“Me, too,” agreed Jane. “Mama will be glad we worked while she was away and did not gallivant.”
The Moffats’ backyard was very small. Their front yard was very long. What a vegetable garden they could plant in the front yard, the children thought! But then they would have to dig up all that green grass, and, besides, they had never seen a vegetable garden in anybody’s front yard; only flowers. They’d better begin on the backyard, especially as Mama was away and they could not ask her what she thought. Maybe later she would let them plant the whole front yard, too.
Joey took a stick and marked off a square. There was no grass in this square, just hard dirt, pounded down by children playing games here, especially hopscotch. Then Joey marked the square off into four sections, one each for all four Moffats.
“We’ll dig a space for Sylvie, too,” he said. “Most likely she’d like to plant something, radishes perhaps.”
Sylvie liked radishes. Not Rufus. He liked beans. He was going to plant nothing but beans. The beans were big and he could see them when he stuck them in the ground. He examined Joey’s onion seed to see if that was going to be fun. No, they weren’t any good—tiny little things. What’s the good of onion seeds? thought Rufus. These big white beans of his, one by one . . . He could hardly wait for the digging part of the Victory Gardens to be finished.
“Everybody plant beans,” he urged.
Jane did not want to plant beans. She liked corn better. If Rufus were going to plant only beans, the rest of them should plant other vegetables so they would not have to eat beans all the time. Naturally since corn on the cob was Jane’s favorite vegetable, corn was what she was going to plant.
“Do you know how to plant it?” asked Nancy, as she crawled through the gate in the fence with some extra spades and shovels.
“Yes,” said Jane. “I watched a man in the country plant corn once. He was a real farmer. He planted the corn in little hills. Or, rather, I can’t quite remember whether he planted the corn up in the little hills he made or down in the little holes beside the hills.”
“I should think up in the hills,” said Nancy, “so they’d get the sun.”
“Yeah,” said Jane. “But down in the little valleys the water would collect whenever it rained and keep them nice and wet.”
“That’s so, too,” agreed Nancy.
“Still, I’m not sure,” said Jane. And all the while she and Nancy dug, they discussed the pros and cons of planting the corn down in the little hollows or up on the mounds.
Rufus dug hard. His hands and face were red. He didn’t talk to anybody. He was anxious to get his beans into the ground as rapidly as possible and watch them grow. Joey did not talk much, either. He was figuring in his mind about this backyard. This garden they were planting would use up most of the space. But there would still be room in the old barn for silver foxes if he started to raise them. That ad about silver foxes was still running in Popular Mechanics.
Finally the children finished digging. Joey measured out the little furrows where the seeds should be dropped. He did not measure out Jane’s corn patch. She had to do those special hills and valleys herself. Joey felt like a real surveyor with a piece of string tied to two sticks. He held one and Rufus the other, and they drew a line where each groove for the seeds should be made.
Then Rufus placed his beans, one by one, carefully in his three furrows. The beans were very pretty, standing out white against the dark brown earth. Rufus liked the smell of the earth. He patted it down good and hard over his beans and he left loose dirt in the paths to walk on. Joey said this was wrong. The earth should be scattered loosely over the seeds and patted down hard on the paths. This did not seem natural to Rufus, for it is much pleasanter to walk on soft dirt and one can easily see where the beans lie if the dirt is patted down hard on them. Nevertheless he did as Joey said.
Rufus watched Joey sprinkle onion seed and carrot seed in his space. And he watched Jane and Nancy deliberately stick their corn kernels down in the little valleys where they finally decided to plant them. Next to beans, corns are the best things to plant, thought Rufus, because you can see them good, too.
Finally everybody had all his seeds planted. The children were really tired now. They stuck a shingle at the end of each row and put the empty seed envelopes on them. Now everything was properly labeled and no one would confuse the carrots with the beans. As though that were possible, thought Rufus, who knew he would never forget exactly where his three rows of beans were planted; and he gazed at these fondly.
