CHAPTER VI
THE CORN SILK
"Maybe this is another joke, like the eyes of the potatoes," said Hal tohis sister, as they ran along.
"That wasn't a joke--the eyes were REAL, though they couldn't see norblink at you," Mab answered.
"The potato eyes must see a little, else how could they find their way togrow 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 shelaughed. "But let's see what Aunt Lolly is doing."
Uncle Pennywait's wife was out among the cucumber vines now. She hadplanted them about the same time Hal had put in the five kernels of cornin each hill.
Aunt Lolly's cucumber seeds had also been planted in hills, so there wouldbe a raised mound of earth for the roots to keep moist in, and in orderthat the vines, at the start, would be raised up from the other groundaround them. Now the cucumber plants were quite lengthy, running alongover their part of the garden, and in some places there were growing tinylittle pickles--or they would be pickles, when put in salt, vinegar andspices.
"Are you really going to make a cucumber grow in a bottle?" asked Mab asshe saw her aunt, with a bottle in her hand, stooping over one of thevines.
"I really am," was the answer. "It is only a little trick, though, andreally does no good. But I thought you children would like to see it."
"How are you going to do it?" asked Hal.
"You see this little cucumber, or pickle," spoke Aunt Lolly, and sheshowed one to Hal and Mab. "Well now I'm going to slip it inside thisbottle, but not pull the pickle from the vine. If I did that the cucumberwould stop growing and die."
She had a bottle with a neck large enough so the pickle would go in it.The bottle was an odd shape.
"The pickle will grow large and completely fill the bottle," went on AuntLolly. "It will grow because it is not broken off the stem, and thebottle, being glass, will let in the sunshine. The neck is also largeenough so air can get in, for without air, sunlight and the food it getsthrough the stem the pickle would not live.
"But as it grows it will swell and fill every part of the bottle and italso will grow just to the shape of the bottle, so that in the Fall, whenit can't grow any more, because of the strong glass, I can break thebottle and I will have a pickle shaped just like it, curves, queer twistsand everything else."
"Oh, how funny!" cried Hal "I wonder if I could grow an ear of corn in abottle?"
"No," answered his aunt. "An ear of corn has to grow inside the husk, andyou could not, very well, put a bottle over that."
"Could I over one of my beans?" asked Mab.
"Well, you might, but it would have to be a very long and thin bottle, fora bean is that shape when it has grown as large as it will ever get. So Idon't believe I'd try it, if I were you. Ill let you each have one of mypickles to grow inside a bottle."
Hal and Mab thought this would be fun so they found other bottles withwhich to do the funny trick of making cucumbers grow inside the glass.
"I wish Daddy would give a prize for the funniest shaped cucumber," saidMab, when she had fixed her bottle with a pickle inside it.
"Maybe he will," spoke her brother. "We'll ask him."
But when Daddy Blake came home that evening he had a package in his arms,and the children were so interested about what might be in it that theyforgot to ask for the cucumber prize.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Mab.
"I'm going to take you and Hal down to the garden and show you how to setout cabbage plants," said Daddy Blake.
"But we've got some cabbage plants!" cried Hal.
"Yes, I know. But these are a kind that will get a head, or be riper,later in the Fall. This is Winter cabbage that we will keep down cellar,and have to eat when there is snow on the ground, for cabbage is very goodand healthful. We can eat it raw, or made into sauer-kraut or have itboiled with potatoes. We must save some cabbage for Winter and that is thekind I am going to plant now."
"And may we help?" asked Mab.
"Yes, come on to the garden."
Daddy Blake had asked Uncle Pennywait, that day, to smooth off a plowedand harrowed place ready for the cabbage plants to be put in that evening,and the long rows, dug in the brown soil, were now waiting.
"Where did you get the cabbage plants?" Mab wanted to know. "Did you growthem in a little box down at your office, Daddy, as we did the tomatoeshere?"
"No, Mab, not quite that way, though I might have done that if I had hadroom. I bought these cabbage plants in the market on my way home. Somefarmers, with lots of ground, plant the cabbage seed early in the springin what are called 'hot-frames.' That is they are like our tomato boxesonly larger, and they are kept out of doors. But over the top are glasswindows, so the cold air can not get in. But the warm sun shines throughthe glass as it did through our tomato box, and soon the cabbage seedsbegin to sprout.
