"Let's see. I have a box of gingerbread mix. And I can make applesauce
while it's baking."
"That will be swell," said Jerry.
"Go find Cathy, will you, Jerry? I wouldn't be surprised if you found
her somewhere with her nose in a book. Tell her to come and peel the
apples for me."
Jerry was glad to get away from his mother just then. It was not hard
to find Cathy. She was on the window seat in the living room. Jerry
could see the book jacket of the book she was reading. It was _Going
Steady_ and had a picture of a boy and a girl gazing fondly at each
other while skating. Cathy was not old enough to go steady--Jerry had
heard his mother say so--and it made Jerry sick that his twin sister
liked to read all that guff about having dates with boys and things
like that. Now a horse story, or a dog story--they were good reading.
So were books about rockets, planets, dinosaurs, Abraham Lincoln, and
ever so many other interesting subjects. Cathy liked to read good
books like that, too, Jerry had to acknowledge, but she also had
developed an interest in books that had falling in love in them, an
interest Jerry not only did not share but despised.
"Lift your big blue eyes from that lousy book," said Jerry in a
mocking voice. "Mummy wants you to come out in the kitchen and peel
apples."
Cathy put down her book reluctantly. Her eyes were dreamy. She sighed.
"I suppose it's a girl's duty to help her mother," she said.
She got to her feet and glided out of the room, walking as nearly as
she could like a movie star whose latest picture she had seen at the
neighborhood theater the previous Saturday afternoon.
Jerry picked up _Going Steady_ and examined the cover more closely. He
threw it down. "Cathy must have rocks in her head to like a book like
that," he thought.
The clock on the living room mantel struck the half hour. Five-thirty.
Jerry had an hour to kill before time for dinner. What was there to
do? A wave of irritation against Cathy swept over him. She ought to be
sharing all this work and worry about the charge account. A year ago
he could have confided in her safely. She could have been counted on
both to keep the secret and to help him. They always stuck together,
he and Cathy, until she had changed. Now half the time she acted as if
she were against him. Look at the way she had snooped around the attic
like a bum detective. If she had found the money she would have very
likely said it was her duty to tell on him. Jerry almost never could
know in advance how she was going to act. Almost he did not like her
any more.
Jerry went down to the recreation room and turned on the television.
"Send two box tops and twenty-five cents and you will receive--"
"Nuts!" cried Jerry, turning it off. He didn't want to listen to kid
stuff. It seemed long ago that he had sent box tops and money away
for secret rings and pasteboard telescopes.
He went to the bookshelves and took down _Black Beauty_. He had read
it before but he didn't mind reading it again. He liked the book
because he felt it showed just how a horse thought. He read until he
was called to dinner.
Two days later Jerry ran into real trouble. It was nearly six and he
had just come home from playing ball, when his mother said he had
barely time to run to the store for a pound of cheddar cheese before
the store closed. And the smallest she had was a five-dollar bill.
Jerry took his bike and determined to get back in a hurry. No stopping
to listen to a record this time, even if Mr. Bullfinch had bought some
new old ones Jerry would like to hear.
Not more than ten minutes after leaving the house, Jerry was ringing
the Bullfinch doorbell. He would rush in, get his change, and be home
in a jiffy. But nobody answered the bell. Jerry rang again, with his
finger pressed on the bell hard. He could hear the bell ring inside.
Still nobody came to the door.
"But they're always home this time of day," Jerry worried. He decided
it was no use to keep on ringing the bell. "They should have told me
they weren't going to be home," he thought, yet he really knew there
was no reason why they should. But he had to get in to change his
five-dollar bill. He just had to.
"They'll probably be here any minute now," Jerry tried to reassure
himself. "It's past time for Mrs. Bullfinch to be getting dinner." But
what if the Bullfinches had been invited out to dinner? Jerry groaned
at the thought. What could he do?
"I have to get in." That was the thought that kept repeating itself in
his mind, the thought that sent him around the house testing every
window he could reach to see if he could find one unlocked. "They told
me to come in any time, didn't they?" Jerry argued with himself.
At last Jerry found a cellar window unlocked. He pushed and it swung
in over an empty coalbin. The Bullfinches had an oil furnace but Jerry
could see by the coal dust that there had once been coal in that bin.
"I'll be bound to get my pants dirty but I guess it will brush off."
Jerry was half in and half out of the window before he realized that
he could not go on with it. He could not make himself break in the
Bullfinch house. He needed to get in. He kept telling himself that
probably the Bullfinches would not mind a bit, yet he still couldn't
bring himself to going in a neighbor's house like a burglar.
