they had been sifted, cleaned
and put away. There were about two bushels of the dried, white beans,
enough to last all Winter, baked or made into soup.

Some dried peas were threshed out also, but not so many of them, and they
could be cooked soft again, after they were soaked in water. Then Hal's
yellow corn was piled into two bushel baskets, and there were some of the
ears left over.

As for Uncle Pennywait's potatoes, there were nearly ten bushels of them
stored away down cellar, and Aunt Lolly had more than a dozen yellow
pumpkins, one very big. Mother Blake's carrots measured over a barrel and
there were many, many cans filled with Daddy Blake's tomatoes.

"Now who won the prize?" asked Mab, as she looked at her bushels of beans
and then at Hal's corn. "Did Hal or did I?"

"Well," slowly said her father, "I think you both did so well, and you
raised, each one, such fine crops, nearly the same in amount, that I'll
have to give two prizes!"

"Two prizes!" cried Hal.

"Yes," went on his father. "Instead of dividing this one I'll make
another. I brought another ten dollar gold piece from the bank to-day, and
here is the first one," and he held up the two, shining, yellow pieces of
money.

"Here is one for you, Hal," went on Daddy Blake, "and one for you, Mab,"
and he handed the children their prizes. "And how did you like being taken
to the garden, instead of after flowers or to the woods?"

"It was fine!" cried Hal, looking eagerly at his golden prize.

"And we learned so much," added Mab. "I never knew, before, how many
things can grow in the ground."

"Oh, you are just beginning to learn them," said her father. "Wait until
you go to the farm."

"What about my prize?" asked Aunt Lolly with a laugh. "I'm sure my
pumpkins will more than fill two bushel baskets."

"Perhaps they will," said Daddy Blake. "Well, I'll give you a prize for
the first pumpkin pie you bake, Aunt Lolly. And Uncle Pennywait shall have
a prize for his potatoes, while as for Mother--well we'll each give her a
prize for the many good meals she got for us while we were working in the
garden, and she'll get a special prize for her carrots, which will give
you children red cheeks this Winter."

"Hurray!" cried Mab.

"Hurray!" echoed Hal. "It's better than Fourth of July."

A few days after this, when all the vegetables had been gathered in from
the garden, which was now sear and brown because of heavy frosts, Mab and
Hal heard their