“Aren’t you going to work in your gardens a little while?” asked their mother.  “Daddy is out there.”

“Is he?” cried Hal.  “Did he come home early?”

“Yes, on purpose to hoe among his tomatoes, I think he is cutting down the weeds which grew very fast since the last rain we had.”

“Our parts of the garden are all right,” said Hal.  “My corn doesn’t need hoeing.”

“Nor my beans,” said Mab.  “But let’s go out and see Daddy, Hal.  Maybe he’ll tell us something new about the garden.”

“Well, where are your hoes, toodlekins?” called Daddy Blake, when he saw the two children coming toward him.

“There aren’t any weeds in my corn,” said Hal.

“Nor in my beans,” added Mab.

“Not very many, it is true,” said Daddy Blake.  “But still there are some, and if you cut down the weeds when they are small, and when there are not many of them, you will find it easier to keep your garden looking neat, and, at the same time, make sure your crops will grow better, than if you wait and only hoe when the weeds are big.

“Gardens should be made to look nice, as well as be made free from weeds just because it is a good thing for the plants,” went on Daddy Blake.  “A good gardener takes pride in his garden.  He wants to see every weed cut down.  Besides, hoeing around your corn and beans makes the dirt nice and finely pulverized—­like the pulverized sugar with which Mother makes icing for the cakes.  And the finer the dirt is around the roots of a plant the more moisture it will hold and the better it will be for whatever is growing, as I have told you before.”

“Well, we’ll hoe a little bit,” said Hal.

He and his sister got their hoes and soon they were so interested in cutting down the weeds in between the rows that they forgot about going off to play.  Hal noticed that the ears of corn on his stalks were getting larger inside the green husk that kept the soft and tender kernels from being broken, as might have happened if they were out in the air, as tomatoes grow.

And so the gardens grew, just as did that of “Mistress Mary, quite contrary,” about whom you may read in Mother Goose, or some book like that.  Sometimes it rained and again it was quite dry, with a hot sun beating down out of the blue sky.

“If we don’t get rain pretty soon we shall have to water the gardens,” said Daddy Blake one night after about a week of very dry weather.  Around the roots of the many plants the earth was caked and hard, so that very little air could get down to nourish the growing things.

“What do people do who have gardens where it doesn’t rain as often as it does here, Daddy?” asked Mab.