Daddy Takes Us to the Garden Part 13

"Does a towel soak up water?" asked Mab. "I thought it just wiped it off our hands."

"No, the towel is like a sponge," said Daddy Blake. "The fuzzier the towel the more like a sponge it is. Each little bit of linen or cotton, is really a tiny hollow tube--a capillary tube it is called--and these tubes suck up the water on your hands as the same fuzzy capillary tubes in a piece of blotting paper suck up the ink. A towel is a sponge or a blotter.

And the earth is a sort of sponge when it comes to sucking up the rain and dew. It also holds the water near the plant, when the ground is finely pulverized, so the tomato vine, the corn stalk or the bean bush can drink when it gets thirsty."

"My! There's a lot to know about a garden; isn't there?" said Mab with a sigh.

"Yes, there is," agreed Hal. "I don't s'pose we'll ever know it all."

"No," said his father, "you will not. There will always be something better to learn, not only for you but for everyone. But learn all you can, and learn, first of all, that plants must have suns.h.i.+ne, air and water to make them grow. Now we'll water the garden."

There were no signs of rain, and though the ground was a little moist in some parts of the garden Daddy Blake thought all the growing things would be better for a wetting from the hose. So he attached it to the faucet and let Hal and Mab take turns sprinkling. As the drops fell on the thirsty ground there floated up a most delicious smell, like the early spring rain, which helps Mother Nature to awaken the sleeping gra.s.s and flowers.

"I guess my corn is wet enough," said Hal, after a bit. He had only been sprinkling a little while when he heard one of his boy friends calling him from the street in front.

"Oh, your corn isn't half wet enough," laughed Daddy Blake. "It is almost better not to water the garden at all than not to give it enough, for it only hardens the dirt on top. Give the corn a good soaking, just as if it had rained hard. A good watering for the garden means about two quarts of water to every square foot in your plots. Don't be afraid of the water.

Your plants will do so much better for it. But don't spray them too heavily, so the dirt is washed away. Let the hose point up in the air, and then the drops will fall like rain."

Hal kept the hose longer, giving his corn a good wetting, and he could almost see the green stalks stand up straighter when he had finished. They were refreshed, just as a tired horse is made to feel, better, after a hot day in the streets, when he has a cool drink and is sprinkled with the hose.

"Roly, get out the way or you'll be all wet!" cried Mab, as the little poodle dog ran around her beans when she was watering them.

"Bow-wow!" barked Roly, just as if he said he didn't care.

"Well, if you want to get wet--all right!" laughed Mab. "Here it comes!"

She pointed the hose straight at Roly and in a second he was wet through.

"Ki-yi! Ki-yi! Ki-yi!" he yelped as he ran out of the garden. "Bow-wow!

Ki-yi!"

"Well, it will cool him off, and I guess he wanted it after all," said Daddy Blake. "But Roly is a good little dog. He only dug once in the garden since he came back, but I tapped him on the end of his nose with my finger, and scolded him, and he hasn't done it since."

The next day Daddy Blake took Hal and Mab to the garden again, and showed them how he was building little wooden frames under his tomatoes to keep the red vegetables off the ground where they might lie in the mud and sand and get dirty.

"The frames help to hold up the vines so they will not break when the tomatoes get too heavy for them," said Mr. Blake.

"Plants have lots of trouble," said Hal. "You have to put their seeds in the ground, keep the weeds away from them, hoe them, water them, and keep the bugs and worms away. Is there anything else that can happen to things in a garden, Daddy?"

"Yes, sometimes heavy hail storms come and beat down the plants, or tear the leaves to ribbons so the plants die, and bear nothing. This often happens to corn, which has broad leaves easily torn by hail."

"What is hail?" asked Hal.

"Well, it's a sort of frozen rain," said Daddy Blake. "Often in a thunder shower the wind plays strange tricks. It whirls the rain drops about, first in some cool air, far above the earth and then whips them into some warm air. The cool air freezes the rain, and when it falls it is not in the shape of beautiful crystals, as is the snow, but is in hard, round b.a.l.l.s, sometimes as large as marbles. Often the hail will break windows."

"I hope it doesn't hail in our nice garden," said Hal.

"It will hurt your corn worse than it would my beans," said Mab. "I hope it doesn't hail, too, Hal."

But two or three days after that, one evening when the Blakes were sitting on the steps after having worked in the garden, there came from the West low mutterings of thunder. Then the lightning began to flash and Daddy Blake said:

"We are going to have a shower, I think. Well, it will be good for the garden."

And soon the big drops began splas.h.i.+ng down, followed by another sound.

"Oh, it's hailing!" cried Aunt Lolly. "Hear the hail stones!"

"I love to see it!" exclaimed Mab. "But I hope it doesn't hail very big stones."

However the stones from the sky--stones of ice that did not melt for some time after they rattled down--were rather large. They bounced up from the sidewalk and on the path around the Blake house.

"Where's Hal?" suddenly asked his father. "I want to show him and Mab how the inside of hail stones look. I'll run out and get some as soon as the shower slackens a little."

It was raining and hailing hard now, and the lightning was flas.h.i.+ng brightly, while the thunder was rumbling like big cannon.

"Hal was here a minute ago," said his mother. "I wonder if he could have run out in the storm?"

Just then, from his porch, Mr. Porter called something to Daddy Blake. All Mab and her mother could hear was:

"Hal--hail--umbrella!"

"Oh, I hope nothing has happened to him!" said Mrs. Blake. "You had better go look for him, Daddy!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHILDREN'S MARKET

Daddy Blake caught up an umbrella from the hallway and ran out into the storm, going around the side path toward the back yard and lot where the children had made their gardens.

"Where is he going?" asked Mab.

"To look for Hal," answered her mother.

"Where is Hal?"

"He must have gone out in the storm to see what made it hail, I suppose."

"Oh, if one of the big hail stones. .h.i.ts him on the end of his nose he'll cry!" exclaimed Aunt Lolly.

"Well, he'll know better than to do it again," said Uncle Pennywait "Listen to Roly-Poly howling!"

The little poodle dog was afraid of thunder and lightning, and every time there was a storm he used to get in the darkest corner of the house and howl. He was doing this now as Daddy Blake ran to the garden to find where Hal was.

"He's back there--out where his corn is planted!" called Mr. Porter to Hal's father as Daddy Blake ran around the house. "I saw him from our kitchen window, and I thought I'd tell you."