garden.

About a week after this some of Hal's corn ears were large enough to pick
and very delicious they were boiled, and eaten from the cob with salt and
butter on. Mother Blake also cooked some of the lima beans Mab had planted
when she made her garden, and the corn and beans, cooked together, made a
dish called "succotash," which name the Indians gave it many years ago.

"What does the name mean?" asked Hal.

"I can't answer that, for I don't know," replied Daddy Blake.

"I know what it means," said Uncle Pennywait.

"What?" asked Mab.

"It means fine, good, very good," replied her uncle. "Or, if it doesn't,
it ought to. Those Indians knew what was good, all right! I'll have some
more, Mother Blake," and he passed his dish the second time.

One day, when Hal and Mab had finished cutting down some weeds in their
garden plots they saw their father carrying some long boards down to the
lower end of the lot next door.

"Are you going to build a bridge, Daddy?" asked Hal, for there was a
little brook not far away.

"No, I am going to make my celery grow white?" he answered.

"Make celery grow white?" exclaimed Mab. "I thought it grew white, or
light green, all of itself."

"No," replied her father, "it doesn't. If celery were left to grow as it
comes up from seed the stalks would be green, or at least only the hearts,
or the most inside part, would be white.

"To make celery white all over we have to keep the sun from shining on it.
For it is the rays of the sun, together with the juices, or sap, inside
leaves and plants, that makes them green. Celery has to be bleached, and
one way of doing it is to set long boards on each side of the row of
celery plants, fastening them close up, and covering them with straw and
dirt to keep out all the light.

"Some farmers bank up the dirt on both sides of their plants, not using
any boards, but I like the boards because they are clean, and keep the
soil from getting inside the celery stalks. Another way is to put a small
wooden tube, or barrel around each plant so that no sunlight can get to
the sides of the stalk to make them green."

"Isn't it queer," said Mab. "I thought celery always grew white, like we
get it at the table. And so it has to be bleached. If you keep the light
from anything green will it turn white, Daddy?"

"Well, almost anything, like plants. Children turn pale if they do not get
enough sunlight and so does celery. Only we like pale celery but