GATHERING CROPS
Hal, Mab and their father ran to the gate in the fence that was between
their yard and the garden of Mr. Porter. Down where their neighbor's lima
beans were planted, and where they were climbing up the poles, they heard
the barking and yelping of Roly-Poly sounding loudly.
"He's there!" cried Mab.
"Here, Roly! Come here! Come on, little doggie!" called Hal, thinking, for
a moment, that perhaps his pet was barking at a cat, as sometimes Roly
did, though he really would not have hurt pussy.
"Why doesn't he come?" asked Mab, coming to a stop, while her father
looked around, trying to see the poodle among the growing things in the
garden.
"Maybe he's caught and can't come," suggested Hal.
"Caught how?" asked Mab.
"Well, maybe he's all tangled up in the bean vines like he was in the
morning glories the day he sat down in the fly paper," Hal answered.
"Oh, Roly! Are you hurt?" cried Mab.
"Bow-wow! Ki-yi!" was all the answer the little poodle dog gave, and,
though it might have meant a great deal in dog language Mab and Hal could
not understand it. But Roly-Poly was trying to make his friends know that
something had happened to him.
"I'll find him," said Mr. Blake. "You children had better stay back
there," and he motioned to them not to come any farther. Hal and Mab stood
still.
"What is it? What's the matter?" Mr. Porter, coming from another part of
the garden where he had been pulling up some turnips. "Has anything
happened?"
"Something has happened to Roly-Poly," replied Hal.
"Hear him howl?" inquired Mab.
"I should say I did!" cried Mr. Porter. "And I guess I know what's the
matter to. He's in the trap."
"In the trap?" cried Hal in surprise. "What trap?"
Mr. Porter did not answer. He ran down to where Daddy Blake was poking
among the green vines and bushes, trying to find Roly.
"Come on!" exclaimed Hal. "Let's go see what it is."
"Daddy told us to stay here," said Mab. "We can't go."
Hal knew that, and, much as he wanted to see what was going on, he would
not disobey his father. Mab, too, would have liked to run down where Daddy
Blake and Mr. Porter were.
"Bow-wow! Ki-yi!" barked and howled Roly again, and then the children
heard their father and his friend, the man next door, laughing.
"I guess Roly can't be hurt very much or Daddy wouldn't laugh," said Mab.
"I guess not," agreed Hal. "I wish we could go see what it is."
Just then their father came out from among the tall lima beans. He had
Roly in his arms, and the little poodle dog was cuddled up as though he
did not want to leave them.
"Is he hurt?" asked Mab.
"A little," her father answered.
"Where?" Hal wanted to know.
"On his tail. It was pinched a little in the mole trap, where he was
caught fast. But we got you out; didn't we Roly-Poly?"
"Bow-wow; Ki-yi!" yelped the poodle.
"Was he in the mole trap?" asked Hal.
"And what is a mole trap?" asked Mab.
"Well, I see I'll have to tell you more about the garden," answered Daddy
Blake with a laugh, as he gave Roly over to his little girl and boy, who
eagerly petted him. "For the mole is one of the garden pests, and the
trap, Mr. Porter set to catch some who were spoiling his things, caught
Roly-Poly instead."
"Is a mole a worm?" Hal wanted to know. "Or is it like a potato bug?"
"It's a little animal like a mouse," said his father, "only it is blind.
It lives underground, in the dark all the while, so really it has no use
for eyes, any more than have the blind fish in the big Kentucky cave.
"But, though a mole is blind, it does not stop him from turning up the
ground and uprooting many plants. He really doesn't mean to do it, but we
have to catch him just the same."
"Oh, I'd like to see a blind mole," said Mab.
"I can't show you one just now," spoke Mr. Porter, "but I can show you how
they dig underground, and the damage they do to lawns and gardens. Maybe,
if your dog Roly will keep out of my mole trap, I can catch one of the
creatures and show you how it looks. Come down here."