The children had worked so hard they were certainly hungry now. Nancy ran home to supper and Jane heated the rest of the lentil soup. She and Joey and Rufus ate this and then they went out on the front porch and sat down to wait for Mama and Sylvie.
Every now and then Rufus ran around to the backyard, went straight to his bean patch, and looked to see if any of his beans were up yet. It began to grow dark. The darker it grew, the closer to the earth Rufus had to crouch. He even lay flat on his stomach and examined the earth to see if just one of his beans might not have started to grow. Finally he gently poked his earth-stained forefinger into the soft ground, felt around carefully, and found a bean. He pulled it out, held it between his fingers, rolled it on his palm, and studied it. It looked just the same as when he planted it a little while before. Only its skin looked a little shriveled. Rufus put it back and covered it up and patted down the earth.
“Grow,” he said.
On the front porch Joe said to Jane, “Rufus expects his beans to be up already.”
“I know it,” laughed Jane.
As a matter of fact Jane was having to hug her knees to keep from running around to her corn mounds just to make sure some of that wasn’t beginning to sprout, too. She closed her eyes happily as she envisioned tall corn blowing in the breeze and herself reaching up on tiptoes to pick enough ears for supper. She liked corn so much, golden bantam corn, that as far as she was concerned the family could have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In fact, she wouldn’t mind having a corn week. Last winter one week had been set aside as potato week when everybody was supposed to eat as many potatoes as possible. The Moffats had had potato pancakes often. It was lucky there was never a squash week, for nobody was very fond of that. But corn week! That would be the best of all, thought Jane.
“I better see what Rufus is doin’,” said Jane. “He might be stepping on the seeds.”
“Yeah,” agreed Joe.
Rufus picked himself up when he heard Jane. He said, “Nothin’s up yet.”
“O’ course not,” said Jane.
After Rufus disappeared around the house, Jane stood surveying her corn patch. Had she been right in putting the corn down in the little valleys or should she have planted it up in the hills? She finally bent over, poked her finger around in the dirt until she found a kernel, held it up, and examined it. It did not look any different than it had when she planted it. She stuck it back in the earth and rejoined the others.
“Nothin’s up yet,” she said.
Joey had been thinking about his onions. There was one thing everybody in the Moffats’ house liked very much and that was pot roast and onions. Onions were very important. In fact, Joey was sure a day scarcely ever went by when Mama did not need an onion.
Of course, nothing was up yet, he thought. You could excuse Rufus for thinking things were up because he was so little, but Jane should know better. Onion seeds were so small, Joey thought, that you probably couldn’t even see them now anymore. He wondered if you could. If you could still see them, he wondered what they’d look like—same as they always looked probably.
Janey and Rufus raced down to the corner to watch the trolleys and wait for Mama. While they were gone, Joey sauntered around to the backyard and looked at the garden. This was a good garden they’d planted. Just for the fun of it, why not see what onion seed looked like now? He dug around with his fingers in the onion row. He couldn’t see any seed at all. It was getting pretty dark
now. Perhaps if he had a match . . .
Joey went into the kitchen, found a match, lit it on his corduroy pants, and held it close to the ground. He couldn’t see a trace of the seed. He hoped the ants hadn’t eaten them—if they ate onion seed. Of course the onions hadn’t started to grow yet and neither had Jane’s corn nor Rufus’s beans. Rufus and Jane were crazy to even think anything might have come up!
Joey went into the kitchen again for a drink of water. He found a glass and smelled it, as he always did before drinking. Once he had taken a drink of water out of a glass that had had kerosene oil spilled in it. He wasn’t taking any more chances of drinking water out of glasses that smelled like kerosene. He drank a couple of glasses of water and looked at the clock. Half past seven. He put a little coal in the kitchen range, shook the ashes down, and poked a good draft in the red coals. Then he looked around to see if there were any apples. There weren’t. There were only onions in a brown bag. Joey took out one onion and looked at it. Soon Mama would not have to buy any more onions. They’d have his onions. Then Joey had an idea. He stuck the onion in his pocket and ran out of the house.
