Daddy Takes Us to the Garden Part 15

"No, you must wait a while about your corn. But Mother's carrots are ready to pull, and she has more than we will need over Winter. You may sell some of those, Hal."

"Oh, won't it be fun--having a real store!" cried the little boy. "Come on, Mab, we'll get ready! I'm going to pull the carrots."

"And I'll pull the beans!" cried Mab. "Will you get the tomatoes, Daddy?"

"Yes, but you had better let me show you a little bit about getting the things ready for your market store. The nicer your vegetables look, and the more tastefully you set them out, the more quickly will people stop to look at them and buy them. Wise gardeners and store-keepers know this and it is a good thing to learn."

So Daddy Blake first showed Mab how to pick her string beans, taking off only those of full size, leaving the small to grow larger, when there would be more to eat in each pod. The beans were kept up off the ground with strings running to sticks at the of each row.

"If the beans touch the ground they not only get dirty," Mr. Blake, "but they often are covered with brown, rusty spots and they soon rot. Persons like to buy nice, clean beans, free from dirt. So have yours that way, Mab."

Mab put the beans site picked into clean strawberry boxes, and set them in the shade out of the sun until it was time to open the store on the lawn near the street.

Hal's father showed how to pull from the brown earth the yellow carrots from Mother Blake's part of the garden. Only carrots of good size were pulled, the small ones being left to grow larger. The carrots were tied in bunches of six each, and the bright yellow, pointed bottoms, with the green tops, made a pretty picture as they were laid in a pile in the shade.

"Now I'll pick some tomatoes and your garden store will be ready for customers," said Daddy Blake.

His vines were laden with ripe, red tomatoes and these were carefully picked and placed in strawberry boxes also, a few being set aside for lunch, as was done with Mab's beans and Mother Blake's carrots.

A little later Hal and Mab took their places behind a broad wooden counter, placed on two boxes out in front of their house. On the board were set the boxes of red tomatoes, those of the green and yellow string beans and the pile of yellow carrots.

"Now you are all ready for your customers," said Daddy Blake, as he helped the children put the last touches to their vegetable store.

"Oh, I wonder if we'll sell anything?" spoke Mab, eagerly.

"I hope so," answered Hal. "Oh, Look! Here comes a big automobile with two ladies in it, and they're steering right toward us!"

"I hope they don't upset our counter," said Mab slowly, as she watched the big auto approach.

CHAPTER IX

SAMMIE PLANTS TOMATOES

"Look at the lovely vegetables!" exclaimed one of the ladies in the automobile, as she glanced at what Hal and Mab had spread out on their store counter--the old barn door set on the two boxes.

"Are they nice and fresh, children?" asked the second lady, as she put a funny pair of spectacles, on a stick, up to her nose, and looked at the string beans through the s.h.i.+ny gla.s.s.

"Oh, yes'm, they're very fres.h.!.+" answered Hal. "Daddy and us just picked 'em from our garden."

"We have more than we can eat, and mother hasn't time to can the tomatoes," explained Mab, for their father had left them alone, to say and do as they thought best.

"They certainly look nice," went on the first lady, "And how well the children have arranged them."

"Like a picture," added the other. "See how pretty the red, green and yellow colors show. I must have some tomatoes and beans."

"And I want some of those carrots. They say carrots make your eyes bright."

Hal and Mab thought the ladies eyes were bright enough, especially when the sun shone and glittered on the funny stick-spectacles. The automobile had stopped and the chauffeur got down off the front seat behind the steering wheel and walked toward the children's new vegetable store.

"How much are your tomatoes?" asked the lady who had first spoken.

"Eight cents a quart," answered Hal, his father telling him to ask that price, which was what they were selling for at the store. "And they're just picked," added the little boy.

"I can see they are," spoke the lady. "I'll take three quarts, and you may keep the extra penny for yourselves," she added as she handed Hal a bright twenty-five-cent piece.

Hal and his sister were so excited by this, their first sale, and at getting real money, that they could hardly put the three quarts of red tomatoes in the paper bags Daddy Blake had brought for them from the store. They did spill some, but as the tomatoes fell on the soft gra.s.s they were not broken.

"I want some beans and carrots," said the other lady, and the chauffeur helped Hal and Mab put them in bags, and brought the money back to the children. The beans and carrots were sold for thirty cents, so that Hal and Mab now have fifty-five cents for their garden stuff.

"Isn't it a lot of money!" cried Hal, when the auto had rolled away down the street, and he and his sister looked at the s.h.i.+ning coins.

"Well get rich," exclaimed Mab, gleefully.

A little later a lady in a carriage stopped to buy some beans, and after that a man, walking along the street, bought a quart of tomatoes. Later on a little girl and her mother stopped and looked at the carrots, buying one bunch.

"I want my little girl to eat them as they are good for her," said the lady, "but she says she doesn't like them, though I boil them in milk for her."

"But they don't taste like anything," complained the little girl.

"Our carrots are nice and sweet," said Mab. "You'll like these. My brother and I eat them."

"They look nice and yellow," said the little girl. "Maybe I will like these."

Hal and Mab had sold several boxes of beans and tomatoes and about half a dozen bunches of carrots, in an hour, and now they began putting their store counter in order again, for it was rather untidy. Daddy Blake had told them to do this.

Once or twice the children could not make the right change when customers stopped to buy things, but Aunt Lolly was near at hand, on the porch, and she came to their aid, so there was no trouble.

It was rather early in the morning when Hal and Mab started their store, and by noon they had sold everything, and had taken in over two dollars in "real" money.

"Isn't it a lot!" cried Hal, as he saw the pile of copper, nickle and silver coins in the little box they used for a cash drawer.

"A big pile," answered Mab. "We'll sell more things to-morrow."

"No, I think not," spoke Daddy Blake, coming along just then. "We must not take too much from our garden to sell. But you have done better than I thought you would. Over two dollars!"

"What shall we do with it?" asked Hal.

"Well, you may have some to spend, but we'll save most of it," his father answered. "This is the first money you ever earned from your garden, and I want you to think about it. Just think what Mother Nature did for you, with your help, of course.

"In the ground you planted some tiny seeds and now they have turned into money. No magician's trick could be more wonderful than that. This money will pay for almost all the seed I bought for the garden. Of course our work counts for something, but then we have to work anyhow."

Hal and Mab began to understand what a wonderful earth this of ours is, and how much comes out of the brown soil which, with the help of the air, the rain and sunlight, can take a tiny seed, no larger than the head of a pin, and make from it a great, big green tomato vine, that blossoms and then has on it red tomatoes, which may be eaten or sold for money. And the beans and carrots did the same, each one coming from a small seed.

Sammie Porter came out two or three times and watched Hal and Mab selling things at their vegetable store. The little boy seemed to be wondering what was going on, and Hal and Mab told him as well as they could.