Mr. Porter led the way to that part of the garden where Roly had been
caught by his little tail. On the ground, among the rows of beans,
sometimes going right under them and spoiling the roots, was a long ridge
of dirt, in a sort of wavy line. With his fingers Daddy Blake tore up some
of the earth, and opened a regular little tunnel under ground.
"The mole," said Daddy Blake, "tunnels, or digs, his way in the dark,
underground, to find grubs and worms which he eats. He had two front
claws, very strong, just purposely made for digging, and you would be
surprised to see how soon a mole can dig himself underground, even if you
put him on top of a hard, dirt road.
"It is when the blind mole tunnels along, smelling here and there for
grubs and worms, that he uproots the plants and for that reason we have to
catch him. There are some traps that have sharp points which go down
through the ground with a strong spring to push them, whenever a digging
mole gets too near. But the trap Mr. Porter set was a spring trap without
any sharp points to it, which he thought might catch a mole alive. Instead
it caught Roly, who was digging away to find a buried bone, maybe."
"Is he all right now?" asked Mab.
"Yes, his tail was only pinched a little but Roly's tail is very tender I
guess, for he howled very loudly."
"I wish I could see a mole," said Hal.
"So do I," echoed his sister.
But all they could see was the place where the mole had dug. And perhaps
you may see, in your garden or on your lawn, a little raised ridge, or
long, low hill of dirt, some morning. If you poke your finger, or a stick,
down in it you will find that underneath it is hollow.
This is a place where a mole has dug his tunnel in the night to get things
to eat. Moles dig deep down, too, under the surface where no one can see
them, and when they do not uproot the grass or the garden plants, they do
little harm. It is only when they come near the top that you can see the
ridge they make.
Sometimes cats catch moles when they come out on top of the ground,
thinking them a sort of mouse. The mole's fur is very fine and soft, and
would make a fine cloak, only it would take many skins to make one large
enough to wear.
"Well, I'm glad Roly-Poly is all right," said Mab, as she took the little
dog from Hal, who was holding hint, and petted him on his head.
"Yes, you may put him down now," spoke her father. "And we'll go dig the
potatoes. Mother wants some for dinner, and I want to show you children
how to get them out of the ground. For we will soon be digging them to put
away for winter."
When Hal and Mab reached the potato part of the garden, which was the
largest of all the plots, the children saw that many of the green vines
were getting brown and withered.
"Why, the vines are dying!" exclaimed Mab. "Did a mole spoil them, Daddy?"
"No, but the potatoes have grown as large as they ever will be, and, there
being no more need of the vine, it is drying up. It has gone to seed, just
as a dandelion goes to seed, in a way, though we call the potatoes
'tubers' instead of seed. There may be potato seeds, that come when the
potato blossom dries up, for all I know, but I have always planted the
eyes of the tubers and so does everyone else. Now to show you how to dig."
[Illustration]
Mr. Blake had planted two kinds of potatoes, early and late, and it was
the vines of the early ones that had dried up. Later on the others would
dry, and then it would be time to dig their tubers to put down cellar
for the long Winter.
"First you pull up the vine," said Daddy Blake, and he tore one from the
earth, many of the potatoes clinging to it. These he picked off and put in
the basket. Then, with a potato hook, which is something like a spading
fork, only with the prongs curved downward like a rake, Daddy Blake began
scraping away the dirt from the side of the hill of potatoes.
"When a farmer has a big field of potatoes," said the children's father,
"he may use a machine potato-digger. This is drawn by horses, who walk
between the rows, drawing the machine right over where the potato vines
are growing. The machine has iron prongs which dig under the dirt like
giant fingers, turning out the potatoes which are tossed between the rows
of dirt so men, who follow, may pick them up. But we'll dig ours by hand.
And in digging potatoes you must be careful not to stick your fork, spade
or whatever you use, into the potato tubers, and so cutting them."
"Why can't we do that?" asked Hal.
