Daddy Takes Us to the Garden Part 17

"Over to Charlie Simpson's and have some fun. He's got a new dog."

"Wait a minute and I'll give you each a penny!" called their uncle, and Hal and Mab were very glad to wait, for they were hungry after having picked the tomatoes.

Very early the next morning the Blake family was awakened by the loud ringing of their door bell.

"Oh, my goodness! I hope the house isn't on fire!" cried Aunt Lolly, quickly getting out of bed.

"It's Mr. Porter. He's at our front door," reported Hal, who had looked from the window of his room, from which the front steps could be seen.

"What's the matter? What is it; a message--a telegram?" asked Mr. Blake, as he, too, looked from Hal's window. "What has happened?"

Mrs. Blake and the children waited anxiously to hear what the answer would be.

CHAPTER X

WHITE CELERY

"In our garden you say!" cried Daddy Blake, with his head out of the window. What it was Mr. Porter had told their father, to make him exclaim like that, neither Hal nor Mab could guess. For they could not tell what Mr. Porter, who now was calling from down on the sidewalk in front, was saying.

"That's too bad!" Daddy Blake went on, as he drew his head in from the window. "I'll come down right away."

"Oh, what is it?" anxiously asked his wife as he hurried to his room to change from his bath robe into outdoor clothes. "Has anything happened?"

"I'm afraid there has," answered Daddy Blake.

"Is anyone ill that Mr. Porter wants you to come out in such a hurry. Is little Sammie hurt in our garden?"

"No, but it's something in our garden," replied her husband.

"What? Oh, don't tell me the garden is on fire?" cried Aunt Lolly.

"How could a green garden burn?" asked Uncle Pennywait, laughing.

"It's somebody cows in our garden--in Hal's corn, too, I expect," said Daddy Blake. "Mr. Porter saw them and told me. We ought to have Little Boy Blue here to drive them out with his horn. But I'll have to use a stick, I guess."

"Oh!" cried Hal "Cows in my corn! They'll eat it all up!"

"That's what they will, and Mab's beans and Aunt Lolly's green peas and other things if I don't get them out," said Daddy Blake from his room where he was quickly dressing.

"Where you going, Hal?" asked Mab as she saw her little brother come from his room half dressed.

"I'm going with Daddy, to the garden, to drive out the cows!"

"No, you'd better stay here," his father said. "The cows might run wild when I drive them out, and step on you. It isn't any fun to be stepped on by a cow."

Hal thought this might be true, so he stayed in while Mr. Blake hurried out to the yard in the early morning. Hal and Mab looked from the windows at the back of the house but they could not see much of the garden on account of the thick, leafy trees. They could hear their father and Mr.

Porter talking, though.

Then while they waited, they heard the mooing of cows, a little later there was a rus.h.i.+ng sound at one side of the house, and next several of the big creatures ran out of the side gate into the street.

Daddy Blake made sure the gate was fastened, so the cows could not get in again, and then he came into the house.

"Is my corn all eaten up?" asked Hal, anxiously as he thought of the prize ten dollar gold piece. "Is it all gone, Daddy?"

"No, not very much, though some is trampled down."

"Is the whole garden spoiled?" asked Mab.

"Well, a little corner of it is. The cows got in among the green peas and they liked them so well they stayed there eating, not going far from where they were planted. So, though we may lose some corn and peas, nothing much else is harmed."

"Whose cows were they?" asked Aunt Lolly.

"Mr. Porter says they belong to a milkman who lives on the other side of the town. They must have gotten out of their pasture during the night and then then came here to our garden. They broke down part of the fence to get in."

"That milkman ought to be made to pay for what his cows ate," said Uncle Pennywait.

"Perhaps he will," said Mr. Blake. "Mr. Porter says the man is very good and honest. We won't make a fuss until we see what he will do."

Hal and Mab were anxious to see what had happened to their garden, and so, as soon as they were dressed, they went out along the paths that were made among the different plots where the potatoes, beans, peas, lettuce and various vegetables were growing.

"Oh, look at my corn!" cried Hal "It's all spoiled!"

"No, not all, though you will lose several hills," said his father.

"And my beans are all trampled down," wailed Mab.

"Never mind," consoled Uncle Pennywait. "They'll still grow, even if the vines are not as nice as before. A wind storm would have made them look the same way."

"And as long as both your crops are damaged, and each about the same amount," said Daddy Blake to Hal and Mab, "you will still be even for winning the prize of ten dollars in gold. That is if Uncle Pennywait doesn't get ahead of you," he added with a sly wink at Aunt Lolly's husband.

Hal and Mab hurried to look mere closely at their garden plots. Hal found, just as he had after the hail storm, that, fey hoeing dirt higher around his hills of corn he could make some of the stalks that had been trampled down, stand up straight. And Mab's beans could also be improved.

"But the cows certainly ate a lot of green peas," said Daddy Blake with a sigh as he looked at the place where they had been growing. "Still I'd rather have them spoiled than the potatoes, as peas are easier to get in Winter than are potatoes--at least for us."

The cows wandered up and down the village street until their owner and some of his men came for them. Then, when the milkman heard how his animals had damaged Mr. Blake's garden, an offer of payment was made.

Some of Daddy Blake's neighbors told what they thought the milkman should pay, and he did. He said he was very sorry his cows had made so much trouble, and hereafter, he said, he would see that they did not break out of their pasture.

"I saw them in your garden, Mr. Blake, as soon as I got up," said Mr.

Porter. "I arose earlier than I usually do as I wanted to hoe my lima beans before I went to work. I thought I'd call you before the cows ate everything."

"I'm glad you did," spoke Hal's father. "We saved most of the garden, anyhow."

It took two or three days of hard work in the Blake garden until it looked as nicely as it had done before the cows broke in. Even then the pea vines were only about half as many in number as at first, and they had been delicious, sweet peas, that Mother Blake had counted on serving at many meals.