“You have a fine crop of carrots,” said Daddy Blake.

“Do you think I’ll win the prize?” asked his wife.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he answered.

“Oh, if she should!” exclaimed Hal to his sister.

“Well,” spoke Mab, with a long sigh, “of course I’d like to have that ten dollar gold piece myself, but we ought to want mother to have it, too.”

“Of course,” said Hal, and then he went out to look at his corn.  It had grown very tall, and there were ears on every stalk.  Much had been eaten during the Summer, boiled green, and sweet and good it was.  Mother Blake had canned some plain corn, and had also put away more, mixed with lima beans, making succotash as the Indians used to do.

Daddy Blake soon began to dig the late potatoes, which would be kept down cellar in the dark to be eaten as they were needed during the long Winter.

“And I think we’ll have enough to last us until Spring,” he said, “and perhaps have some for seed.  Our garden has been a great success, even if the hail did spoil some things and bugs and worms part of other crops.”

The potatoes were really Uncle Pennywait’s crop—­at least he had planted most of them and called them his, for the tomatoes were Daddy Blake’s.  And Uncle Pennywait kept careful count of every quart and bushel of the potatoes that were eaten, or put away for Winter.

“Because I want that ten dollar prize,” he said.

Hal and Mab looked at one another anxiously.

“Who would win it?” they wondered.

Finally there were some cold, sharp frosts, so that the tomato and other vines were all shriveled up when Hal and Mab went out to the garden to look at them.

“Oh, Daddy!  Will they straighten up again?” they asked.

“No.  Their work is done.  We shall have to plant new seeds to make new vines, but we shall have to wait until Spring comes again.  The earth is soon going to sleep for the Winter, when nothing will grow in it.  But it is time to get in your corn and beans, children.  You must cut your yellow corn, Hal, and the other kind, too, and let the ears get dry, ready for husking.”

“What other kind of corn, Daddy?” Hal asked.

“Come and I’ll show you,” his father said.

Mr. Blake led the way down to the corn patch of the garden.  At the end he plucked an ear of corn, stripped away the half dried husk, and showed Hal and Mab some sharp-pointed kernels.

“That’s the kind of corn that pops,” said the children’s father.  “I sowed a few hills for you without saying anything.  I wanted it as a surprise.”

“And will it really pop?” asked Hal, his eyes shining.

“Try some and see,” advised Daddy Blake.  And later, when the ears of popcorn had dried, and the kernels were shelled into the popper and shaken over the fire, they burst out into big, white bunches like snow flakes.