Jerry brushed off bits of gravel from his Sunday dinner. Red_Jerry's Charge Account

Produced by Greg Weeks, Diane Monico, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

JERRY'S

CHARGE

ACCOUNT

by Hazel Wilson

Jerry Martin asked for it. If the candy in Mr. Bartlett's store hadn't

looked so good to him, he wouldn't have started the charge account and

he would have escaped all that worry and trouble.

The worst thing about it was that it was sort of fun, too. It was fun

keeping his twin sister Cathy guessing, fun trying to keep his secret

from the family, especially his little brother Andy.

So Jerry kept getting deeper and deeper into his predicament, like a

man in quicksand. The plain fact was, Jerry's father didn't approve of

charge accounts, and Jerry wasn't likely to change his mind for him,

candy or no candy. Then, when somebody broke into Mr. Bullfinch's

house next door, the trouble became serious.

There is laughter and suspense, and a hidden lesson in this story of

an impulsive boy and his true-to-life family.

Illustrated by

Charles Geer

_BOOKS BY HAZEL WILSON_

THE SURPRISE OF THEIR LIVES

TALL SHIPS

THE RED DORY

JERRY'S CHARGE ACCOUNT

Jerry's

Charge

Account

[Illustration]

JERRY'S

CHARGE

ACCOUNT

by Hazel Wilson

with illustrations by Charles Geer

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

BOSTON . TORONTO

FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A

REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW TO BE PRINTED IN A

MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 60-5877

FOURTH PRINTING

Published simultaneously in Canada by Little, Brown & Company (Canada)

Limited

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[Transcriber's Note: Project Gutenberg was not able to find a U. S.

This book is affectionately dedicated to

Gregory and Kevin

Contents

1 Charge It, Please 3

2 Change for a Ten-Dollar Bill 18

3 P. T. A. Meeting 29

4 No Safe Hiding Place 44

5 New Neighbors 56

6 "The Stars and Stripes Forever" 66

7 Working on Andy 81

8 The Auction 93

9 As Good as a Watchdog 107

10 May Day 125

11 Welcome Home! 138

Jerry's

Charge

Account

Charge It, Please

Jerry tried to be quiet, but he bumped into the one chair in the

kitchen on his way to the kitchen cupboard. And it was not his fault

that the cream pitcher fell when he took the sugarbowl from the shelf.

Jerry made a quick and nice southpaw catch. Pretty good, he thought,

for a right-hander. He hadn't been able to use his right because it

was holding the sugarbowl. He had dumped the sugar into a cereal dish

and was busily pouring salt into the sugarbowl when his mother entered

the kitchen.

"What on earth are you doing up so early on Saturday?" Mrs. Martin

asked sleepily. "It's only half-past six."

Jerry's blue eyes begged his mother to share a joke with him. "I woke

up and remembered it's April Fools' Day," he said and chuckled. "Can't

you just see Dad's face when he tastes his coffee with two spoonfuls

of salt in it instead of sugar?"

"No, Jerry," said his mother. "No. It wouldn't be at all funny to

spoil your father's morning coffee. It would be tragic. Put the salt

back, rinse out the sugarbowl, and refill it with sugar. And no more

April-fooling with your father's breakfast."

"Aw, I never can have any fun around here," Jerry complained. Salt

spilled on the floor when he poured it from the sugarbowl back into

the spout of the salt box.

"Sweep it up," ordered his mother, and Jerry had to get out the brush

and dustpan.

When he went to the sink to rinse the sugarbowl, Jerry turned on the

hot water so hard that he had to draw his hand back quickly or it

would have been scalded. The sugarbowl fell in the sink and broke.

"Oh, dear! I need cast-iron dishes instead of china if you're to

handle them," scolded Mrs. Martin.

"It just slipped out of my hands. I can mend it. That new glue I

bought last week will mend china, glass, wood--anything. It says so on

the tube."

Jerry looked so sorry for having broken the sugarbowl that his mother

stopped being cross. "It was cracked anyway," she said consolingly.

"Now go get dressed. As long as you're up you may as well stay up.

Maybe I can get a little work out of you since you've got such an

early start on the day."

Jerry groaned. What a dreary word--work! Just hearing it made him feel

tired.

"I'll have pancakes ready in fifteen minutes," said his mother

brightly. "With real maple syrup," she added.

Jerry could tell that she was tempting his appetite so he would not be

tempted to go back to bed again. He did not mind. He was wide awake.

It would be a novelty to have breakfast so early on a Saturday. Almost

an April Fool joke on his mother.

"And to think that last Saturday I could hardly get you out of bed at

ten," said his mother as he left the kitchen.

At a little before nine Jerry had a broom in his hand. His orders were

to sweep off the front steps. He went at it in a very leisurely

manner. The sooner he finished the sooner his mother might give him

some other chore to do. Even though Laura, the pleasant

three-times-a-week maid, did most of the cleaning, Mrs. Martin

believed her children should have a few household chores. Cathy,

Jerry's twin sister, had to do the breakfast dishes on Saturdays, and

even five-year-old Andy, the youngest member of the Martin family, was

supposed to empty the wastebaskets.

Jerry's lazy broom finished the top step and began on the second. Then

it occurred to him that it had been some time since he had

investigated what was under the steps. He put down his broom while he

knelt and applied one eye to one of the holes bored in the steps. The

hole was big enough so if somebody dropped a dime just right it would

go through. No dimes down there today.