"Don't be a sissy. What are you scared of? Nobody's going to find out.
And if they did. I'm not going to hurt a thing."
[Illustration]
It was no use. Jerry could not argue himself into even innocent
housebreaking. As he was swinging his legs off the windowsill, he
heard music, familiar music, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." While he
had been fussing and fretting at the cellar window, the Bullfinches
must have come home and Mr. Bullfinch had put on the Sousa record.
Jerry carefully pulled the cellar window shut and ran to the front
door again. Again he pushed the bell. Again he listened. No footsteps
coming toward the door. And the music had stopped. But Jerry had heard
it. He knew he had heard it. Somebody must be there. Then why didn't
somebody come to let him in? Giving up ringing the bell, Jerry
knocked. He even kicked the door. No response to that either. "If
they're there they've decided not to let me in," Jerry reasoned.
"But they like me. They wouldn't do a thing like that. I'll go and see
if their car is in the garage and then I'll know for sure if they're
home. I might not have heard the car come in while I was on the other
side of the house."
Jerry hurried out to the garage. The garage door was open. No car. It
was obvious that the Bullfinches were still not home.
"But I could have sworn I heard somebody inside playing 'The Stars and
Stripes Forever.'" Jerry wondered if he had imagined he had heard the
band music.
"Nobody's home," said a small voice. And there was Andy just outside
the Bullfinch yard.
"Don't you suppose I know it?" barked Jerry.
Andy ran off as a car came up the street and stopped with a screech
of brakes in front of the Bullfinch house. Here were Mr. and Mrs.
Bullfinch home at last.
They were sorry to have kept Jerry waiting for them to get home. Mr.
Bullfinch showed Jerry where he kept an extra key behind the mailbox,
so if Jerry needed to get in again when they were not home, he could.
"It isn't every boy I would trust," said Mr. Bullfinch.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch had been to an auction in Georgetown. They
had bought a pair of hand-wrought andirons shaped like little
lighthouses, but Jerry did not stop to admire them. As soon as he had
changed the five-dollar bill he was off like a shot.
Mrs. Martin had the electric mixer going but she could scold above the
noise. "Now you're home with the cheese too late for me to make cheese
sauce for the broccoli. I'm at the end of my patience. Where on earth
have you been? Why didn't you come straight home from the store?"
"He stops off on his way home to see the Bullfinches," said Cathy,
getting ice cubes out of the refrigerator to put in the water pitcher.
"I've seen him go in."
"Tattletale!" snarled Jerry.
"Just saying where you've seen a person isn't tattling, is it,
Mother?"
"You shoot off your mouth too much," accused Jerry.
"Well, what do you _do_ over at the Bullfinches'?"
"None of your business."
Mrs. Martin shut off the mixer. "I wish you two could be in the same
room without starting a cat and dog fight. Go get Andy out of the
bathroom, Jerry. He came home looking as if he'd been in a coal mine
and I sent him in to take a shower. Help him get dressed in a hurry.
Dinner is about ready to dish up."
Jerry was glad his mother had her mind partly on dinner or she might
have insisted on knowing what he did over at the Bullfinches'. He
sighed. It was all getting too complicated. He certainly would be
thankful when the month of the charge account was over.
The Martins were eating dessert--it was lemon pudding with meringue on
top, one of Jerry's favorite desserts--when the doorbell rang.
"I'll go," said Jerry, pushing back his chair.
It was Mr. Bullfinch at the door. And the way he looked at Jerry made
him feel all shriveled up inside. Mr. Bullfinch looked taller to Jerry
than usual. His gray eyes were like steel. He had the tobacco pouch in
his hand.
"Mrs. Bullfinch and I don't want you to keep this at our house any
longer," he said coldly. "I'm unpleasantly surprised at you, Jerry. I
didn't size you up as a boy who would break into a neighbor's house.
It's not that I mind having you go in. It's the sneaky way you went in
through the cellar window."
"But I didn't--"
"Oh, yes, you did. There was coal dust on the rug in my den. Though
that I might not have noticed if you hadn't broken the record."
"What record? I tell you I didn't break any record."
"I would be willing to overlook it if you'd told me when I got home.
You might have known I would put two and two together. I'm not sure
it's not my duty to report you to the police. I won't this time, for
the sake of your parents if nothing more. And you won't find the key
to the house behind the mailbox. I gave permission to use the key to a
boy I thought I could trust."