“Hey, Rufe . . . Jane!” he yelled. “Come ’ere!”
Rufus and Jane came racing home. “What’s the matter?”
“Hey,” said Joe. “Look at my onion!” He waved the full-grown onion at them.
Jane and Rufus stopped short. What was this, a while onion already? They stared, stunned, not quite believing. If a whole onion had grown, then where were their beans and corn?
“Criminenty!” shouted Rufus with a whoop. “I bet my beans are up!” and he tore around back with Jane and Joe after him.
“That’s not a real onion,” Jane accused Joe.
“’Tis so,” said Joe.
“Didn’t come out of your garden, I bet,” said Jane.
“Where’d it come from then?” countered Joe.
“It’s too big.” Jane felt she might believe a small onion but not this big one. Still, how could she be sure? She joined Rufus, who had flung himself down on his stomach again, looking for a crack in the earth at least, where a bean might be emerging.
“Grow, beans,” he begged.
The backyard was much darker than the front now, for it was hemmed in by apple trees, fences, and the barn. Now they really could not see anymore. With a sigh Rufus stood up. “My beans ain’t up,” he said sadly.
They went into the house with Rufus thoroughly believing in Joey’s onion, though Jane still felt somewhat skeptical. Joey lit the lamps and they all sat around the kitchen table waiting for Mama and Sylvie. Joey took the newspaper, spread it out on the red-checked tablecloth, and started to read the war news. Jane got out her paper and her paints and began to make some paper dolls.
Rufus just sat at the table and thought about his beans. “I’ll have to get beanpoles,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Joey, “we’ll make ’em tomorrow.”
“Maybe it was because we didn’t plant any beanpoles with the beans that my beans didn’t grow like your onion,” said Rufus.
Joey felt sorry for Rufus. He decided he had carried his joke far enough. “Aw,” he said, “I was foolin’ about the onion.”
When Rufus understood the joke, he thought it was a pretty good one. However, he was not absolutely certain it was a joke and he still felt his beans should be up by now. It seemed a long, long time since he had stuck those beans in the dirt. He laid his head on his arm, listened to the crackling of Joey’s newspaper, and smelled the ink of the print.
Beans! He thought of them climbing beanpoles to the sky, or at least as far as the beans in “Jack-the-Giant-Killer.” Beans to keep the Moffats supplied the whole year. Beans for an army. That’s the kind of Victory Garden Rufus had planted and he wanted to see the results.
Rufus grew sleepier and sleepier. The newspaper crackled with a comfortable sound. He wished he could go out and take one last look at his beans. But it was pitch-black now. Catherine-the-cat sat disconsolately in the windowsill, looking out. She knew Mama was away and she did not like this.
Jane cut out paper dolls for a time and then she, too, laid her head on her arm and watched the lamp flicker every time Joey turned a page. Whenever she heard a train, she said, “Maybe they’re on that.”
“Maybe,” said Joe.
Then Rufus really fell asleep. Joey thought of carrying him upstairs to bed. Then he decided not to. He liked Rufus’s company even though he was asleep. Jane didn’t really fall all the way asleep. But she only half heard Joey shovel coal on the stove and shake down the ashes, and she only half heard drops of rain spattering on the window, and Joey murmur, “Now it’s rainin’. Wish they’d come now.” And Jane thought of all the little corn valleys filling up with water and hoped she and Nancy had planted right. . . .
The next thing Jane and Rufus knew, Mama and Sylvie had walked up on the porch, come into the house, and there they were, standing beside the kitchen stove, warming their hands and drying themselves. Jane and Rufus woke right up and Mama made some hot cocoa out of evaporated milk. And while she was making the cocoa she was talking.
“. . . And Tonty is much better and wasn’t it nice of her to send us tickets to come and see her? They came by special delivery.”
Special delivery, thought Rufus. “I got a card once in Room Three. Not special delivery though . . .”
Joey and Jane and Rufus were so excited about seeing Mama and Sylvie home from their travels they forgot about their gardens. Yes, even Rufus forgot about his beans and went to bed.