As Jerry got to his feet he looked with approval at the big white

clapboarded house where he lived. The morning sun made the small-paned

windows shine. The Martin house was on the very edge of northwest

Washington, D. C. It had been one of the original farmhouses when

that part of Washington had been country, not city. Now there were

houses all around, and it had been remodeled long before the Martins

had bought it. Jerry's father and mother were proud of the old

floorboards and wide fireplaces. Jerry especially liked the house

because it had an attic and a big garage that had been a barn.

As he picked up his broom again, his twin sister came to the door to

shake a dustcloth. Also, he was sure, to check up on what he was

doing.

"Cathy!" cried Jerry. "There's a great big spider crawling up your

left leg."

Cathy did not let a yip out of her. "You can't April-fool me that

easy," she said in a superior-sounding way that irritated Jerry.

Lately he and his twin often irritated each other. For one thing Cathy

had recently developed an intense interest in how she looked, which

seemed silly to Jerry.

"Better wipe that black off your left cheek," he said, and laughed

when Cathy raised her hand to her cheek. "April Fool! Got you that

time," he exulted.

"Think you're smart, don't you?" grumbled Cathy. "Half the time you

don't even notice it when your face is dirty. To say nothing of your

ears."

Jerry swushed dirt off a step and changed the subject. "Have you

fooled anybody yet this morning?" he asked.

[Illustration]

"Just Andy. I asked him if he knew that Bibsy had grown another head

during the night, and he almost cried when he found I was

April-fooling him. He said he had always wanted a two-headed cat. Then

when I asked him if he had seen the alligator under the dining room

table, he wouldn't look. He just said, 'What's a nalligator?' I told

him it was like Mummy's handbag only much, much bigger, and he wants

to see a real one. Mummy says we must take him to the zoo someday

soon. But I can't remember seeing an alligator there, can you?"

Cathy tossed her head, giving her pony tail a little exercise.

"Too bad you didn't say seal instead of alligator. There _are_ seals

at the zoo. Say, I wouldn't mind going to the zoo this forenoon. Even

if we have to take Andy. Want to?"

"Nope. Mummy's taking me to town to buy a new dress for Easter."

Cathy's eyes were bright with expectation.

It was beyond Jerry why Cathy should be pleased to waste good playing

time in town buying a dress. She didn't used to be that way. She used

to complain bitterly about having to change from blue jeans into a

dress. She still liked wearing jeans, yet there came a shine in her

eyes at even the mention of buying a new dress. Mummy said that

eleven-going-on-twelve was getting to be a young lady. "Rats!" thought

Jerry. It was silly for Cathy to begin to be young-lady-like when she

could throw a baseball just about as well as a boy and sometimes

better.

"Jerry!" called his mother from a front window. "I want you to run to

the store for me. Right away."

"Can't Cathy go?" Jerry really did not mind running (though he usually

walked or rode his bike to the store) but it was a matter of principle

with him to make a try at getting out of work.

"I have other things for Cathy to do," said Mrs. Martin and shut the

window.

There were two steps still unswept but Jerry left them untouched by

his lazy broom. After all, how could he be expected to do two things

at once? He wished, not for the first time, that his mother would do

her grocery shopping at the supermarket, which was far enough away so

she would have to take the car. Instead, she mostly traded at

Bartlett's, a small old-fashioned store three blocks from where the

Martin family lived.

"There aren't many small grocery stores left and since we have one

right in the neighborhood I like to patronize it," Jerry had heard his

mother say. She liked stores where the owner came to wait on you. But

Jerry suspected that one reason she traded at Bartlett's was because

she thought it was good for a boy to run errands.

Going to the store was Jerry's chief chore. "Just because her

grandfather had to chop wood and milk cows before breakfast when he

was a boy, she thinks she should keep _me_ busy," he grumbled to

himself as he went in the house. "Why do I have to go to the store?

Bartlett delivers. Why can't she telephone her order and have it

delivered?"

He knew that the answer to that was more than his mother's desire to

keep him busy. It was partly because she did not like to plan meals

ahead. A brisk cold day might make her feel like having pork chops and

hot applesauce for dinner. Or for a warm day, a platter of cold cuts

and deviled eggs.

"It's just the day for calves' liver and bacon," she might say when

Jerry got home from school in the afternoon. And she would send him to

the store for a pound and a half of fresh calves' liver cut thin, "the

way Mr. Bartlett knows I like it." A meal, his mother thought, should

match her mood or the weather. She kept a few frozen vegetables on

hand in case of need, but she much preferred fresh vegetables, freshly

cut steaks and chops--fresh almost anything which could be bought

fresh.

"I know it's a frozen food age but I still prefer my meat and

vegetables fresh," Mrs. Martin often said. That meant a lot of trips

to the store. Too many, Jerry thought. Especially on Saturdays, when

she needed a lot of things.

His mother was in the kitchen mixing dough for doughnuts. Jerry was

glad she made doughnuts instead of buying bakery ones. How good

doughnuts tasted hot out of the fat! He wished a few of them were done

so he could have two or three to eat on his way to the store.

"Want me to fry 'em for you and then go to the store?" he offered.

"No. I need a carton of sour cream right away for my chocolate cake.

And, let me see--five pounds of Idaho potatoes, two pounds of ground

round steak--I feel like having meat loaf tonight--and two acorn

squash, an avocado, a dozen oranges, and one loaf of white bread and

one of whole wheat. Oh, and I've already telephoned and told Mr.

Bartlett that you would be in to pick up a leg of lamb. He has spring

lamb just in. You'll have to take your cart. There'll be too much for

you to carry in your bicycle basket."

