Chapter 3

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."

The boys looked at displays of Indians doing a snake dance, Indians weaving baskets, grinding corn, weaving rugs, playing games--or just standing, being Indians.

"Where did they find so many Indians to stuff?" asked Andy.

Jerry barely stopped himself from giving a loud ha-ha. He decided not to laugh at his little brother. After seeing so many stuffed animals it was a natural thing for Andy to think the Indians were also stuffed. They certainly looked real.

"They don't stuff people," Jerry explained kindly. "The Indians are sort of statues, only some of them have more clothes on."

Andy seemed a bit disappointed that they were not real Indians.

After a quick trip upstairs to see an enormous whale, Jerry and Andy were through with the museum. Having had nothing to eat since breakfast, they were naturally half-starved, so, although it was now only eleven-thirty, they decided to have lunch. Their mother had given them lunch money. There was no lunchroom near the museum. They had to walk way up to Pennsylvania Avenue before they found a cafeteria. Then they had a satisfying lunch of hamburgers, milk, lemon pie, and chocolate layer cake.

Being downtown gave both boys a sort of holiday feeling and they were in no hurry to go home. For Jerry it was a reprieve from his worry about the charge account, which by now had become a burden. Once having picked it up, he had to go on carrying it. Here in town with Andy, the weight seemed less heavy.

"While we're so near, we may as well go take a look at the cherry blossoms," suggested Jerry.

Andy did not much care about flowers he was not allowed to pick but he let himself be persuaded. On their way to the Tidal Basin, where the cherry blossoms were, they were not far from the Washington Monument, with its circle of flags blowing in the breeze. Andy teased to go up in the Monument but Jerry said there were too many people waiting in line.

"We'll do it some other time," he promised.

It pleased Andy that he was doing something with Jerry again. He took big steps to match Jerry's.

Near the Tidal Basin there were people taking pictures of each other under the flowering trees. Along the path close to the water, men, women, and young people were walking. There, the cherry trees bent over the basin to see themselves reflected in the quiet depths.

Andy sniffed the air. "Smells nice," he said.

Jerry could understand why so many people came to Washington to see the cherry blossoms. "They're really something," he said.

"The pinky trees look like strawberry ice cream cones," said Andy, which for him was high praise. Strawberry was his favorite ice cream.

It was nearly four before Jerry and Andy got home. The house next door to theirs had been vacant so long that they were surprised to see a moving van in front of it.

"Well, what do you know? Somebody must have bought the house. Wonder what they'll be like," mused Jerry.

They stood and watched the movers take in a long green sofa, a table, and several cartons.

"I want something to eat," said Andy.

So did Jerry. It was a long time since lunch. "What can we have to eat?" he called to his mother just as soon as he was in the back door. He and Andy went looking for their mother and found her sitting by a window in the living room, which overlooked the house next door. She was watching the moving.

"We saw all the quiet animals and Dip and the pretend Indians," Andy informed his mother. "I'm hungry."

"You can have cookies and a glass of milk but don't touch the cake. That's for dessert tonight."

"Where's Cathy?" Jerry thought to ask.

"Seems as if she said something about looking for something up attic," said Mrs. Martin.

Jerry forgot his hunger. It seemed to him a sneaky thing for Cathy to do, to go searching the attic while he was out of the house. Had she found Mr. Bartlett's money? If she had she would have been downstairs with it. But any second she might find it. Jerry rushed for the stairs.

Breathless, he arrived at the top of the second flight.

The attic was unfinished--low under the two gables. Against one of the high walls hung a row of garment bags. Mr. Bartlett's money was in the third one. Jerry tried to keep from looking at it. Cathy was smart enough to watch where he was looking. She was busy tossing stuff out of the bottom drawer of an old chest of drawers.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jerry asked her.

"Mummy's going to house-clean up here Monday. I'm helping by clearing out drawers."

"You mean you're snooping around to see what you can find."

Cathy stopped pawing in the drawer. "So you _are_ hiding something up here. I knew it. I knew it."

Too late Jerry realized he had said too much. He had made Cathy more suspicious of him than ever.

Cathy picked the stuff up off the floor--it was mostly cloth saved for mending and for rags--and crammed it in the drawer, shutting it crookedly. She blinked her blue eyes at Jerry. "Tell me what you're hiding up here. Cross my heart I won't tell on you."

It irritated Jerry to have Cathy blink her eyes at him.

"Whatever gave you the idea I was hiding anything up here or anywhere?"

"I'd tell you if I had something to hide."

"Yeah! You would not."

"I would, too. You're mean. You're the meanest boy I ever knew."

"I'd a darn sight rather be mean than snoopy. You're just a sneaky snooper, that's what you are."

"I hate you."

"See if I care."

Cathy's eyes blazed with blue fire. Then Jerry was surprised to see them fill with tears. She got to her feet and rushed toward the stairs.

"Want me to wipe away your tears?" called Jerry, as she clattered down the stairs. The instant the words were out, he was a little ashamed of them. He had not meant to make her cry. Why did she have to cry so easy? She hadn't used to.

Jerry couldn't figure out what had gotten into Cathy lately. All this caring about how she looked. All this fussing about clothes. And the way she blinked her eyes at boys. It was enough to make a person sick. Less than a year ago he had heard Cathy say that girls who used powder and lipstick were dopes. Now she herself was carrying a lipstick in her handbag. Jerry guessed she had not sunk so low she used eye makeup but he wouldn't put it past her almost any time. Not long ago he and Cathy had liked to do the same things, liked the same things. Now they didn't even agree about movies. Cathy actually didn't mind love in a picture. She even liked pictures in which the hero kissed a girl, and Jerry could hardly bear to see a cowboy kiss a horse. Jerry missed the Cathy he used to know. The way she was now made him mad.