"Because a potato that is cut, pierced or bruised badly will not keep as
well as one that is sound and good. It rots more quickly, and one rotten
potato in a bin of good ones will cause many others to spoil, just as one
rotten apple in a barrel of sound ones will spoil a great many. So be
careful when you dig your potatoes."
Hal and Mab watched Daddy Blake, and then he let them pull a vine and dig
in the hill after the brown tubers. Out they came tumbling and rolling, as
if glad to get into the light and sunshine. For they had been down under
the dark earth ever since the eyes were planted in the Spring, growing
from tiny potatoes Into large ones.
When Mab dug up her hill of potatoes, after she had picked up all there
were in it, her father saw her carefully looking among the clods of brown
soil.
"What have you lost, Mab?" he asked.
"I was looking for the eye pieces you planted when you made your potato
garden," she answered.
"Oh, they have turned into these many potatoes," laughed Mr. Blake. "That
is the magical trick Mother Nature does for us. We plant a piece of
potato, with 'eyes' in it, or we plant a seed, and up springs a plant on
the roots of which are more potatoes, or, if it is a bean, it turns into a
vine with many more beans on it. And the seed--that is the eye potato or
the bean--disappears completely, just as a magician on the stage pretends
to make your handkerchief disappear and change into a lemon. Mother Nature
is very wonderful."
Hal and Mab thought so too.
The Summer was passing away. The days that had been long and full of
sunshine until late in the evening were getting shorter. No longer was it
light at five o'clock in the morning, and the golden ball did not stay up
until after seven at night.
"The days are getting shorter and the nights longer," said Daddy Blake.
"That means Winter is not far off, though we still have Autumn or Fall
before us. And that will bring us the harvest days. We will soon begin to
harvest, or bring in our crops."
"And then will we know who gets the prize?" asked Hal.
"Yes," his father answered. "I'll have to award the ten dollar gold prize
then, but it will be some little time yet. Things are not all done
growing, though they have done their best. From now on we will not have to
worry so much about weeds, bugs and worms."
"Do they die, too, like the potato vines?" asked Mab.
"Yes, though many weeds will not be killed until a hard frost nips them.
But the garden plants have gotten their full growth, and are not babies
any more, so the weeds can not do them so much harm. Most of the bugs and
worms, too, have died or been eaten by the birds. The birds are the
gardener's best friend, for they eat many worms and bugs that could not be
killed in any other way. So the more insect-eating birds you have around
your garden the better. Even though the robins may take a few cherries
they don't get paid half enough that way for the good work they do."
"How am I going to harvest my beans?" asked Mab. "There aren't many more
green ones left to boil, for Mother canned a lot of them."
"What are left of your beans we will save dried, to make into baked beans
this Winter," said her father.
"And what about my corn?" Hal wanted to know.
"Well, your mother canned some of that," answered his father, "that is the
sweet kind. The yellow ears I will show you how to save for the chickens
this winter, and there is another kind--well, I'll tell you about that a
little later," and he smiled at the children.
"Oh, have I got three kinds of corn?" asked Hal, clapping his hands in
delight.
"We'll see when we come to harvest it," said Daddy Blake.
"Maybe I'll win the prize with that!" exclaimed the little boy. "Come on,
Mab! Let's go in and look at the ten dollar gold piece. I hope I win it!"
"I hope you do, too, Hal," said his sister. "But I'd like it myself, and
I've got a awful lot of beans. My vines are covered with them--I mean
dried ones, in pods like peas."
"I wish we could both have the prize," said Hal. "But if I win I'll give
you half, Mab."
"So will I to you!" exclaimed the little girl.
As they ran toward the house they saw a farmer, from whom their mother
often bought things, standing on the porch. In his hand he held what
looked to be a big whip. There was a long wooden handle and fast to it was
a shorter stick of wood.
"There's the flail I told Mr. Blake I'd bring him," said the farmer to
Aunt Lolly, who had come to the door when he rang the bell.
"A flail," she repeated. "What is it for?"
"Well, I think Mr. Blake wants to whip some beans with it," and the farmer
laughed, while Hal and Mab looked at him curiously.