anything?" spoke Mab, eagerly.

"I hope so," answered Hal. "Oh, Look! Here comes a big automobile with two
ladies in it, and they're steering right toward us!"

"I hope they don't upset our counter," said Mab slowly, as she watched the
big auto approach.

CHAPTER IX

SAMMIE PLANTS TOMATOES

"Look at the lovely vegetables!" exclaimed one of the ladies in the
automobile, as she glanced at what Hal and Mab had spread out on their
store counter--the old barn door set on the two boxes.

"Are they nice and fresh, children?" asked the second lady, as she put a
funny pair of spectacles, on a stick, up to her nose, and looked at the
string beans through the shiny glass.

"Oh, yes'm, they're very fresh!" answered Hal. "Daddy and us just picked
'em from our garden."

"We have more than we can eat, and mother hasn't time to can the
tomatoes," explained Mab, for their father had left them alone, to say and
do as they thought best.

"They certainly look nice," went on the first lady, "And how well the
children have arranged them."

"Like a picture," added the other. "See how pretty the red, green and
yellow colors show. I must have some tomatoes and beans."

"And I want some of those carrots. They say carrots make your eyes
bright."

Hal and Mab thought the ladies eyes were bright enough, especially when
the sun shone and glittered on the funny stick-spectacles. The automobile
had stopped and the chauffeur got down off the front seat behind the
steering wheel and walked toward the children's new vegetable store.

"How much are your tomatoes?" asked the lady who had first spoken.

"Eight cents a quart," answered Hal, his father telling him to ask that
price, which was what they were selling for at the store. "And they're
just picked," added the little boy.

"I can see they are," spoke the lady. "I'll take three quarts, and you may
keep the extra penny for yourselves," she added as she handed Hal a bright
twenty-five-cent piece.

Hal and his sister were so excited by this, their first sale, and at
getting real money, that they could hardly put the three quarts of red
tomatoes in the paper bags Daddy Blake had brought for them from the
store. They did spill some, but as the tomatoes fell on the soft grass
they were not broken.

"I want some beans and carrots," said the other lady, and the chauffeur
helped Hal and Mab put them in bags, and brought the money back to the
children. The beans and carrots were so