Jerry rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes as Mr. Bullfinch
went down the steps and the walk. Never had he felt so unjustly
accused. Nor so helpless about defending himself. Mr. Bullfinch was so
sure Jerry had been in the house and didn't dare say so because of the
broken record. Record! Now Jerry was sure he had not been imagining
hearing music while he had been sitting on the sill of the cellar
window. Somebody _had_ been in there playing "The Stars and Stripes
Forever" on the phonograph. But who? And where had he gone to so
quickly before the Bullfinches got home? It was almost enough to make
Jerry believe in spirits.
On his way back to the dining room, Jerry slipped the tobacco pouch
under the cushion of a big chair in the living room. No time for now
to find a safer hiding place.
"Who was it?" asked Mr. Martin, as Jerry took his place at the table
again.
"Mr. Bullfinch. He returned something I'd left at his house." Jerry's
eyes were on his plate.
"What did you leave over there?"
Count on Cathy to want to know all of his business. "Ask me no
questions and I'll tell you no lies," Jerry told her.
"I can whistle," Andy suddenly boasted. "I can whistle real good. Want
to hear me?"
Without waiting for the wishes of his family to be expressed, Andy
pursed up his lips and whistled. He still was not much of a whistler,
yet from the shrill piping emerged a faint resemblance to a few bars
of "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
A great light dawned on Jerry. Andy at the scene of the crime. Coal
dust on Andy. And now the clincher, his whistling "The Stars and
Stripes Forever." It had been Andy in the Bullfinch house. Jerry was
as sure of it as of the nose on his face. "While I was out looking in
the garage he would have just had time to get out of the house," Jerry
thought. "I'll make him tell. It's not fair for me to be blamed for
something he did. Mr. Bullfinch won't be hard on Andy. He'll think
he's too little to know better."
"I guess we won't have any more whistling at the dinner table," Mr.
Martin reproved Andy gently.
Andy looked as well-scrubbed and innocent as a perfect angel. Or a
nearly perfect angel, Jerry thought. Jerry remembered how Andy would
shut up like a clam about something he knew he should not have done.
"He can be like a can of sardines. You can't get a thing out of him
unless you have a key," thought Jerry. And he wondered how he was
going to pry the truth out of his little brother.
7
Working on Andy
Jerry wanted to shake the truth out of Andy before the little boy's
bedtime. But Andy followed his mother and Cathy to the kitchen after
dinner and conversed with them all the time they were doing the dinner
dishes. He had a long story about how a boy had been so bad that
morning in kindergarten that the teacher made him sit in a chair all
the time the others were playing a hopping and singing game.
"I could have hopped the highest. I'm a good hopper. Not a
grasshopper, just a hopper. Want to see me hop?"
"So it was you who were the bad boy. What did you do that was
naughty?" asked his mother.
"Nothing. I didn't say it was me. Anyway, Tommy Jenks joggled my arm
or I wouldn't have thrown a crayon at him. I didn't mean to hit him in
the eye. Lots of times I throw things and they don't hit anybody."
"And that's the truth," remarked Jerry, who had stalked Andy to the
kitchen. Andy's confession encouraged Jerry. If he owned up so easy
about throwing a crayon, it would be a cinch to get him to acknowledge
that he had been inside the Bullfinch house before dinner. "Come on
up to my room," Jerry invited him. "I've got something to show you."
But it seemed that Andy didn't want to be shown anything just then.
Usually Jerry tried to keep Andy out of his room instead of inviting
him in. "He's not so dumb," thought Jerry.
Andy proved very hard to corner. Jerry could not get him alone until
Andy was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth before going to bed. Then
Andy tried to get rid of him.
"It's not polite to come in the bathroom when somebody's here. Mummy
said so."
"Listen," said Jerry. "You listen to me, Andy Martin."
"What you want?"
"I want you to own up to breaking that record over at the Bullfinch
house."
"What record?" Andy's voice was slightly muffled by toothpaste.
"You know as well as I do. 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.'"
Andy spit in the sink. There was a trace of toothpaste at the left
corner of his mouth. His eyes were innocent. A bit puzzled maybe but
unclouded by guilt. "I can't read the names on records."
"But you were whistling it at dinner."
[Illustration]
Andy hung up his toothbrush. He tried to get past Jerry but Jerry
grabbed him. It was like holding a small wild animal but Jerry held
on. "Nobody's going to be hard on you, Andy. I _know_ you were in the
Bullfinch house playing that record."
"Nobody knows where I am but me," said Andy.
"How did you get all that coal dust on you? You got it crawling in the
window into the Bullfinch coalbin, didn't you?"