Jerry had felt lately that he was too old to be dragging home a cart

filled with groceries. "How long will it be before Andy can take that

old cart to the store? He can have it to keep any old time he'll take

it to the store after groceries."

"You've only had it a year. Said you would be sure to use it for

years. And you know Andy isn't nearly old enough to take a big cart

out of the yard. Now run along. And don't stop to play on the way

home."

Jerry got his cart out of the garage. The wheels squeaked but that

didn't bother him. He met a couple of boys in his grade at school on

his way to the store and arranged for baseball later.

Bartlett's store was on a street zoned only for houses, yet because

the store had been there before the zoning law was passed it had been

allowed to remain. The present proprietor was the third generation of

Bartletts who had sold groceries there. He was a stout, pink-faced

man, quite bald in front. Jerry said that Mr. Bartlett's forehead

went way to the back of his head. When Jerry went in the store, Mr.

Bartlett was waiting on a tall woman with a blue scarf over her head,

and Bill, the clerk who put up orders, was tossing groceries into

cartons, each carton for a customer.

Jerry had to wait while the woman with the blue scarf decided what she

would have for Sunday dinner. It seemed to take her a long time to

make up her mind. After trying without much success to engage Bill in

conversation, Jerry stood in front of the candy showcase next to the

cash register and wished he had money with him besides the ten-dollar

bill his mother had given him to pay for the groceries.

My, but the candy looked yummy! There were glass trays of round mints,

pink, white, green, and yellow. And caramels, chocolate-covered nuts,

coconut bonbons, chocolate nougats--nothing there Jerry didn't like.

He looked at the candy yearningly.

Now the lady had decided on a sirloin steak, thank goodness. Another

customer came in but Jerry would be next to be waited on. He would

speak right up and say he was next if Mr. Bartlett started to wait on

somebody else first, he decided.

The lady wearing the blue scarf reached into her handbag and got out

her billfold. "I want to pay my March grocery bill," she said. She

stood beside Jerry near the cash register while Mr. Bartlett was

behind the counter giving her change.

"Don't go off without your little bonus," said Mr. Bartlett. "My daddy

and my granddaddy before him always gave folks a little bonus when

they paid their bills."

Jerry saw Mr. Bartlett get out a half-pound pasteboard box. Saw him

reach in the showcase and bring out enough candy to fill two rows in

the box. Jerry had heard that Mr. Bartlett gave candy to charge

customers when they paid their bills, but he had never before been in

the store and seen it happen. The sight saddened him. For he knew that

never for him would Mr. Bartlett fill a half-pound box of candy as a

gift. The Martin family never charged groceries. They never charged

anything. Mr. Martin believed in paying cash for everything. Even for

a new car. He was funny that way. Jerry had never much minded until

this minute when he saw a charge customer rewarded for being a charge

customer.

"Wish we had a charge account. I wouldn't have to worry about losing

money on the way home, if we did," thought Jerry, remembering the

tendency of loose change to fall out of his pocket when he jumped over

hedges. "Besides, Mr. Bartlett must want people to have charge

accounts or he wouldn't give them a bonus when they pay their bills.

Stands to reason. He likes to have folks charge their groceries

instead of paying cash, so a charge account must be a good thing. Wish

my father thought so. If he were here and saw Mr. Bartlett hand over

that free candy, he'd be bound to see it pays to charge your

groceries."

"Now, young man, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Bartlett. Jerry had

been thinking so hard about the advantages of having a charge account

that he had hard work remembering what his mother had sent him to the

store for. But he managed to recollect all but the avocado. Jerry

didn't like avocados so it was easy for him to forget that. It was

while Mr. Bartlett was counting out a dozen oranges that Jerry had

what he considered a very bright idea. There was a way he could

convince his father that Bartlett's store was the one place where it

didn't pay to pay cash.

"It won't be dishonest," Jerry argued to himself. "I won't be getting

a cent out of it. Only a box of candy at the end of the month. And if

we eat an awful lot and the bill is nice and big for April, maybe Mr.

Bartlett will give me a pound box of candy instead of a half pound."

The plan that had popped into Jerry's mind was this--he would not pay

for groceries for the month of April but charge them. He would keep in

a safe place the money his mother gave him to pay for them. And the

first day of May he would come in with it and pay the bill and be

given a box of candy.

"When I take the candy home and pass the box to Dad, he'll see it's a

good thing to charge our groceries," thought Jerry. The scene was so

vivid in his mind that he could almost see his father taking a

chocolate-covered almond.

"I said that will be eight dollars and twenty-one cents," said Mr.

Bartlett, a bit impatiently.

Jerry reached in his pocket and got out his mother's coin purse. He

preferred carrying money loose in his pocket but she had said he could

risk losing his own money that way, not hers. It was while he was

opening the purse that he suddenly decided to try out his bright idea.

"Charge it, please," he said huskily.

"You folks opening a charge account?" asked Mr. Bartlett.

"Isn't that all right with you?"

"Sure. Sure. You've been trading with me for years. And your father's

credit is good as gold, which is more than I can say for some." Mr.

Bartlett made out a slip, which he put in the bag of groceries.

"He knows me and can tell I'm honest," thought Jerry happily, as he

put the heavy bag of groceries in his cart. The grocery slip he took

out of the bag and put in his pocket. "I must remember to save all the

slips," he thought.

[Illustration]

Jerry was almost home when he remembered that his ten-dollar bill was

still unbroken. And that he had to have change to give his mother

before he could put the eight dollars and twenty-one cents the

groceries cost in a safe hiding place. It was Mr. Bartlett's money,

Jerry thought. Jerry would just be keeping the money for him until a

month was up.

