Daddy Takes Us to the Garden by Howard R. Garis

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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.

CHAPTER II

MAKING A GARDEN

"Now children," began Daddy Blake, as the table was cleared of the dishes,
when supper had been finished, "I'll start to tell you about the garden
game we are going to play."

"Oh, are YOU going to play it, too?" asked Hal in delight "Won't that be
fun, Mab?"

"Lots of fun!"

Anything Daddy Blake did was fun for Hal and Mab, whether it was playing a
game, or taking them somewhere.

Eagerly the two children watched while their father opened the package he
had brought up from down town when he came home to supper.

"Is it some kind of a puzzle?" Hal wanted to know.

"Does it go around with wheels?" asked Mab, as she heard something rattle
inside the paper.

"How many can play it?" asked Hal.

"Oh, as many as care to" answered Daddy Blake. I'm going to play it, and
so is your mother, I think; and Uncle Pennywait, and Aunt Lollypop,
and--no, I guess we can't let Roly-Poly play the garden game, but you two
children can."

"Oh, it must be a fine game if so many can play," laughed Hal. "Hurry,
Daddy, and show us what it is."

"Do you play sides?" Mab inquired.

"Yes, you can play sides," her father answered with a smile. "As I told
you I'm going to give a prize to whoever plays the game best. I'll tell
you about it. Now here's the first part of the garden," and, as Mr. Blake
opened the paper fully, out rolled a small parcel. The string came off it,
and Hal and Mab saw a lot of beans.

For a moment they looked very much disappointed.

"Oh, Daddy Blake!" cried Hal. "This isn't a new game at all! We've got a
bean-bag one!"

"And we got tired of playing it to-day," went on Mab, in disappointed
tones.

"This isn't exactly a bean-bag game," said Mr. Blake with a smile, "though
you can make it one if you like. It's ever so much more fun than just
bean-bags, for there are many other different parts to the garden game.
Now if you'll sit down I'll tell you about it."

Hal and Mab saw some brightly colored pictures, among other things, in the
big bag that had held the beans, and they thought perhaps they might have
fun with the garden game after all.

Some of you have met Hal and Mab Blake before, on one or more of their
many trips with Daddy, so I do not need to tell all of you about the
children. But to those of you who read this book as the beginning of the
Daddy Series I may say that the first volume is called "Daddy Takes Us
Camping." In that I told you how Daddy and the two children went to live
in a tent, and how they heard a queer noise in the night and--

Well, I'll leave the rest for you to find out by reading the book. Hal and
Mab lived with Daddy and Mother Blake in a nice house in a small city, and
with them lived Uncle Pennywait and Aunt Lollypop.

These were not their real names. Uncle Pennywait was called that because
he so often said to Hal and Mab:

"Wait a minute and I'll give you a penny!"

Aunt Lollypop was more often called Aunt Lolly, and the reason she had
such a queer name was because she was always telling the children to buy
lollypops with the money Uncle Pennywait gave them. Lollypops, the
children's aunt thought, were the best kind of candy for them, and perhaps
she was right.

Then there was Roly-Poly, the funny little poodle dog, and once when Daddy
Blake took Hal and Mab skating, as you may read in THAT book, Roly slid
under the ice and was lost for a long, long time.

Hal and Mab just loved to go places with Daddy, to learn about the birds,
trees and flowers. They had gone to the circus with him, had gone
coasting, and had hunted birds with a camera to take pictures of them.
There is a book about each one of the different trips Hal and Mab took
with their father. They had many adventures each time they went out, and
they learned many things.

Just before the story I am going to tell you now, Daddy Blake had taken
the children to the woods, telling them about the different kinds of
trees.

Sometimes Roly-Poly went along with Hal and Mab when Daddy started off
with the children. Once Mab had a little cat that got lost up in a tree,
and once her Dickey bird flew away and it was a long time before she found
one she loved as much as her first singing pet.

"But I don't see how you are going to take us anywhere, so we can have
fun, just with BEANS," said Hal, as he waited for his father to tell
something about the new game.

"Oh, it isn't just beans," said Daddy Blake. "See here are some radishes,
lettuce, carrots, turnips, potatoes, beets and--"

"Why it sounds just like a GARDEN!" cried Aunt Lollypop, coming in from
the hall at that moment.

"It's a garden game, but we don't know how to play it yet," said Mab.

"That's what I'm going to teach you," spoke her father. "We are going to
make a garden."

"Where?" Hal wanted to know.

"In our back yard and in the lot next door. I have hired that to use in
planting our garden."

"How do you start to make a garden?" asked Hal.

"That's part of the game you and Mab must learn," said Mr. Blake. "Now
I'll begin at the beginning and tell you. I think you will like this game
as well as any you have ever played, for not only will it be fun, but it
will give you work to do, and the best fun in the world is learning to
make fun of your work. And don't forget the prize!"

