hoed around a few hills.

"And Aunt Lolly is working in her part of the garden," went on Mab. "I
wonder if they'll win that ten dollar gold piece prize, Hal?"

"I hope one of us wins it, Mab. If I win I'll give you half."

"And I'll give you half if I win, 'cause you helped me hoe my beans one
day when there was so many weeds in 'em."

Daddy Blake had put the ten dollar gold piece in a little box on the
dining room mantle, and every day Hal or Mab looked to make sure the prize
was there.

"What you doin' Uncle Pennywait?" asked Mab as she and her brother went
over to the vacant lot next door, where part of the Blake garden had been
planted.

"I'm taking the eyes out of the potatoes," answered Uncle Pennywait.

"Eyes out of potatoes!" cried Hal. "I didn't know they had any."

"Of course they have!" laughed his uncle. "Else how could they see to get
out of their brown skin-jackets when they want to go swimming in the
kettle of hot water?"

"Oh, he's only fooling us; isn't he Aunt Lolly?" asked Hal. His aunt was
hoeing some weeds away from between the hills of cucumbers she had
planted, for she was going to raise some of them, as well as pumpkins,
which last had been planted in between the rows of Hal's corn.

"Well, Uncle Pennywait may be fooling you a little," said Aunt Lolly, "but
I did see him cutting some eyes from the potatoes."

Hal and Mab looked at one another. They did not know what to think now. It
was seldom that both Aunt Lolly and Uncle Pennywait joked at the same
time.

"Come over here and I'll show you," called Uncle Pennywait when he had
laughed at the funny looks on the faces of the two children. "See," he
went on, "these are the 'eyes' of the potato, though the right name, of
course, is seeds."

He pointed to the little spots you may see on any potato you pick up,
unless it is one to small to have them. The spots are near the ends and in
the middle, and they look like little dimples. Some of them may look very
much like eyes, and that is what most gardeners and farmers call them, but
they are really the potato's seeds.

Mab and Hal watched what Uncle Pennywait was doing. He had a basket in
which were some large potatoes and these he was cutting into chunks,
letting them fall into another basket. In each chunk their uncle cut the
children noticed several "eyes."

"What are you doing?" asked Hal.

"I am getting ready to plant a second crop of potatoes," said Uncle
Pennywait. "The first