Jerry was reluctant to go back to Bartlett's store and ask to have his

bill changed. He was sure Mr. Bartlett would think it odd, after he

had charged the groceries.

"I'll have to walk way down to the shopping center," thought Jerry.

Thinking about all the streets he would have to cross, with the

trouble of getting the heavy cart up and down the curbs, Jerry was not

so sure that starting a charge account had been such a good idea after

all. He had a feeling that in a way he might have played sort of an

April Fool joke on himself. But it was too late now to undo what he

had done. He would feel like a ninny going back and telling Mr.

Bartlett that he had decided to pay cash, that he had changed his mind

about opening a charge account for the Martin family.

"I'll get my bill changed at the A & P," Jerry decided. And went so

fast in that direction that the bag holding the potatoes fell out of

the cart and broke and Jerry lost two of them down a sewer. After that

he went more slowly, though he found it hard to make the heavy cart go

downhill slowly. It made his arms ache holding it back.

Change for a Ten-Dollar Bill

Having to drag a heavy cart with a big bag of groceries in it nearly a

mile to the shopping center became considerable of a chore even before

Jerry was halfway there.

"Lemme see," he thought as he bumped the cart down a curb. "I know I

have to put away eight dollars and twenty-one cents for Mr. Bartlett.

How much is that from ten dollars? That's the right change for Mummy."

Jerry had a pained look on his face as he tried to do the subtraction

in his head. He was never any good in mental arithmetic. Give him a

pencil in his hand and he could do pretty well at figuring. But his

mind seemed to go blank when he had to carry and all that in his head.

He reached in all his pockets but did not have a pencil. And he knew

he had to ask for the right change.

Just then Jerry saw Carl Weston coming up the street. He was a

classmate of Jerry's in the sixth grade. He wore thick-lensed glasses

and was quite a brain. He'd be almost sure to have a pencil or a

ballpoint pen. But Jerry asked him and he didn't, so Jerry gave him a

line about being a whiz at arithmetic and said he bet Carl could say

right off how much money you'd have left if you subtracted eight

dollars and twenty-one cents from ten dollars.

For a few seconds Jerry saw a human adding-machine at work. Then Carl

said, "One dollar and seventy-nine cents, of course." He didn't add

"Stupid," but he looked as if that were what he was thinking. Jerry

didn't care. He knew a lot of important things Carl didn't know, such

as baseball averages and who were the home-run kings for the past five

years.

"Thanks, Carl. See you." And Jerry hurried off before Carl could ask

just why he wanted to know the answer to that particular sum in

subtraction. "One dollar and seventy-nine cents," Jerry kept saying to

himself so he wouldn't forget.

There were long lines of shoppers at the checking-out counters at the

A & P. Jerry had left his cart outside the store, thinking it not

tactful to bring in a big bag of groceries he had bought in another

store. He took his place in what he thought was the shortest line.

Some woman had forgotten to have her bag of bananas weighed and that

held up the line. The next woman wanted to cash a check and that had

to be okayed by the manager. Jerry fidgeted. He saw that the woman

ahead of the woman ahead of him had a cart so piled with groceries

that she must be feeding a boardinghouse, or an awfully big family.

It was all of fifteen minutes, but seemed twice as long, before Jerry

reached the clerk behind the counter and asked for change.

"Sorry, but I'm short of change," said the young man behind the

counter.

A wave of discouragement swept over Jerry. Perhaps storekeepers

wouldn't give change to anybody who wasn't buying anything. But he had

to get his ten-dollar bill changed. He didn't have the heart to wait

in another line to see if another clerk might give him change. He went

out. He would have to try another store.

He opened the door of the florist shop and backed out. The woman in

charge there looked just too elegant to approach. At the hardware

store he was told that he could have two fives for a ten if that would

help him. It wouldn't, so Jerry still had his ten-dollar bill

unchanged.

Here was the barbershop. One particular barber usually cut Jerry's

hair. Jerry was glad to find that George was not busy.

"Thought I gave you a haircut less than a week ago," George greeted

him. "Did you come in to get your head shaved? Be cooler, warm weather

coming on."

Jerry explained that he was satisfied with the state of his crew cut.

Rather timidly he asked to have his ten-dollar bill changed, told the

exact change he had to have.

"Guess I can oblige you, but Saturday's a bad day for change, with the

banks closed all day," said George. He went to the cash register and

counted out the change Jerry needed.

"Thank _you_," said Jerry with great heartiness.

Now to get home in a hurry. He went out to get his cart, which he had

left outside the barbershop. A big red setter dog was pawing the bag

of groceries. "Red! Get away from there!" Jerry yelled. With horror he

saw that the dog had the leg of lamb in his strong jaws.

"Drop that, Red!" shouted Jerry. He ran and grabbed the other end of

the leg of lamb and tried to get it away from the dog.

Red was a good-natured animal who often seemed to forget he was a dog,

he so much wanted to be one of the boys. He especially enjoyed taking

part in baseball games. He ran bases and barked as loud as any of the

players could shout. Last Saturday Jerry might have made a home run if

Red had not dashed in front of him so Jerry fell over him. Now Red

thought a tug of war with a leg of lamb was a fine game.

Jerry pulled. The red setter braced his legs and pulled.

"You mean dog! Leggo! Leggo!" screamed Jerry.

The desperation in his voice finally had an effect on Red's tender

heart. He let go of his end of the leg of lamb so suddenly that Jerry

sat down hard. The leg of lamb fell in the dirt.