But the minute Rufus woke up in the morning he remembered. “My beans!” he cried, and rushed out the door before he had eaten his oatmeal. Although the ground was still damp, he flopped down on his stomach and examined his bean plot. The raindrops had stepped all over the garden, leaving tiny holes on planted places and paths alike. It’s lucky we stuck the names of the seeds on those sticks or we wouldn’t know where’s onions and where’s carrots, thought Rufus.
As for him, he knew exactly where his beans were because his plot was at one end of the garden. He put his finger in the wet earth and felt around gently. Where was that bean? Ah, here it was. He lifted it out tenderly and studied it. The bean still looked the way it had yesterday. No, it was possibly a little more shriveled, he thought. But that was the only difference.
Every day thereafter, several times during the day, Rufus flopped down close to the earth and watched for his beans. What he hoped was that he would be right there, watching, when the first bean popped out of the ground.
Mama said to him, “A watched pot never boils.”
“These ain’t pots,” said Rufus. “These are beans.”
And he kept watching. The one bean in particular that he was watching he had taken out of the earth several times now. Today he felt around for it as usual. Now he found it and pulled it out.
“Zowie!” he exclaimed. “What’s this?” The bean had a little sprout growing from it, like a little piece of string. Rufus became very happy. “My bean’s growin’,” he said proudly to Jane.
“Put it back! Put it back!” she screamed. “It’s growin’,” and she dug feverishly for a corn kernel to see if it, too, was growing.
Rufus put his bean back in the soil. He secretly dug up one bean after another to see whether they all had little strings attached to them. Most of them did. He ran to school feeling very encouraged about his Victory Garden. Jane sighed. Her corn! Not a sprout was visible on it, and the kernels had taken on a rather brown old look. Had she planted them right? Valleys or hills? Where was the man named Hogan? If hills were right, perhaps she should take the corn out of the valleys and put them in the mounds. Then she heard Nancy whistle and she dashed through the gate in the fence and joined her best friend.
This was a very warm day and it grew warmer and warmer as the afternoon wore on. In school the windows were flung wide open. The doors were kept open, too, and you could hear children in the different classrooms reciting. Sometimes a teacher r
aised her voice scoldingly. Goodness! It was actually hot! The children began to count how many weeks before vacation. Too many, they thought desperately. It really was terribly hot. It felt like the middle of summer and it was only the beginning of May. Yesterday the buds on the trees could hardly be seen. Today the leaves were out, tiny and green.
None of the children wore their coats home. They slung them over their shoulders and trudged along. Not Rufus. He never trudged. He always ran, even on hot days like this, and particularly ever since he had planted his beans.
He was the first one of the Moffats home and he ran right over to his bean patch. Before he got there he knew it! He knew it! His beans were up! There were crooked cracks in the earth and a split pale green leaf wherever he had planted a bean.
“Mama,” he yelled exultantly, “come ’ere! My beans! My beans are growin’. They’re up! They’re up!”
That’s the way it was. Of all the seeds, Rufus’s beans were the first to sprout. The man who was supposed to say “Plant this way and that way” never did get around to the Moffats’ house. In time Jane decided she must have planted her corn the wrong way. Joey’s onions and carrots came up in even, green rows. Sylvie had planted lettuce and it grew nicely. Janey’s corn finally did come up but it never grew very high. It did look pretty, but the Moffats never got so much as one ear of corn to eat from it. “Hills, not valleys, is the way to plant corn,” she informed Nancy Stokes.
But Rufus’s beans! They grew, all right. They climbed the poles. Lots of daddy longlegs came to live among the vines. And not only did the Moffats have green beans for dinner all summer, they let one row of beans dry on the vines and by winter had a sackful of dried beans.
And they never said, “We’re going to have beans for supper,” or, “Pass the beans, please.” They always said, “We’re going to have Rufus’s beans for supper,” or, “Pass me some Rufus beans, please.” That’s what they always said.
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