Hazel Hutchins Wilson

“ Bullfinch's, get the money from the grandfather clock, and go pay the bill. Thinking of the candy that would then be presented to him made Jerry grin.
"You're looking mighty pleased with yourself this morning, Jerry," said his mother, passing him the bacon.
"Who? Me? It's Cathy who's the big shot today. Hi, Queenie! You feeling squeamy?" he teased his sister. "Won't you look like something—all dressed up like a circus horse, with a tinfoil crown on your head? Yes, your majesty. No, your majesty. After this you'll expect everybody to bow down to you. Not me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bullfinch's, Jerry had learned that it paid to be accurate.
"Bananas, coffee, and some silver," said Mr. Martin.
With difficulty Jerry's mind came back to geography. But he had forgotten which question he had asked his father. "Is that the answer to number four?" he asked.
"If you can't keep your mind on your work I'm not going to help you. Look up your own answers. How can you expect to learn if you don't find out for yourself?" Mr. Martin took the evening paper into the living room.
Cathy, who was sitting at the other end of the dining room table reading, looked up and laughed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jerry saw that the jacket of the book Cathy was reading had a picture of a girl and a boy walking together, with the boy carrying a lot of books. Hers as well as his, Jerry guessed. Catch him carrying a girl's books. "I suppose you have your homework all done," he snarled at Cathy.
"Of course, bird-brain."
"Bird-brain! If I have the brains of a bird you haven't any more than a—than a cockroach," said Jerry, which was the worst he could think of to say just then.
[Pg 96]
[Pg 97]
"Boys aren't supposed to be so rude to girls. You're the limit. The utter, utter limit." ”

“ It's a person's right to charge anything he wants to. And my right to pay cash, since I prefer to do business that way."
"I guess that wasn't a good idea of mine," said Jerry.
"Mr. Bartlett is a little to blame for what you did," said Mr. Martin. "I went to his store and told him in no uncertain terms that I did not think it fair for a storekeeper to reward credit customers and do nothing for even better cash customers." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Martin heartily.
"I'm not sure we could trust Bibsy to let the parrot [Pg 110] alone. You know how it is with birds and cats, Mr. Bullfinch," said Mrs. Martin.
"Say, do you think any cat could get the best of a bird with a beak on him like that?" cried Jerry. "Anyway, Bibsy is good about leaving birds alone. You know she is. Besides, having a parrot who can speak Spanish in the house will teach us a little Spanish. I heard you say that the reason people in the United States are so poor at speaking foreign languages is because they don't start young enough to learn one. ”

“ As soon as lunch period was over, Jerry helped carry chairs from the cafeteria out to the yard, where they were arranged in rows facing the throne. The exercises were to begin at one, but a few parents came before all the chairs were in place.
A phonograph on a table behind a tree furnished music for winding the Maypole. Jerry, standing with his classmates behind the chairs—there were chairs only for the parents—saw that Andy looked very earnest and a little scared. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So now he sat in the big chair and pushed the buttons, roaring with laughter when the right arm of the chair began to massage his stomach.
"You have hardly enough middle to rub," said Mr. Bullfinch. He didn't hurry Jerry. He let him try out the chair for as long as he wanted to.
When Jerry got up out of the chair the paper bag containing all of Mr. Bartlett's change fell from his pocket. The bag broke and the money rolled in all directions.
Mr. Bullfinch helped Jerry pick up the money. Not having another paper bag at hand, Mr. Bullfinch gave Jerry a worn tobacco pouch to put the money in. ”