[Illustration]

Jerry brushed off bits of gravel from his Sunday dinner. Red's teeth

marks didn't show unless you looked very closely. Jerry wrapped the

leg of lamb in the torn paper bag. It was a lucky thing he had come

out of the barbershop before Red had run off with it. "That dog is

getting to be a nuisance," he thought. But he really liked Red and had

often wished he were one of the Martin family instead of belonging to

a neighbor.

It was uphill most of the way home. Jerry got pretty tired of pulling

his heavy cart. He wished he could think up a way of motorizing it,

fix it up like sort of a four-wheeled motor scooter. Maybe put an

engine on the back like an outboard motor. Such speculations helped

pass the time, but he was tired before he got home.

It was disappointing to find that the doughnuts had been fried and put

away. And Mrs. Martin, dressed for town, scolded Jerry soundly for

being over an hour going to the store.

"I had to postpone making my cake," she said sharply, "for if Cathy

and I are to get any shopping done and get back in time for lunch, we

have to start. You'll have to look after Andy. Take him with you but

keep an eye on him if you go out with the boys."

"Other boys don't have to have their little brothers tagging along,"

complained Jerry.

"Don't try my patience too far or you won't go out at all."

Jerry saw a look in his mother's eyes that made him wary of making

her any more displeased with him than she already was.

"All right, I'll take him. If Red follows us to the park Andy can play

with him and keep that big nuisance from trying to play ball with us."

Jerry was relieved when his mother unpacked the groceries and did not

notice that anything unusual had happened to the leg of lamb.

"Where's my change?" she asked.

Jerry almost got out Mr. Bartlett's eight dollars and twenty-one

cents. Hastily he switched his hand to another pocket for the one

dollar and seventy-nine cents due his mother. He handed it over, his

eyes downcast. For some reason he did not want to meet his mother's

eye just then. Whenever she looked him straight in the eye, Jerry had

always found it next to impossible to keep anything from her.

"Thank you for going to the store for me. But honestly, Jerry, you're

too old for me to have to tell you every time not to stop and play on

the way home," she said.

Play! So that was what she thought he had been doing. Little did she

know how little like play it was. Jerry had to stifle the impulse to

tell her all he had been through in the past hour and a half.

"Saturday's a busy time at the grocery stores," he said.

His mother let that pass for an excuse. She was in a hurry to be off.

And Jerry could tell that his twin sister was pleased with his being

stuck with looking after Andy while she was off admiring herself in

store mirrors.

"Don't let Andy lose his windbreaker," she warned in an almost grownup

manner. Trying to button her jacket and hold on to her red patent

leather handbag at the same time, she dropped the bag and its contents

spilled on the floor.

With horror Jerry saw that Cathy had been carrying a lipstick of shiny

gold-colored metal. "Don't tell me you've taken to using lipstick! You

trying to look like a clown?"

"It's just from the dime store. To use if my lips get chapped. Take

your foot off that, Jerry Martin. Oh, you've bent it," she cried.

"Want me to wipe away your tears?" taunted Jerry. That was his latest

favorite remark. He said it whether it was appropriate or not, liking

the sound of it and the reaction it drew from family and playmates.

Now Cathy tossed her head and glared at him.

"I _was_ sorry that Andy broke your model satellite but now I'm not."

"Who cares?"

"Make Jerry stop being so aggravating," Cathy begged her mother.

"Come on. We haven't time to try to reform your brother this morning.

Be a good boy, Andy. Mind Jerry. Don't let your little brother out of

your sight, Jerry."

Jerry was relieved when his mother and sister had gone. It gave him a

chance to find a good hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's eight dollars

and twenty-one cents. Somewhere up attic would be the best place, he

decided.

"You play with your blocks. I have to go up attic for a minute," Jerry

told Andy.

"I'll go with you."

"No, you don't."

It took several minutes to get Andy so interested in his toys that he

consented to be left while Jerry went up attic. Then he dashed up two

flights of stairs. Now where should he hide the money? In the drawer

of that old chest? No, his mother was forever cleaning out drawers. In

one of the garment bags in which were hung out-of-season clothes? That

might do. He would need the hiding place only for the month of

April--before warm weather. Because it was a cool day it seemed to

Jerry that it would be ages before anybody needed summer clothes. He

put Mr. Bartlett's money in one of his mother's shoes, a white one he

found in the bottom of one of the garment bags.

[Illustration]

Jerry felt that he had been engaged in quite an enterprise. "And I've

not gone to all this work just for myself," he argued in his mind as

he zipped up the garment bag. "I'm doing it for the whole family. For

I'm not going to hog the candy for myself. Course I may help myself to

a piece or two when I get it. No, I'll bring the whole box home and

pass it around," he decided generously. "And if Dad is convinced, and

that box of free candy should convince him that it _is_ a good thing

to charge groceries at Bartlett's, we'll go on charging them. Every

month. At the end of a year I bet we'll have gotten more than five

pounds of free candy. Oh, boy!"

Small footsteps sounded and there was Andy.

"Downstairs was lonesome," he said plaintively.

"Okay, I'm all through with what I was doing up here. I'll get my bat

and ball and we'll go out."

"I'll play ball with you."

"Tell you what you can do, Andy. I'll let you hold my catcher's mitt

when I'm not using it. And I'll throw you a few easy ones. You're old

enough to begin to learn to play baseball."

Andy looked so pleased that Jerry's heart warmed to him. He decided

that when Mr. Bartlett presented that box of candy, Andy should have

the first pick.

