"In the olden days wheat, rye and oats were threshed this way on a barn floor, and in the Bible you may read how sometimes oxen were driven around on the piles of grain on the threshing floor, so that they might tread out the good kernels from the husks, or envelopes that are not good to eat.
But I"ll tell you more about that when we get on the farm."
"When are we going to beat out my beans?" asked Mab.
"In a week or so, as soon as they get dried well, and are ripe enough so that they are hard, we will flail, or thresh them," answered Daddy Blake.
"I am going to thresh some peas, too, to have them dried for this Winter."
Farmer Henderson left the flail which he had made for Daddy Blake, and Hal and Mab looked at it. They could whirl it around their heads, but their father told them to be careful not to hurt one another.
"I"m going to thresh some peas!" cried Hal.
"And I"ll use it on my beans so I can get the ten dollar gold prize!"
cried Mab.
There were busy times in the Blake home for the next few weeks, for there was much canning to be done, so that the vegetables raised in the garden during the Summer would keep to be eaten in the Winter.
"For that," said Daddy Blake, "is why Uncle Sam, which is another name for our government, wants us to grow things out of the earth. It is so that there may be plenty of food for all."
So tomatoes were canned, or made into ketchup and chili sauce, while some were used green in pickles. Aunt Lolly brought into the house the cuc.u.mber which had grown inside the gla.s.s bottle. It was the exact shape of the gla.s.s flask, and when this had been broken the cuc.u.mber even had on its side, in white letters, the name of the drug firm that made the bottle.
For the name had been painted black by Aunt Lolly and as the rays of the sun could not go through the black paint the cuc.u.mber was white in those places and green all over elsewhere. The children"s cuc.u.mbers also grew to funny shapes in their bottles.
Mother Blake, with Mab and Hal to help, pulled up her carrots, of which she had a good crop. The long yellow vegetables, like big ice cream cones, Uncle Pennywait said, were stored in a dark place in the cellar.
"You have a fine crop of carrots," said Daddy Blake.
"Do you think I"ll win the prize?" asked his wife.
"Well, I wouldn"t be surprised," he answered.
"Oh, if she should!" exclaimed Hal to his sister.
"Well," spoke Mab, with a long sigh, "of course I"d like to have that ten dollar gold piece MYSELF, but we ought to want MOTHER to have it, too."
"Of course," said Hal, and then he went out to look at his corn. It had grown very tall, and there were ears on every stalk. Much had been eaten during the Summer, boiled green, and sweet and good it was. Mother Blake had canned some plain corn, and had also put away more, mixed with lima beans, making succotash as the Indians used to do.
Daddy Blake soon began to dig the late potatoes, which would be kept down cellar in the dark to be eaten as they were needed during the long Winter.
"And I think we"ll have enough to last us until Spring," he said, "and perhaps have some for seed. Our garden has been a great success, even if the hail did spoil some things and bugs and worms part of other crops."
The potatoes were really Uncle Pennywait"s crop--at least he had planted most of them and called them his, for the tomatoes were Daddy Blake"s. And Uncle Pennywait kept careful count of every quart and bushel of the potatoes that were eaten, or put away for Winter.
"Because I want that ten dollar prize," he said.
Hal and Mab looked at one another anxiously.
"Who would win it?" they wondered.
Finally there were some cold, sharp frosts, so that the tomato and other vines were all shriveled up when Hal and Mab went out to the garden to look at them.
"Oh, Daddy! Will they straighten up again?" they asked.
"No. Their work is done. We shall have to plant new seeds to make new vines, but we shall have to wait until Spring comes again. The earth is soon going to sleep for the Winter, when nothing will grow in it. But it is time to get in your corn and beans, children. You must cut your yellow corn, Hal, and the other kind, too, and let the ears get dry, ready for husking."
"What other kind of corn, Daddy?" Hal asked.
"Come and I"ll show you," his father said.
Mr. Blake led the way down to the corn patch of the garden. At the end he plucked an ear of corn, stripped away the half dried husk, and showed Hal and Mab some sharp-pointed kernels.
"That"s the kind of corn that pops," said the children"s father. "I sowed a few hills for you without saying anything. I wanted it as a surprise."
"And will it really pop?" asked Hal, his eyes shining.
"Try some and see," advised Daddy Blake. And later, when the ears of popcorn had dried, and the kernels were sh.e.l.led into the popper and shaken over the fire, they burst out into big, white bunches like snow flakes.
"What makes pop-corn?" asked Hal.
"Well the heat of the fire turns into steam the water that is inside the kernel of corn," said Mr. Blake. "Though you can not see it, there is water in corn, beans and all vegetables, even when they are dry."
"And, as I have told you before, when water gets too hot it turns into steam, and the gas or vapor, for that is what steam is, grows very big, as if you blew up a balloon, so that the steam bursts whatever it is inside of, unless the thing that holds it is very strong. Steam can even burst cannon b.a.l.l.s, so you see it can easily burst, or pop the corn.
"Then, as the kernel bursts it puffs out and quickly dries into queer shapes by the heat of the fire. It is white because the inside of corn is really white, though the outside husk looks rather yellow sometimes."
So part of Hal"s pop corn crop made something nice to eat during the long Winter evenings. But before those evenings came Hal and Mab had harvested all the things in the garden, with the help of their father and mother, Uncle Pennywait and Aunt Lolly.
"We must get in the pea and bean vines," said Daddy Blake when he saw what a hard frost there had been. "Then we"ll thresh them on the barn floor and it will be time soon, Hal, to husk your corn and bring in Aunt Lolly"s pumpkins."
For about a dozen big yellow pumpkins were growing amid the stalks of corn, and very pretty they looked in the cool, crisp mornings, when the corn had turned brown from the frost.
Hal"s father showed him how the farmers cut off a hill of the corn stalks, close to the ground, stacking them up in a little pile called a "shock."
They were allowed to stand there until the wind and sun had dried the husks on the corn.
"Now we"ll husk the corn," said Daddy Blake, after the peas and beans had been stored in the barn to dry until they were ready to be threshed or flailed.
He showed Hal and Mab how to strip back the dried husk, and break it off, together with the part of the stalk to which the ear of corn is fastened when it is growing. It was hard work, and the two children did not do much of this, leaving it for the older folk.
But they took turns using the flail, and thought this great fun. On a big cloth, on the floor of the barn, were spread the dried bean vines that had been pulled from Mab"s part of the garden. Then the swinging end of the flail was whacked down on the dried vines and pods. Out popped the white beans as the pods were broken, and when the flail had been used long enough Daddy Blake lifted up the vines and crushed, dried pods, and there was left a pile of white beans.
"Oh, what a lot of them!" cried Mab, when they had been sifted, cleaned and put away. There were about two bushels of the dried, white beans, enough to last all Winter, baked or made into soup.
Some dried peas were threshed out also, but not so many of them, and they could be cooked soft again, after they were soaked in water. Then Hal"s yellow corn was piled into two bushel baskets, and there were some of the ears left over.
As for Uncle Pennywait"s potatoes, there were nearly ten bushels of them stored away down cellar, and Aunt Lolly had more than a dozen yellow pumpkins, one very big. Mother Blake"s carrots measured over a barrel and there were many, many cans filled with Daddy Blake"s tomatoes.
"Now who won the prize?" asked Mab, as she looked at her bushels of beans and then at Hal"s corn. "Did Hal or did I?"
"Well," slowly said her father, "I think you both did so well, and you raised, each one, such fine crops, nearly the same in amount, that I"ll have to give two prizes!"