t waste. For waste is wicked not only in war
time but always."

"Oh, Daddy!" cried Mab. "Do the worms and bugs and weeds fight the things
in the garden?"

"Indeed they do," answered her father. "It is just like war all the while
between the things we want to grow and the things we don't want."

"Oh, if the garden game is like war I'm going to have fun playing it!"
exclaimed Hal, while Roly-Poly chased his tail around the table. I don't
mean that the little poodle dog's tail came off and that he raced around
trying to get hold of it again. No indeed! His tail just stayed on him,
but he whirled around and around trying to get hold of it in his mouth,
and he was having a good time doing it.

"There is one of the enemies you'll have to fight if you make a garden,"
said Daddy Blake with a smile.

"Who?" asked Hal.

"Your dog, Roly-Poly. Dogs, when they get in a newly planted garden, often
dig up the seeds, just as chickens do. So from the start you'll have to
keep Roly-Poly away."

"And chickens, too," said Mab. "They've got chickens next door."

"Yes, but they are kept shut up in their yard, with a wire fence around
it," said Daddy Blake. "However you must keep watch. Now suppose we start
and pick out what crops we want to raise for the prize of the ten dollar
gold piece. I have different kinds of seeds here--corn, beans, tomatoes,
radishes and others."

"I want to raise beans!" cried Mab. "Then I can have as many bean-bags as
I want."

"We mustn't waste too many beans just for playing games, since beans make
a good meal, especially for soldiers," said Daddy Blake. "And much of the
food raised on farms and gardens will have to go to feed our soldiers. So
we'll give Mab the first choice and let her raise beans. What will you
choose, Hal?"

"Corn, I guess," Hal said. "I like pop corn."

"Well, we won't raise much pop corn," laughed his father. "While that is
good to eat it is not good for making corn bread, and that is the kind we
may have to eat if we can't raise enough wheat to make all the white bread
we want."

"Why can't we raise wheat?" asked Hal.

"Well, we could grow a little, for it would grow in our garden as well as
in any other soil or dirt," explained Daddy Blake. "But to raise a lot of
wheat, or other grains, a big field is needed--a regular farm--and we
haven't that."

"Will you take us to a farm some day?" asked Mab.

"Yes, after you learn how to make a garden," his father told him. "So yo