"He can have his choice of any piece in the box," thought Jerry

benevolently. And waited quite patiently while Andy came down the

stairs slowly all the way like a grownup and not two feet on the same

step like a baby. Sometimes Jerry did not mind having Andy tag along

as much as he made out.

P. T. A. Meeting

"Why did it have to be pleasant all week and then rain on Saturday?"

thought Jerry unhappily the following Saturday. He watched the rain

slant against the front windows for a while and then picked up the

morning paper to reread the comics. "April showers may bring May

flowers, but it's tough on baseball," he said to himself.

Andy came in the living room. He had a much folded and unfolded sheet

of paper in his hand. "Help me learn my piece, will you, Jerry? I can

read pictures but not hard words. But I know most of my piece. Cathy

teached me."

Andy was to make his first public appearance at the P. T. A. meeting

Monday evening. His kindergarten class was to perform a short play

about Goldilocks and the three bears. Once a year the Oakhurst

elementary school put on a program by the pupils for the parents. This

year Cathy was to sing in a girls' chorus and Jerry, one of a rhythm

band, was to shake bells during the playing of "The Stars and Stripes

Forever" by John Philip Sousa. Andy had an important part on the

program. He was to speak a poem to introduce the play about

Goldilocks. Miss Prouty, his teacher, called it the prologue. Andy

called it his log piece.

Jerry took the grimy piece of paper. "Let's hear it," he told Andy.

"Shoot."

Andy stood with his legs far apart, his head tilted upward as if he

were reading his "piece" from the ceiling. His usually merry face

looked solemn, his dark eyes worried. Hardly above a whisper he

recited:

We welcome you, dear parents,

And hope you'll like our play.

'Twas written by Miss Prouty's class

Just for the P. T. A.

"How could your class write a play when you don't even know how to

write?" asked Jerry.

"I can print all my name," said Andy in his normal voice. "Miss Prouty

says that part of writing is thinking and saying. So she read

'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' to us three times. Then our class

said it to her and she wrote it down. But she wrote my log piece by

herself."

"You'd better say the first verse again and a lot louder," Jerry

suggested. "Nobody will hear you if you don't speak good and loud."

So Andy said the first verse again good and loud. He made the phrase

"Just for the P. T. A." sound like a football yell.

"Good! That ought to wow 'em. Now say the next verse."

Again Andy's eyes sought the ceiling.

You may have heard the story

Of this girl with golden hair,

Who lost her way in a dark wood--

Andy could not remember what came next.

"Belonging to a bear," Jerry prompted. "I don't remember that the

story said anything about Papa Bear owning the woods, but maybe he

did. Go on, Andy."

Andy could not remember any of the last verse, so Jerry read it to him

slowly.

I won't go on with the story,

For our play will now portray

What happened to little Goldilocks

The day she lost her way.

"Say it, Andy," urged Jerry.

Andy pouted. "I don't want to. I hate my log piece," he said fiercely.

"I wanted to be the great big bear. I wanted to say, 'Who's been

eating my porridge?' I can talk the loudest. But Ned Brooks is going

to be the great big bear." Andy's lower lip quivered. He looked ready

to bawl.

"Want to hear some keen poetry?" asked Jerry, hoping to cheer Andy.

Andy showed no sign of wanting to but Jerry did not wait for

encouragement. With a lilt of enjoyment in his voice he said a rhyme

he had learned sometime--he could not remember when or where.

Gene, Gene--had a machine.

Joe, Joe--made it go.

Frank, Frank--turned the crank.

His mother came out and gave him a spank,

And threw him over a sandbank.

The last two lines Jerry said very rapidly, coming out good and strong

on the word _sandbank_.

Like April weather Andy's stormy face turned sunny. "Say it again," he

said delightedly.

Jerry obliged.

"Say it again," Andy begged when Jerry had finished the second time.

"Say, what do you think I am, a phonograph record?" asked Jerry. But

he good-naturedly recited the rhyme a third time.

"I can say it," cried Andy. And he recited the rhyme without

forgetting a word.

"Say, you can learn like a shot when you really want to," said Jerry

admiringly.

"I don't think that's a nice poem to teach to Andy," said Cathy, who

had come in and listened to her small brother.

"I'd like to know why not?" asked Jerry.

"Poetry should be beautiful," said Cathy dreamily. "Like that poem

Miss Kitteridge read us day before yesterday.

"Life has loveliness to sell," quoted Cathy.

[Illustration]

"Blah! That stinks," said Jerry. "But I liked it when Miss Kitteridge

read us 'Casey at the Bat.' That's _good_ poetry."

"Not as good as poetry by Sara Teasdale."

"It is, too."

"It is not."

"There's no law that says that everybody has to like the same kind of

poetry," said Mrs. Martin from the doorway. "You twins don't have to

show dispositions to match the weather. Just because it's unpleasant

you don't need to be. I want you to run to the store, Jerry, and get

two pounds or a little over of haddock. I had intended to have cold

roast beef for dinner but it's such a chilly day I think a good New

England fish chowder will just hit the spot."

"But I went to the store this morning," protested Jerry.

"And you took time enough getting home with them to have grown the

vegetables and slaughtered the meat."

Jerry looked at the floor. "I'll go," he said in a dull voice as if

the burden of life was heavy.

With leaden feet Jerry went out to the garage for his bike. He had a

five-dollar bill in his mother's coin purse and he was worrying about

how he was going to get it changed. Every time his mother had asked

him to go to the store all week Jerry had worried about getting the

right change. This morning had been the worst. He had had to take his

cart again and that had slowed him up. Then when he had walked in the

rain all the long way to the shopping centre, George, the barber, had

not been a bit obliging.

