag, but it's too muddy to run
off the paths, and it's no fun, staying in one place. We can't play ball,
'cause Mab can't throw like a boy, and I'm not going to play doll with
her."
"I didn't ask you to!" said Mab quickly. "I was going to play doll by
myself."
"Yes, but you'd want me to be a doctor, or something, when your doll got
sick--you always do."
"I should think that would be fun," said Mother Blake. "Why don't you play
doll and doctor?"
"I'm not going to play doll!" declared Hal, and his face looked crosser
than ever.
"Oh, it isn't nice to talk that way," said his mother. "You ought to be
glad if Mab wanted you to be a doctor for her sick doll. But perhaps you
can think of something else--some new game. Just sit down a moment and
we'll talk. Then perhaps you'll think of something. I wonder why it is so
warm to-day, and why there is no danger of anything freezing--not your
faces of course, for I know you wouldn't let that happen. But why is it so
warm; do you know?"
"'Cause it's Spring," answered Hal. "Everybody knows that."
"Oh, no, not everybody," replied his mother. "Your dog Roly-Poly doesn't
know it."
"Oh, yes, Mother! I think he does!" cried Mab. "He was rolling over and
over in the grass to-day, even if it was all wet like a sponge. He never
did that in the Winter."
"Well, perhaps dogs and cats do know when it is Spring. The birds do, I'm
sure, for then they come up from the South, where they have spent the
Winter, and begin to build their nests. So you think it is warm to-day
because it is Spring; do you, Hal?"
"Yes, Mother," he replied. "It's time Winter was gone, anyhow. And the
trees know it is going to be Summer soon, for they are swelling out their
buds."
"And after a while there'll be flowers," added Mab. "Didn't we have fun,
Hal, when Daddy took us hunting flowers?"
"Yes, and when he took us to the woods, and to see the different kinds of
birds," added the little boy. "We had lots of fun then."
"I wish we could have some of that kind of fun now," went on Mab. "When's
Daddy coming home, Mother?"
"Oh, not for quite a while. He has to work and earn money you know. He has
to earn more than ever, now that everything costs so much on account of
the war. Daddies don't have a very easy time these days."
"Do Mothers?" asked Mab, thinking of how she played mother to her dolls.
Maybe, she thought, she could make up a new game, pretending how hard it
was for dolls' mothers these days.
"Well, mothers have to do many things they did not have to do when things
to eat and wear did not cost so much," spoke Mother Blake. "We have to
make one loaf of bread go almost as far as two loaves used to go, and as
for clothes--well, I am mending some of yours, Hal, that, last year, I
thought were hardly useful any more. But we must save all we can. So
that's why Daddy has to work harder and longer, and why he can't come home
Saturday afternoons as early as he used to."
It was a Saturday afternoon when Hal and Mab found so much fault about not
having any fun. Almost any other day they would have been in school, and
have been busy over their lessons. But just now they wanted to play and
they were not having a very jolly time, for they could not think of
anything to do. Or, at least, they thought they could not.
"What makes it Spring?" asked Hal, after a bit, as he watched his mother
putting a patch on his little trousers. Hal remembered how he tore a hole
in them one day sliding down a cellar door.
"Tell us what makes Spring, Mother," went on Mab. "That will be as much
fun as playing, I guess."
"The sun makes the Spring," said Mrs. Blake "Spring is one of the four
seasons. I wonder if you can tell me the others?"
"Which one starts?" asked Hal.
"Spring, of course," exclaimed Mab. "You have to start with something
growing, and things grow in the Spring."
"That is right," said Mrs. Blake. "Spring is the beginning of life in the
world, when the flowers and birds begin to grow; the flowers from little
buds and the birds from little eggs. What comes next?"
"Summer!" cried Hal. "Then's when we can have fun. The ground is dry, so
we can play marbles and fly kites. And we can go in swimming and have a
long vacation. Summer's the jolly time!"
"It is a time when things grow that start in the Spring," said Mother
Blake. "What comes after Summer?"
"Autumn," answered Mab. "Some folks call it Fall. Why do they, Mother?"
"Because the leaves fall from the trees, perhaps. It is a time when the
trees and bushes go to sleep, and when most birds fly down to the warm
South. And what comes after Autumn or Fall?"
"Christmas!" cried Hal.
"Yes, so it does!" laughed Mrs. Blake. "And I guess most children would
say the same thing. But I meant what season."
"It's Winter," Hal said. "Let's see if I know 'em. Spring, Summer, Autumn,
Winter," he recited. "Four seasons, and this is Spring. I wish it would
hurry up and be Summer."
"So do I," agreed Mab. "You can't have any fun now. It's too wet to go
without your rubbers, too cold to go without a coat and almost too hot to
wear one. I like Summer best."
"And I like Fall and Winter," said Hal. "But let's do something Mab. Let's
have some fun. What can we do, Mother?" and back the children were, just
where they started.
"Why don't you get Roly-Poly and play with him?" asked Mrs. Blake.
"He's gone away. I guess he ran down to Daddy's office like he does
sometimes," said Mab.
"Let's go down after him," exclaimed Hal. "That'll be some fun."
"I don't want to," spoke Mab. "I'd rather play with my doll."
"You never want to do anything I want to play?" complained Hal. "Can't she
come with me after Roly-Poly, Mother?"
"Well, I don't know. Can't you both play something here until Daddy comes
home? Why don't you play bean-bag?"
"We did, but Hal always throws 'em over my head and I can't reach," Mab
said.
