But we'll dig ours by hand.
And in digging potatoes you must be careful not to stick your fork, spade
or whatever you use, into the potato tubers, and so cutting them."
"Why can't we do that?" asked Hal.
"Because a potato that is cut, pierced or bruised badly will not keep as
well as one that is sound and good. It rots more quickly, and one rotten
potato in a bin of good ones will cause many others to spoil, just as one
rotten apple in a barrel of sound ones will spoil a great many. So be
careful when you dig your potatoes."
Hal and Mab watched Daddy Blake, and then he let them pull a vine and dig
in the hill after the brown tubers. Out they came tumbling and rolling, as
if glad to get into the light and sunshine. For they had been down under
the dark earth ever since the eyes were planted in the Spring, growing
from tiny potatoes Into large ones.
When Mab dug up her hill of potatoes, after she had picked up all there
were in it, her father saw her carefully looking among the clods of brown
soil.
"What have you lost, Mab?" he asked.
"I was looking for the eye pieces you planted when you made your potato
garden," she answered.
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