George had been busy when Jerry had come in the barbershop. Nor did he

look up when Jerry spoke to him, giving him a pleasant "Good morning."

Of course Jerry had waited until George was not busy before asking him

for change for a ten. Jerry needed only forty cents to take back to

his mother this time. George had been very reluctant to change Jerry's

bill.

"You're getting to be a nuisance, running in to get bills changed,"

George had complained. But he had given Jerry nine dollars in bills

and a dollar in change for his ten.

Jerry dreaded to have to ask George for change twice the same day. He

had never had to do that before. But where else could he get change?

All the way to the store he worried.

Jerry was the only customer in Bartlett's store. And Mr. Bartlett did

have some nice haddock. Jerry had hoped he would be out of fish but no

such luck.

"Nasty day," said Mr. Bartlett, as he weighed the fish.

Jerry agreed. It seemed to him to be a particularly nasty day. He put

the grocery slip in his pocket and hurried out of the store. Even the

sight of the candy in the showcase had not lifted his spirits. The

half pound of candy he might get when he paid the bill at the end of

the month seemed a small reward for all he was going through to earn

it. "Only three weeks to go," he told himself, putting the package of

fish in his bicycle basket. But three weeks seemed a long time.

Maybe it hadn't been a good idea, this charging business. But it was

no good time to stop now. He would have no candy to present to his

parents to prove the advantage of charging groceries at Bartlett's.

No, having begun, Jerry had to see it through.

"Might as well get killed for a sheep as a lamb," Jerry thought,

riding through a puddle on his way to the shopping center. It was a

remark he had heard his father make, and seemed somehow appropriate.

Jerry had to wait and wait before George would notice him.

"Don't tell me you've come again for change!" George cried. "I won't

give it to you."

"Please, just this one time," Jerry pleaded. "I have to have it.

Honest."

Grumbling, George went to the cash register and changed the bill. Then

he took Jerry firmly by the shoulder. "Out you go and stay out. I

don't want to see hide nor hair of you again until you need your next

haircut. Understand?"

Jerry understood. He realized that getting bills changed at the

barbershop was over.

[Illustration]

Jerry was not his usual buoyant self over the weekend. His mother

thought he might be getting a cold and gave him vitamin pills and made

him drink extra orange juice. She knew something was troubling him but

could not get out of him what it was. Jerry shut a door of

communication between them. He found it lonely, having to be on his

guard against blurting out his secret.

At a little after seven on Monday evening, the whole Martin family

piled in the car to go to the P. T. A. meeting. It was unusual for the

children to go to a P. T. A. but not for Mr. and Mrs. Martin. Jerry

and Cathy insisted that their parents go to the meetings, for a count

was made and the class represented by the most parents got an award.

Now that Andy was in kindergarten both parents stood up when the count

was for Miss Prouty's room. And Mr. and Mrs. Martin stood up to be

counted twice for the sixth grade.

All the Martins but Andy took seats near the front of the auditorium.

He had to go immediately behind scenes on the stage, since the play he

was to be in was to come first on the program. That was in order to

allow the parents of the kindergartners to take them home early if

they so wished.

Andy had looked a bit pale when he left his family.

"I hope he's not so excited he'll throw up," Cathy said worriedly. "He

looks pretty scared."

"Scared? Andy scared? Of course he's not scared," said Jerry stoutly,

though he knew very well that Andy really was scared and was only

defending him.

"Anyway, he knows his piece," said Cathy. "He said it over to me three

times before dinner and didn't make a mistake."

Before the curtain went up, Miss Kurtz, the principal, made a short

speech about giving parents an opportunity to share in the school

activities of their children. She spoke about the importance of

creativity, a long word Jerry did not quite understand, but thought

meant making up things. Then the curtain rose and there was the bears'

house. Only it didn't have any upstairs. Goldilocks wasn't there yet

but the porridge was on the table in a big, a medium, and a tiny bowl.

And here came Andy, walking stiffly to the front of the stage. He

looked very small.

Jerry saw that his father and mother looked anxious, as anxious as

Jerry felt. "Come on, Andy. Say it and get it over with," Jerry

muttered.

"Sh-sh," said Cathy.

The audience looked at Andy and Andy looked at them. Seconds passed.

Andy did not utter a word.

From behind scenes Miss Prouty prompted him.

"We welcome you, dear parents," she said in a voice barely audible to

the audience.

Andy's lips did not move. His face looked frozen in fright. He just

stood there.

Miss Prouty prompted him again. Still Andy did not open his mouth.

Some boy near the back of the hall clapped. That sound seemed to wake

Andy from his trance of fear. He raised his head and gave the audience

a large, beaming smile. Then Andy spoke his piece.

Gene, Gene--had a machine.

Joe, Joe--made it go.

Frank, Frank--turned the crank.

His mother came out and gave him a spank

And threw him over a sandbank.

Andy spoke up nice and loud and then made a bow. Apparently he did not

realize that he had spoken the wrong piece.

The auditorium suddenly rocked with laughter. Miss Prouty shooed Andy

off the stage and apologized for him. Then she spoke the "Dear

parents" poem herself.

Cathy just had time to whisper angrily to Jerry, "It's all your

fault--you taught him that awful rhyme," before Andy came to sit with

his family. He did not seem at all upset and apparently enjoyed the

program, though he yawned a few times before it was over.

Everybody said it had been a good program. In the car going home, Mr.

