“Oh, you mean a scare-crow!” cried Hal.

“Yes,” said Mab.  “Could I make a scare-crow for my beans, Daddy?”

“I hardly think you’ll need it, Mab,” her father said with a laugh.  “Beans are not eaten by crows.  But you will have to begin to hoe away the weeds soon, and work around your rows of bean plants.  Nothing makes garden things grow better than keeping the weeds away from them, and keeping the soil nicely pulverized and damp.”

“What do the weeds do to the beans?” asked Mab.

“Well, the weeds grow faster than the beans, and if the weeds are too near they would keep off the sunlight.  Weeds also eat out of the soil the food that the beans need, so if you let weeds grow in your garden your bean plants would starve.  It is just the same as if some big giant sat beside you at the table and took from your plate nearly everything Mother put on for you to eat.

“So, in order that you might grow well and strong, we would have to take the giant away.  It’s the same with weeds.  They are the bad giants that eat the good things in the soil which our plants need.  I’ll get you and Hal each a little hoe to use in your garden.”

Mab’s beans grew very fast and soon the two green leaves on each plant were quite large.  Then other leaves appeared.  By this time Hal’s corn had begun to show green above the earth, and he was anxious to hoe the dirt around it up into hills, as he had been told he must do.

“It is too soon now, though,” his father said.  “If you work around plants when they are too young you would kill them.  They must be allowed to get their roots well down into the ground, to begin eating and drinking.  A little baby, at first, does hardly anything but eat and sleep, so that it may grow fast.  Plants need to do the same thing.  I’ll tell you when it is time to hoe.”

Aunt Lolly and Uncle Pennywait, as well as Daddy Blake, had planted their parts of the garden, and the land around the Blake house looked smooth and brown, with, here and there, a little green showing.

“I know what I’m going to do with that ten dollar gold piece prize when I win it,” said Uncle Pennywait.

“What are you going to do?” asked his wife.

“I’m going to buy ice cream,” said Uncle Pennywait.  “I never yet had all the ice cream I wanted.  But I will when I get that ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars is an awful lot of ice cream!” said Mab, sighing.

“He’s only joking,” laughed Aunt Lolly.  “You children mustn’t let him win the prize.  Keep busy in your gardens, and get it yourselves.”

Hal and Mab did, hoeing away each afternoon when school was out.  Daddy Blake showed them how to cut off the weeds that grew in between the rows of corn and beans.  The earth was chopped up fine, for the children were told that earth which is made fine holds water, or moisture, longer than when it is in big chunks.

“And plants need to drink water from the soil, as well as through their leaves when it rains,” said Daddy Blake.  “A plant can no more get along without water to drink than you children can.”