I am with you, or your
father is near," said Uncle Pennywait. "Here is some of it."

He showed the children a bright, green powder, some of which he stirred
into a sprinkling pot full of water. This water he sprayed over the potato
vines.

"The poison in the water goes on the potato leaves," explained Uncle
Pennywait, "and when the bugs eat the leaves they also eat the poison, and
die. We have to kill them or they would eat away the leaves of the vines
until they all died, and we would have no potatoes. The potato bugs are
very harmful, and we must get rid of them."

Then he let Hal and Mab sprinkle the potato vines with the Paris Green,
afterward making the children carefully wash their hands so there would be
no danger.

"Is that the only way to drive away the potato bugs?" asked Hal.

"Sometimes farmers go through their potato field and knock the bugs from
the vines into a can full of kerosene oil," said Uncle Pennywait, "or they
may use another poison instead of Paris Green. But the bugs must be killed
if we are to have potatoes."

Just then Mab saw Aunt Lolly going into her garden with a bottle in her
hand.

"Are you going to poison bugs too?" asked the little girl.

"No, I am going to make a cucumber grow inside this," was the answer.

"Make a cucumber grow in a bottle?" exclaimed Hal. "Why, how funny!"

"Let's go see!" cried Mab, and together they ran over to Aunt Lolly's
garden.

CHAPTER VI

THE CORN SILK

"Maybe this is another joke, like the eyes of the potatoes," said Hal to
his sister, as they ran along.

"That wasn't a joke--the eyes were REAL, though they couldn't see nor
blink at you," Mab answered.

"The potato eyes must see a little, else how could they find their way to
grow up out of the dark ground?" Hal wanted to know.

"Well, my beans didn't have any eyes, and they grew up," Mab answered.
"Even if they did grow upside down, or I thought they did," and she
laughed. "But let's see what Aunt Lolly is doing."

Uncle Pennywait's wife was out among the cucumber vines now. She had
planted them about the same time Hal had put in the five kernels of corn
in each hill.

Aunt Lolly's cucumber seeds had also been planted in hills, so there would
be a raised mound of earth for the roots to keep moist in, and in order
that the vines, at the start, would be raised up from the other ground
around them. Now the cucumber plants were quite lengthy, running along
over their part of the