"Then the plants grow larger and larger, until they are strong enough tobe set out, as the tomatoes were. In this way you can grow the vegetablesbetter than if you waited until it was warm enough to put the seed rightout in the garden, and let the plants grow up there from the beginning.Putting the seeds in the hot frame gives them a good start. Now we'll setout the cabbage plants, and you may both help."
Daddy Blake gave Hal and Mab each a small handful of the little cabbageplants, some of which had two and others three light green leaves on.There were also small roofs, with a little wet dirt clinging to them, fromwhere they had been pulled out of their early home in which they firstgrew.
"Oh, Hal! That isn't the way to do it!" cried Daddy Blake, when he hadwatched his little boy walking along the cabbage row for a while, droppingthe plants, the roots of which were afterward to be covered with the brownearth.
"Why not?" Hal asked.
"Because you must only drop ONE plant in a place. You are letting two andthree fall at once. You mustn't make a bouquet of them," and his fatherlaughed. "Only one cabbage plant in a spot."
"Am I doing it right?" asked Mab, who was on the other side of the cabbageplot.
"Well, not exactly. Hal dropped his too close together and yours are toofar apart. The cabbage plants ought to be about two and a half feetapart, in rows and the rows should be separate one from the other by abouttwenty inches. Here, I'll cut you each a little stick for a measure. Youdon't need to worry about the rows, as Uncle Pennywait marked them justthe right distance apart as he made them."
So after that Hal and Mab measured, with sticks Daddy Blake gave them toget one cabbage plant just as far from the one next to it in the row asDaddy Blake wanted. Then, with a hoe, the children's father covered theroots with dirt and the cabbages were planted, or "set out," as thegardener calls it.
"Now let me take a look at your corn and beans," said Mr. Blake to the twochildren, when the cabbages had been left to grow. "I want to see who hasthe best chance of winning that ten dollar gold prize."
"Hal's corn is very nice," said Mab.
"And so are her beans," added Mab's brother kindly. "I guess maybe she'llget the prize."
"Well, it will be quite a little while before we can tell," spoke DaddyBlake. "Corn and beans will not be gathered until Fall, though we may eatsome of Hal's corn earlier, for he has some rows of the sweet varietywhich can be boiled and gnawed off the ears."
Daddy Blake found a few places in Mab's bean patch where the useless weedsneeded hoeing away, so they would not steal from the brown earth the foodwhich the good plants needed.
"And one or two of your corn hills could be made a little higher, Hal,"said his father. "If you look at the corn stalks you will see, down nearwhere they are in the ground, some little extra roots coming out above theearth. In order that these roots may reach the soil, and take hold, thedirt must be hoed up to them."
Mr. Blake showed the children what he meant, and Mab cried:
"Those roots are just like the ropes we had on our tent when we w
entcamping."
"That's it," said Daddy Blake. "These roots keep the tall corn stalks fromblowing over just as the ropes keep the tent from falling down."
"Oh, look!" cried Mab, as she passed one stalk of corn that was largerthan any of the others. "There's something growing on this that's justlike my doll's hair. I'm going to pull it off."
"No, you mustn't do that," her father said. "That is corn silk."
"Oh, I know what it is," said Hal. "It's brown stuff and sometimes whenyou're eating corn it gets in your mouth and tickles you."
"Corn silk isn't brown until it gets old and dried," said his father. "Atfirst it is a light green, like this. And the silk is really part of thecorn blossom."
"I didn't know corn had a blossom," said Mab.
"Yes," said her father, "it has. Part of the blossom is up top here, onthese things that look like long fingers sticking out," and he pointed tothe upper part of the stalk. "On these fingers grows a sort of fine dust,called pollen, and unless this falls down from the top of the corn stalk,and rests on the silk which grows out from the ear, there would be no morecorn seed. Or, if corn seed, or kernels, did form on the ear, they wouldbe lifeless, and when planted next year no corn would grow from them. Thepollen dust and the silk must mingle together to make perfect ears ofcorn, so don't pull off the silk, even if you do want to make it into hairfor your doll."
Mab promised she would not, though she loved the feel of the soft cornsilk. Then she and Hal noticed where some of the light yellow pollen hadalready been blown by the wind down on the silk to help make the perfectear of corn.
As the children walked along through the garden with Daddy Blake theyheard voices over the fence where Mr. Porter lived. Then they heard Sammiecalling:
"Oh, Daddy! Look what I got! It's a big green bug, an' Roly-Poly isbarkin' at him! Come quick!"
"I hope Roly-Poly isn't making any more trouble as he did with the flypaper," said Mr. Blake as he walked toward the fence.