"I have a mineral collection that has a piece of coal in it. Some of
the black must have rubbed off on me. That must have been it. I'm a
very dirty boy. Every speck of dirt sticks to me. Mummy said so. She
says I'm as dirty as a pig. Is a pig dirtier than a skunk, Jerry?"
Jerry said he thought that skunks weren't usually dirty.
"Remember that time we were out in the car and Daddy said he smelled
skunk? Phew! It was an awful smell."
"Andy," called his mother from the foot of the stairs. "You get to
bed. Double quick now."
"Jerry won't let me."
"Stop bothering your little brother, Jerry. Come on down. I'm sure you
have homework to do."
Andy slid out of Jerry's hold and ran down the hall. "You can't catch
me," he yelled.
Jerry didn't try. Sometimes Andy was more slippery than an eel, he
thought dolefully. Getting him to confess that he had been in the
Bullfinch house would have to wait till tomorrow.
The next morning Jerry woke up feeling heavy in spirit. He still had
the secret of the charge account on his mind and now there was the
added weight of Mr. Bullfinch's disappointment in him. Jerry had not
realized how much he had valued Mr. Bullfinch's approval until he had
lost it.
"I'll just have to make Andy tell," thought Jerry, as he dressed in a
hurry after his mother had called him twice.
When Jerry came downstairs, his father was just leaving for work.
Jerry heard the front door close. Cathy was alone in the dining room
eating her cereal. She looked so cheerful Jerry could hardly stand it.
"Don't sit down, you might hurt your head," she greeted him.
Ridiculous remarks were popular with the sixth grade right now and she
was trying out one she had heard recently.
"Think that's funny? It stinks."
"I was just trying to be pleasant. Mummy especially asked me to try to
be pleasant to you even when you were aggravating. And you certainly
_are_ aggravating."
"Shut up!"
"Well, you needn't take my head off."
"You might be better-looking if I could."
"Jerry! Cathy!" Mrs. Martin came in from the kitchen with a platter of
scrambled eggs and bacon. "I'm glad your father left before he had to
hear such bickering. He wouldn't stand for it, and neither will I.
Either be civil to each other or don't speak."
"Suits me," said Jerry. "I'll be tickled to death if Cathy stops
ya-ka-ta-yaking."
"He's just awful." Cathy's blue eyes appealed to her mother for
sympathy.
"Want me to wipe away your tears?" jibed her twin brother.
"Eat your bacon and eggs. I trust and hope you'll both feel better
when you've had your breakfast," said their mother. "I don't know
what's gotten into you two lately. Always at each other and you used
to be as close to each other as the two sides of a pair of shears."
"Bet I always had the sharpest edge," mumbled Jerry.
"That's enough from you, young man."
When his mother spoke in that tone of voice, Jerry thought it best to
keep still and tend to what he was doing. He took a large mouthful of
scrambled eggs. They were good scrambled eggs. His mother sure knew
how to fix them.
Mrs. Martin looked at Andy's vacant chair. "Oh, dear, that child's not
down yet. He dawdles so getting dressed."
"He's coming," said Jerry, as they heard a thump that was Andy jumping
down the last two steps of the front stairs.
In came Andy, an imaginary pistol in each hand. "Bang!" he cried,
shooting his mother. "Bang! Bang! You're all dead. Aren't there any
pancakes?"
"Come eat your cereal. I'm keeping your eggs and bacon hot for you
out in the kitchen," said his mother. "Tuck your napkin under your
chin. I don't want you to spill milk on your clean shirt. You should
be thankful you have such a good breakfast. Plenty of children would
be glad to have less."
"I'm not plenty of children. I'm me." Andy looked up and met Jerry's
accusing gaze with a wide smile. Andy never remembered yesterday's
mischief. Each day was brand-new to Andy.
"It will be harder than ever to get him to own up to what he did over
at the Bullfinches'," thought Jerry.
Andy knew the way to school and usually Jerry walked to school with
boys his own age while Andy poked along alone or with one of his
fellow kindergartners. But today when Andy had kissed his mother
good-by and had come out the back door, Jerry was waiting for him.
"I've got to hurry. I don't want to be late," said Andy, whose
lateness had seldom worried him before.
"We've got loads of time. Now, look here, Andy. I'm in a jam and
you're the only one who can help me."
Being talked to as his big brother's equal pleased Andy. "What you
want me to do?"
Jerry described vividly how unjustly Mr. Bullfinch had blamed him for
getting into his house and breaking the Sousa record. "He's awfully
down on me now," said Jerry. "Do you think it's fair for me to be
blamed for something I didn't do?"
"Just tell him somebody else must have done it," suggested Andy.
"I did but he didn't believe me."
"Then he's a bad, bad man."