"What's the prize for?" asked Hal.

"For the one who has the best little garden, whether it is Hal, Mab, Uncle
Pennywait, Aunt Lolly, Mother or myself. We're all going to play the
garden game!"

"What is the prize going to be?" asked Mab.

Daddy Blake thought for a moment. Then he said:

"Well, I suppose if YOU won the prize you would like it to be a nice
doll."

"Oh, I'd just love it!" cried Mab with sparkling eyes.

"And Hal would want a pair of skates or maybe a sled, for I think his old
one is broken," went on Daddy Blake.

"It is," answered Hal.

"So, as only one of us can win the prize, and as we would all want
something different," spoke the children's father, "I think I'll make the
prize a ten dollar gold piece, and whoever wins it can buy what they like
with it."

"Oh, that's great!" exclaimed Hal.

"Ten dollars!" added Mab. "Why I could buy a lot of dolls for that!"

"I hope you wouldn't spend ALL that money for dolls," said Aunt Lolly.

"No, save some for candy!" laughed Uncle Pennywait. "I'll give you a penny
extra as my prize."

"We'll talk about spending the money when the prize is won," said Daddy
Blake. "Here it is," and he took from his pocket a bright, shining ten
dollar gold piece. Hal and Mab looked at it.

"But everyone must work hard in the garden to win it," said Mr. Blake.
"And, mind you! I may get my own prize, for I am going to work in the
garden, too. We will each choose some one vegetable, and whoever raises
the finest and best crop will get the prize."

"What made you think of this game for us?" asked Hal.

"Well, everyone is making gardens this year," said Daddy Blake. "You know
we are at war, and in war time it is harder to get plenty of food than
when we are at peace."

"Why?" asked Hal.

"Because so many men have to go to be soldiers," his father answered. "The
farmers and gardeners--thousands of them--have been called away to fight
the enemy, so that we, who never before helped to grow things from the
earth, must begin now if we are to have enough to eat and to feed our
soldiers.

"That is why I am going to have a garden--larger than we ever had before.
That is why many others who never had gardens before are going to have one
this year. All over vacant lots and play-fields, and even some beautiful
green, grassy lawns, are being turned into gardens. They will take the
places of many gardens that have been turned into battle fields. We must
raise more vegetables and fruits and we must save what we raise."

"Why do we want to save it?" asked Hal, "Can't we eat it?"

"We will eat all we need," his father, "But you know that gardens and
farms can only be planted, and fruits vegetables can only grow when the
weather is warm. Nothing grows in the cold Winter. So we raise all we can
in Summer and save what we need to eat when snow is on the ground."

"How are we going to make our garden?" asked Mab.

"And what am I going to plant?" asked Hal.

"Well, we'll begin at the very beginning," answered Daddy Blake. "The
first part of any garden is getting the soil ready. That is the dirt, in
which we plant the seeds, must be dug up and made soft and mellow so the
seeds will grow."

"What makes seeds grow?" asked Mab.

"And why can't we plant 'em anywhere?" Hal wanted to know.

Daddy Blake laughed.

"You're going to have a lot of questions to answer about this garden
game," said Uncle Pennywait. "You'll be kept busy."

"Yes, I guess so," agreed Daddy Blake. "Well I'll answer all the questions
I can, for I want Hal and Mab to know how hard it is to make even one bean
or radish grow from a seed. Then, when they find out that it is not easy
to have good vegetables, when the bugs, worms and weeds are fighting
against them, they will not waste. For waste is wicked not only in war
time but always."

"Oh, Daddy!" cried Mab. "Do the worms and bugs and weeds fight the things
in the garden?"

"Indeed they do," answered her father. "It is just like war all the while
between the things we want to grow and the things we don't want."

"Oh, if the garden game is like war I'm going to have fun playing it!"
exclaimed Hal, while Roly-Poly chased his tail around the table. I don't
mean that the little poodle dog's tail came off and that he raced around
trying to get hold of it again. No indeed! His tail just stayed on him,
but he whirled around and around trying to get hold of it in his mouth,
and he was having a good time doing it.

"There is one of the enemies you'll have to fight if you make a garden,"
said Daddy Blake with a smile.

"Who?" asked Hal.

"Your dog, Roly-Poly. Dogs, when they get in a newly planted garden, often
dig up the seeds, just as chickens do. So from the start you'll have to
keep Roly-Poly away."

"And chickens, too," said Mab. "They've got chickens next door."

"Yes, but they are kept shut up in their yard, with a wire fence around
it," said Daddy Blake. "However you must keep watch. Now suppose we start
and pick out what crops we want to raise for the prize of the ten dollar
gold piece. I have different kinds of seeds here--corn, beans, tomatoes,
radishes and others."

"I want to raise beans!" cried Mab. "Then I can have as many bean-bags as
I want."

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