Martin said he could hear Cathy's voice above the other girls', sweet

as a bird. And Mrs. Martin said that Jerry had rung his bells exactly

on time and very nicely. They carefully avoided mentioning anything

about Andy's piece.

They were just getting out of the car when Andy broke into loud wails

of extreme sorrow.

"I said the wrong piece," he sobbed. "I said the wrong piece and

everybody laughed at me."

"Never you mind, son. Folks enjoy a good laugh," said Mr. Martin.

"There, there!" Andy's mother soothed him. "We all make mistakes. He's

getting a delayed reaction," she told the others. "And it's long past

his bedtime."

Jerry really felt sorry for Andy. "Tell you what, Andy, I promise I'll

take you to the zoo next Saturday. You'll like that, won't you?"

"I don't want to see the loud animals. I want to go see the quiet

ones," said Andy, sniffing though his sobs had ceased.

"Okay, I'll take you to the Museum of Natural History," agreed Jerry,

understanding that by "loud" Andy meant alive and by "quiet" he meant

stuffed animals.

"Ned Brooks hollered so loud my ears hurt. He sounded like this.

'Who's been eating _my_ porridge?'" Andy bellowed the words so loud

that his mother put her hands over her ears.

"Sometimes I think I would prefer quiet children," she said.

Andy began speaking for Baby Bear, his voice tiny. He was in high

spirits again. Jerry wished that all his fret and worry about the

charge account and getting change could disappear as easily as Andy's

sorrow. During the P. T. A. meeting Jerry had pushed his worries to

the background of his thoughts. Now he found them right up front

again. The next time his mother sent him to the store, where was he to

go to get change now that George the barber had failed him?

The family drank hot chocolate and ate cookies in the kitchen before

going to bed. The half-melted marshmallows on top gave Andy a white

mustache before his mother wiped his face with a napkin. He got in her

lap and snuggled against her while she sipped her chocolate. When you

were little like Andy you were easily forgiven for almost anything,

Jerry thought, his conscience troubled about the charge account.

Jerry was finishing his second cup of hot chocolate when an easy

solution to the change problem dawned on him. He had made several

trips to the store this week and each time put away Mr. Bartlett's

money in bills and small change. There must be money enough up attic

in that white shoe to change a five and probably a ten. Yes, Jerry was

sure he could change a ten. "I can make my own change," he thought

happily. And suddenly the charge account seemed a good scheme again.

"You look mighty pleased with yourself, Jerry," said his mother.

"I just thought of something."

"What?" asked Cathy.

"I'll tell you sometime," Jerry promised.

"Why does Jerry have to act so darned mysterious lately?" Cathy

complained to her mother.

"A boy has a right to keep a few things to himself," said Mrs. Martin.

Jerry was grateful to his mother for taking his part. "When I get that

candy from Bartlett's," he thought, "I won't forget that I've promised

the first piece to Andy. But my mother will get the next piece."

Jerry thought of his mother reaching in the box for a pink mint and

smiled.

"You're up to something. I can tell it by the way you look," remarked

Cathy.

He would have to be on his guard against Cathy, Jerry realized. Up

till now he had found it almost impossible to keep a secret from his

twin sister.

"Want me to wipe away your tears?" he jibed. It seemed mean to say

something on purpose to make Cathy mad but that would take her mind

off being curious.

No Safe Hiding Place

The next week was not as trying to Jerry as the week before, now that

he was able to make change up attic. Yet it grew increasingly

difficult to dodge Cathy. Time after time she caught up with him

either coming up or going down the attic stairs.

"What are you doing up attic?" she kept asking.

"Nothing," he would say. Or, "Don't you wish you knew?" He even told

her that she would know all there was to know about it in less than a

month, that is, if there were anything to know. This last statement

was the truth, though Cathy did not believe him. She kept hounding

him.

On Saturday, though it was a good day for baseball, Jerry remembered

his promise to take Andy to see the "quiet" animals. Since their

mother did not have time to drive them to town, they took a bus. It

was a short walk from the bus stop to the Museum of Natural History,

one of the buildings of the Smithsonian Institution, but Jerry knew

the way.

Although the Smithsonian had just opened, there were already two big

buses unloading at the front door. _East Liverpool_, the signs on the

buses said. That was in Ohio, Jerry told his small brother. And the

big boys and girls getting out of the buses were doubtless members of

a high school graduating class on a tour of Washington.

"People come from all over the United States to see Washington,

especially this time of year when the cherry blossoms are out," said

Jerry. "Guess they wish they were like us and lived here." It suddenly

seemed pretty nice to Jerry to live in a city so important that it was

visited by people from all parts of the country.

"I'd rather live out West with the cowboys," said Andy. He never would

believe that ever so many people out West were not cowboys or Indians.

Before going to see the stuffed animals Andy wanted to take a look at

his favorite dinosaur. There were other dinosaurs in the exhibit but

Andy always devoted himself to the one nearest the entrance. "Dip," he

called the enormous skeleton, though its full name was _Diplodocus_.

Jerry was interested in reading that the bones of this dinosaur had

been found out in Utah and that it was seventy feet long and twelve

feet high. Andy did not care about details.

"Good old Dip!" said Andy, and gazed at his bony friend with great

satisfaction.

The boys lingered a long time looking at the "quiet" animals. Andy

wished that he could have one of the two bear cubs to take home with

him, now that he was too old to play with Teddy bears. He also

thought it would be fun to learn to ride a tame buffalo.

"You can't tame a buffalo," said Jerry.

"_I_ could," said Andy with complete confidence. "Now I want to see

the Indians."