"Of course not!" laughed Hal. "Daddy never whips Roly anyhow, except
sometimes to tap him on the nose with his finger when our poodle does
something a little bad. Daddy would never use this big wooden whip,
anyhow."

"The farmer-man said he was bringing it to Daddy to whip my beans," went
on Mab. "I wonder what he means?"

Just then Daddy Blake himself came on the front stoop.

"Ah, so you have brought the flail?" he asked the farmer.

"Yes, and your little boy and girl here were afraid it was to use on their
pet dog!" laughed the farmer, "I guess they never saw a flail before."

"I hardly think they did," said Mr. Blake. "But next year I intend to take
them to a farm where they will learn many more things than I could teach
them from just a garden."

"Daddy, but what is a flail?" asked Mab.

"A flail," said Mr. Blake, "is what the farmers used to use before
threshing machines were invented. And I had Mr. Henderson bring this one
from his farm to thresh out your beans, Mab, as we haven't enough to need
a machine, even if we could get one."

"What does thresh mean?" asked Hal.

"It means to beat, or pound out," his father explained. "You see wheat,
oats, barley, rye and other grains, when they grow on the stalks in the
field, are shut up in a sort of envelope, or husk, just as a letter is
sealed in an envelope. To get out the letter we have to tear or break the
envelope. To get at the good part of grain--the part that is good to
eat--we have to break the outer husk. It is the same way with peas or
beans.

"When they are green we break the pods by hand and get out the peas or
beans, but when they are dried it is easier to put a pile of pods on a
wooden floor and beat them with a stick. This breaks the envelopes, or
pods and the dried peas or beans rattle out. They fall to the bottom, and
when the husks and vines are lifted off, and the dirt sifted out, there
are our beans or peas, ready to eat after being cooked.

"The stick with which the beating is done is called a flail. One part is
the handle, and the other part, which is fastened to the handle by a
leather string, is called a swingle, or swiple, because it swings through
the air, and beats down on the bean or pea pods.

"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 ke