“ And all that time he would be expected to do good work, good the rest of this term in order to be good in junior high, even better in junior high to be good in high school, and then you had to be a regular whiz on wheels in senior high to be good college material. So much excellence expected of him made Jerry feel tired.
"Guess I'll do the rest of this tomorrow morning before school," he said.
"Finish it now," ordered his father. "You know you never have time to do homework before school." ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this time Jerry and Andy were kneeling on the floor [Pg 109] by the cage. "Pretty Polly. Polly want a cracker?" crooned Andy.
"He's not a she, he's a he," said Jerry.
"Don't put your finger near the cage. He might bite," Mrs. Martin warned Andy.
"He wouldn't bite me. Parrots like me," said Andy.
"Where did you ever get acquainted with a parrot?" asked Cathy, who had come over to admire the big green bird.
"Somewheres."
"You just dreamed you did." Cathy gave her small brother a hug, against which he pretended to struggle. He bumped into the cage and the parrot gave a loud squawk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You'll want to tell the movers where to put the piano."
"It's still in this room. I know it. If I get down it might run up my leg. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
She was pretty heavy for that stool, Jerry thought, expecting one of its legs to crack any minute. She's like Little Miss Muffett, afraid of spiders—only she climbed a stool instead of being frightened away. He glanced down at the broom on the floor where Mrs. Bullfinch had thrown it. A large hairy spider was just crawling out of the broomstraws.
Jerry had never moved more quickly. Three steps and he had brought his foot down hard. ”

“ Jerry raked up the grass clippings before he took the box of raisins in to his mother. "Where's Cathy?" he asked.
"I think she's down looking at TV."
Jerry ran down to the recreation room. The TV had been turned off. Cathy was standing close to Pedro's cage.
"Cathy. Cathy. Cathy," she repeated. "Say Cathy."
Jerry was indignant. While he had been hard at work on the lawn and then running to the store, Cathy had been trying to teach the parrot to say her name. ”

“ Jerry never minded having to stop mowing the lawn. Now if his father had a power mower that would be different. But Jerry's father refused to buy a power mower until he decided that Jerry was old enough to run it. In Jerry's opinion, he was old enough now. He threw down the despised hand lawn mower and started for the store, walking, not taking his bike this time. His mother was in no immediate hurry for the raisins and Jerry was certainly in no hurry to finish mowing the lawn. ”

“ Rage sent Jerry hurrying down his street and out to Massachusetts Avenue. He was so hurt and angry he could hardly see straight. He would run away from home. He would leave Washington. He would go somewhere a long way off. He would go where nobody would be likely to accuse him unjustly of being a thief. He walked rapidly, almost running in his hurry to leave home.
Where should he go? Jerry did not have even the bus fare to go to town, let alone get out of the city. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jerry promised. It wouldn't do at all to have Cathy go to the store. Mr. Bartlett knew her. He might ask her if she wanted the groceries charged before she got the money out to pay for them. And good-by then to Jerry's secret charge account. "You said running errands was my chore," he reminded his mother. "You haven't heard me gripe about having to go to the store, have you?"
"Not recently," his mother acknowledged. "It's something to have you so willing. But why can't you come right home with the groceries? ”

“ Remember reading about that chimp that does finger painting? Her owner sells the pictures. Actually gets real money for them. That's more than old Andy gets for his finger painting," said Jerry.
"Not if I wanted to," said Andy.
Several large oil paintings were carried into the house next door, but they were too far away for Jerry to judge if they had been painted by a chimp. He guessed not. Pictures painted by chimps weren't usually put in heavy gold frames. In went a tall grandfather clock, a full-length mirror with a gold eagle on top, an immense old-fashioned roll-top desk. ”

“ Mummy wouldn't let me if I wanted to."
"Cathy," called her mother from upstairs. "Come set the table for dinner."
Cathy, with one of her movie-queen looks, sailed past Jerry and went upstairs.
"Girls are nuts," Jerry said.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Pedro.
"You are a smart bird," said Jerry and tried in vain to teach the parrot to say "Jerry." Pedro said "Caramba" again and a few Spanish words Jerry did not understand, but that was all.
He certainly was a handsome bird. Jerry looked at him with affection. "Give you time and you'll learn to speak [Pg 119] English," said Jerry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 14] 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. ”

“ This book contains the amazing story of Mary Jo and James Dunham, who lived on Morning Street in Portland, Maine, with their father and mother and small sister Ellen.
You wouldn't expect much out of the ordinary to happen to the Dunhams. They went about their happy life—having birthdays and Halloween parties, going to school and staying after, getting into barrels and the mouths of cannons, quarreling and scolding sometimes, but being fond of each other always underneath—as if it would be that way forever. ”