yet had all
the ice cream I wanted. But I will when I get that ten dollars."

"Ten dollars is an awful lot of ice cream!" said Mab, sighing.

"He's only joking," laughed Aunt Lolly. "You children mustn't let him win
the prize. Keep busy in your gardens, and get it yourselves."

Hal and Mab did, hoeing away each afternoon when school was out. Daddy
Blake showed them how to cut off the weeds that grew in between the rows
of corn and beans. The earth was chopped up fine, for the children were
told that earth which is made fine holds water, or moisture, longer than
when it is in big chunks.

"And plants need to drink water from the soil, as well as through their
leaves when it rains," said Daddy Blake. "A plant can no more get along
without water to drink than you children can."

"Oh Daddy!" cried Mab, running in the house from her garden one day. "A
lot of my bean leaves have holes in them. Has Hal been shooting his pop
gun at them?"

"No," said Hal. "I didn't! I wouldn't shoot your beans, Mab."

"Well, something did!" cried Mab. "Will my beans be spoiled, Daddy?"

"I don't know. I hope not. We'll take a look."

As Mab had said many of the leaves did have holes in them. Daddy Blake
looked carefully and found some little bugs on the undersides of the bean
plants.

"Ha!" he cried. "Here is the enemy!"

"It sounds like war to hear you say enemy," spoke Hal.

"Well, if you have a garden you have to make war on the weeds, bugs and
beetles," said Mr. Blake. "A bean-leaf beetle is eating your plants, Mab."

"Can't we make him stop, Daddy?"

"Yes, we'll spray some poison on the leaves, so that when the beetles eat
them the poison will kill them," said Mr. Blake.

"But if you poison the beans won't they poison us when we eat them?" Hal
wanted to know.

"The rain will wash off all the poison the beetles do not eat," answered
his father. "Besides there are no beans on Mab's plants yet. By the time
the bean pods come I hope we shall have driven the beetles away."

Mr. Blake mixed some poison called arsenic in a can of water and sprinkled
it on Mab's bean plants. In a few days the beetles had died, or they went
away, not liking the taste of the poisoned leaves, and Mab's beans were
allowed to grow in peace. That war was over. But other bugs and worms came
in the Blake garden, and Daddy Blake, Uncle Pennywait and Aunt Lolly, as
well as the children and their mother, were kept busy. The cut worms got
in among the cab