"She throws crooked," complained Hal.
"Oh, my dears! I think you each must have the Spring Fever!" laughed
Mother Blake. "Try and be nicer toward one another. Let me see now. How
would you like to help me bake a cake, Mab?"
"Oh, that will be fun!" and Mab jumped up from the porch, where she had
been sitting near her mother's rocking chair, and began to clap her hands.
"May I stir it myself, and put the dough in the pans?
"Yes, I think so."
"Pooh! That's no fun for me!" remarked Hal. "I want to have some fun,
too."
"You may clean out the chocolate or frosting dish--whichever kind of a
cake we make," offered Mab. "You always like to scrape out the chocolate
dish, Hal."
"Yes, I like that," he said, smiling a little.
"Well, you may have it all alone this time, if I make the cake," went on
Mab. Nearly always she and Hal shared this pleasure--that of scraping out,
with a knife or spoon, the chocolate or sugar icing dish from which Mother
Blake took the sweet stuff for the top and inside the layers of the cake.
"Come on, Hal!"
Hal was willing enough now, and soon he and his sister were in the
kitchen, helping Mother Blake with her cake-making. Though, to tell the
truth, Mab and Mrs. Blake did most of the work.
While the three were in the midst of their cake-making, into the kitchen
rushed a little poodle dog, whirling around, barking and trying to catch
his tail.
"Oh, Roly-Poly, where have you been?" cried Hal. "Did Daddy come home with
you?"
"Bow-wow!" barked Roly-Poly, which might mean "no" or "yes," just as you
happened to listen to his bark.
"Oh, don't get in my way, Roly!" called Mab as the little dog danced about
in front of her, while she was carrying a pan filled with cake dough
toward the oven. "Look out! Oh, there it goes."
Just what Mab had feared came to pass. She tripped over the poodle dog,
and, to save herself from falling, she had to drop the pan of cake dough.
Down it fell, right on Roly-Poly's back.
"Bow-wow-wow!" he barked and growled at the same time.
"Oh, look at him!" laughed Hal "He's a regular cake himself."
"Don't let him run through the house that way!" called Mother Blake.
"He'll get the carpets and furniture all dough. Get him, Hal!"
Hal made a grab for the little pet dog, and caught him by his tail. This
made Roly-Poly howl louder than ever, until Hal, not wishing to hurt his
pet, managed to get him in his arms. But of course this made Hal's waist
all covered with cake dough.
"Never mind," said Mother Blake, as she saw Hal looking at himself in
dismay. "It will all wash off. Better to have it on your waist than on the
carpets. Why, Mab! What's the matter?" for Mab was crying softly.
"Oh--Oh, my--my nice ca-cake is all spoiled," she sobbed.
"Oh, no it isn't!" comforted Mother Blake. "Only one pan of dough is
spilled, and there is plenty more. The kitchen floor can easily be washed,
and so can Roly Poly.
"Hal," went on his mother, "you take the dog up to the bath tub and give
him a good scrubbing. He'll like that. Take off your own waist and let the
water run on that. I'll wipe up the floor and you can fill another pan and
put it in the oven, Mab. Don't cry! We'll have the cake in time for supper
yet."
So Mab dried her tears and once more began on the cake, while Mrs. Blake
cleaned up the dough from the floor. In a little while the cake was baking
in the oven, and Hal came down stairs, rather wet and splattered, but
clean. With him was Roly-Poly, looking half drowned, but also clean.
"Well, we did a lot of things!" said Hal, when he had on dry clothes, and
he and Mab were waiting for the cake to be baked, after which the
chocolate would be spread over it. "It was fun, wasn't it?"
"I--I guess so," answered Mab, not quite sure. "Did I hurt Roly when I
stepped on him?"
"I guess not. He splashed water all over me when I put him in the bath
tub, though. I pretended he was a submarine ship and he swam all around."
"I wish I had seen him."
"I'll make him do it again," and Hal started toward the stairs with Roly
in his arms.
"No, please don't!" laughed Mother Blake. "One bath a day is enough.
Besides, I think it's time to take the cake out, Mab."
When the chocolate had been spread on, and Hal had scraped out the dish,
giving Mab a share even though she had said she did not want any, the
front door was heart to shut.
"Here comes Daddy!" cried Mab.
"Oh, I wonder if he brought anything?" said Hal, racing after his sister.
Daddy Blake did have a package in his arms, and he was smiling. He put the
bundle down on the table and caught up first Mab and then Hal for a hearty
kiss.
"Well, how are you all to-day?" he asked.
"I just baked a cake," answered Mab.
"And the dough went all over Roly-Poly, and I made believe he was a
submarine ship in the bath tub," added Hal. "We had lots of fun."
"Before that we didn't thought," spoke Mab. "We wanted to play something
new but we didn't know what. Did you bring us anything, Daddy?"
"Yes, I brought you and Hal a new game."
"A new game? Oh, goody! May we play it now?"
"Well, you can start to look at it now, but it takes quite a while to play
it. It takes all Spring, all Summer and part of the Fall."
"Oh, what a long game!" cried Hal. "What is it?"
"It is called the Garden Game," said Daddy Blake, smiling. "And after
supper I'll tell you all about it."
"The Garden Game," murmured Mab.
"It must be fun," said Hal, "else Daddy wouldn't laugh around his eyes the
way he does."
"Yes, I think you'll like this new game," went on Mr. Blake. "And whoever
learns to play it best will get a fine prize!"
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Hal and Mab in delight. They could hardly wait to find
out all about it.