ten did. He was
standing near red-haired Sammie now.

"He's barkin' at a big, green bug," said the little boy.

"A green bug; eh?" spoke Mr. Porter. "Maybe we'd better see what it is,"
he added, speaking to Daddy Blake.

"I rather think we had. There are so many bugs, worms and other things
trying to spoil our gardens, that we must not let any of them get away."

"He's a awful big bug, almost as long as Roly's tail," called Sammie from
where he stood near a tomato plant.

"Well, Roly's tail isn't very big," laughed Daddy Blake. "But a bug or
worm of that size could eat a lot of plant leaves."

"Don't touch it--Daddy will kill it!" called Mr. Porter to his little boy.
But Sammie had no idea of touching the queer bug he had seen, and at which
the poodle dog was barking.

"Oh, it's one of the big green tomato worms!" exclaimed Mr. Blake when he
saw it. "They can do a lot of damage. I hope they don't get in my garden.
We must kill as many as we can," and he knocked the worm to the ground and
stepped on it. Roly-Poly barked harder than ever at this, thinking,
perhaps, that he had helped get rid of the unpleasant, crawling thing.

"We'll look over your tomato patch and see if there are any more worms,"
suggested Mr. Blake to his neighbor.

"Yes, and then I'll come and help you clear your plants of the pests,"
said Mr. Porter. "We want to have our gardens good this year, so we won't
have to spend so many of our pennies for food next Winter."

A few more of the green worms were found on the tomato vines, and there
were more on Daddy Blake's. So many were found that he could not be sure
he had knocked them all off.

"I think I will have to spray the plants with Paris Green as I did the
potatoes," he said. "The tomatoes will not be ready to pick--even the
earliest--for some weeks and by that time the poison will have been washed
off by the rain."

"Making a garden is lots of work" said Hal, next day, when he and Mab had
helped their father spray the tomato plants.

"Yes, indeed," agreed Mr. Blake. "But, like everything else in this world,
you can't have anything without working for it."

"I thought all you had to do in a garden," said Mab, "was to plant the
seed and it would grow into cabbage, radishes, corn, beans or whatever you
wanted."

"You are beginning to learn otherwise," spoke her father, "and it is a
good thing. Mother Nature is wise and good, but she does not make it too
easy for us. She will grow bea