"It burns me up to be blamed for something I didn't do. You wouldn't
like to be blamed for breaking a window if Tommy Jenks did it, would
you, Andy?"
"Tommy and I can't throw a ball hard enough to break a window."
"I give up," cried Jerry. "I might have known you wouldn't lift a
finger to get me out of trouble. Save your own skin, that's all you
care about. And I was meaning to give you something nice when I get
it," said Jerry, thinking of the candy he would receive from
Bartlett's store.
"What were you going to give me?"
"Never you mind. Whatever it is, you won't get any."
"Please, Jerry."
"Nope."
"I didn't mean to break that old record. It wasn't my fault. It
slipped right out of my hand," remarked Andy.
Jerry breathed a sigh of relief. Andy's resolution not to tell had
begun to give. "I'll go right to the door with you if you'll fess up
to Mr. Bullfinch what you did," he offered.
Andy was not in the mood for an early morning call on Mr. Bullfinch.
It took a lot of persuasion and the gift of two large rubber bands, an
old campaign button, and two feet or so of good string before Andy let
Jerry take him by the hand and lead him to the Bullfinch front door.
"You ring the bell," said Jerry. He knew Andy liked to ring doorbells.
Andy did not care to ring Mr. Bullfinch's bell just then. Jerry
pressed it hard. He hoped Mr. Bullfinch would answer the bell in a
hurry before Andy changed his mind about telling.
"I'll tell him I'll help you pay for the record," said Jerry.
"I don't want to pay money for an old broken record. It's no good,"
said Andy, trying to pull away from Jerry.
Just then Mr. Bullfinch opened the front door. He was wearing a dark
blue bathrobe with a red plaid collar. He looked sleepy and not at all
pleased to see his visitors.
"Did you have to come so early?" he inquired.
"It's almost time for school. Andy has something he wants to tell
you."
"No, I don't," said Andy.
"Come on, Andy, you promised you'd tell."
"I've changed my mind."
"I wish you'd say whatever you came to say and be off. I find small
boys hard to take before I have a cup of coffee," said Mr. Bullfinch.
"I'll give you the first nickel I find rolling uphill. Or downhill
either," Jerry promised Andy. "Go on, tell him." Jerry gave Andy a
gentle poke in the back.
[Illustration]
Andy looked up at Mr. Bullfinch. "You shouldn't leave your cellar
window unlocked. A real burglar might have gotten in instead of me.
And that record must have been cracked. I dropped it very easy,
honest," said Andy in a rush of words. "It wasn't Jerry, it was me,"
he added.
Mr. Bullfinch stopped looking displeased. "Well," he said, not
sounding at all cross with Andy, "I must say I admire a young fellow
who will step right up and confess he's been into a little mischief."
"Little mischief!" thought Jerry. Last night at the door Mr. Bullfinch
had sounded as if he had considered getting into his house a real
crime. Still, Jerry was glad Mr. Bullfinch was not being hard on Andy.
"Good-by," said Andy.
"Just a minute," said Mr. Bullfinch. "When something is broken it has
to be paid for. I think you owe me something for that record, even if
you think it was cracked."
"I'll help pay for it," offered Jerry, without great enthusiasm.
"I'm saving my money to buy a space helmet," said Andy.
"Let's see," mused Mr. Bullfinch. "How are you boys at mowing lawns?"
"Not bad," said Jerry, not remembering that his mother often remarked
that it was like pulling teeth to get him to mow their lawn.
"I can't mow but I can rake real good," said Andy.
"Then if you'll come over after school this afternoon and take care of
my lawn, we'll call it quits," said Mr. Bullfinch. "And I owe you an
apology, Jerry, for misjudging you. Sorry I had the wrong Martin boy
by the ear. I hope you'll bring back that little something you've been
keeping over here."
"I may at that," said Jerry.
Mr. Bullfinch looked at Andy sternly. "It's wrong to go into a house
when nobody's home. Don't you let me hear of your doing that again."
"I won't," promised Andy, giving Mr. Bullfinch one of his beaming
smiles that showed his dimple.
"Come on, Andy, we can't stand here all day or we'll be late for
school. I'll be seeing you," Jerry told Mr. Bullfinch, glad that they
were friends again.
Andy chattered happily on the way to school. Nothing got Andy down,
Jerry thought, envying his carefree little brother. He should be
feeling relieved about getting his guilt off his chest. But Andy had
not seemed at all downhearted before. "Anyway, I got it out of him,"
Jerry thought with satisfaction. Yet Jerry was grateful to Andy. He
had known him to be far more stubborn.