One thing was sure. The attic was no longer a safe place for Mr. Bartlett's money. Not with Cathy snooping around, for she was a good finder. Jerry went to the garment bag, got the money out of the white shoe--my but there was getting to be a lot--and put the bills in one pants pocket and crammed the silver into another. He would have to find another hiding place. But where?

Jerry went downstairs. Cathy had joined her mother and Andy at the window. They were watching the movers.

"Usually you can get an idea about what people are like by their furniture," Jerry heard his mother say, "but I never saw such a conglomeration go into any house. Our new neighbor's name is Bullfinch and he's a retired college professor. His having a lot of books I can understand but why a jungle gym? He doesn't have any children. There are just he and his wife."

Jerry would have avoided being near the family until he had found a new hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's money if Cathy had not exclaimed, "Look at that! Assorted sizes of cages."

Jerry had to come and look, too, then. He saw one of the movers going in the house next door with a small gilded cage in one hand and a picture frame in the other. After him came the other moving man with a cage so large it was all he could carry.

"The smaller one could be for a bird but what on earth could the big one be for?" Mrs. Martin was puzzled.

"Maybe he has a chimp for a pet," Jerry contributed.

"Heaven forbid!" gasped his mother.

"But chimps are wonderful pets. 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.

"I never saw such a mixture of good antiques and trash," said Mrs. Martin.

"Say," said Jerry, "if Mr. Bullfinch does have a chimp for a pet, maybe Andy and I can teach him finger painting. Then if we sold the pictures Mr. Bullfinch would give us part of the money."

Cathy made a noise that showed what she thought of that idea.

"You and your schemes!" said Mrs. Martin. She turned away from the window and smiled at Jerry. Then one of those especially noticing looks came over her face. "What on earth do you have in your pants pocket that drags it down? You shouldn't stuff heavy things in your pockets. You'll tear them and they're hard to mend."

The next thing would be to ask him to take out whatever was weighing down his pocket. Jerry could sense it coming. "I just thought of something," he cried, and rushed from the living room. A few seconds later the back door slammed behind him. He had made it safely outdoors.

"Whew, that was a narrow escape!" he thought. But he felt Mr. Bartlett's money as not only a heavy weight in his pocket but on his mind. "I won't dare take it back in the house, with Cathy sniffing all over the place. Even if she wasn't, the money wouldn't be safe up attic, not after my mother gets to house-cleaning up there. She doesn't miss a thing. And the cellar would be no good. My father is always hunting around down there for screws and paint and stuff he's put away and can't remember where. But what the heck am I going to do with Mr. Bartlett's money now?"

5

New Neighbors

Jerry thought of burying Mr. Bartlett's money somewhere in the yard. He gave up that idea when he considered the complication of digging it up every time he came back from the store and had to make change. Besides, this time of year his mother was likely to be planting flowers all over the place.

Jerry decided he might as well watch the moving in next door while he was trying to think of a safe hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's money. Better keep out of sight from the front window of his house, though. Jerry climbed the picket fence that separated his yard from Mr. Bullfinch's. Then, crouching low, he ran from bush to bush and took his stand in front of a weigela bush that screened him from being seen by his family.

The movers were big, brawny men. Jerry saw them lift a huge wardrobe as if it were light as a feather. Nearly as light, anyway. As they took it in the house, a man came out. He was tall and thin and slightly stooped, with a thatch of silver-gray hair. Must be Mr. Bullfinch, Jerry thought, and wondered if he shouldn't leave before being asked to. Jerry had learned that you never can tell about people wanting you or not wanting you in their yards.

Mr. Bullfinch saw Jerry and walked toward him. He smiled with his whole face, especially his eyes, and Jerry smiled back a bit shyly. "I like to watch people moving in," Jerry said.

"So do I except when I'm the one being moved. Live around here, do you? Seems a pleasant neighborhood."

"Next door. It _is_ a nice neighborhood. A few cranky people on this street but not many. Say, what a whopper of a chair!"

The movers had taken an enormous brown leather chair out of the van and were taking it in the front door.

"I have to tell them where I want it put. Come on in," Mr. Bullfinch invited Jerry.

Jerry always enjoyed going in a strange house. He tagged after Mr. Bullfinch as he directed the movers to deposit the big chair in front of the fireplace in the den.

"Some chair! Is it for you to sit in?" asked Jerry.

"It's a remarkable chair. It does tricks. Runs by electricity," said Mr. Bullfinch, taking an electric cord from the seat and unwinding it. He looked around and found an outlet and put in the plug. "Want to try it out?" he asked Jerry. "Sit down in the chair and press the button on the right arm and see what happens."

Jerry was not at all sure he wanted to try out the tricks of the chair. "I don't know if I have time right now," he said. Mr. Bullfinch did not look like the sort of man who would install an electric chair, the kind they have in penitentiaries, in his house and begin to execute his neighbors the first day he moved in. Still, better be safe than sorry, Jerry reasoned.

"I'll show you how it works," said Mr. Bullfinch, sitting down in the chair. He pressed a button to the right, and the back of the chair went down and the part that hung down in front came up, making what looked like a narrow cot.

"That's not half of it," said Mr. Bullfinch, punching another button.

Jerry gasped as the right arm of the chair swung over and began to rub Mr. Bullfinch's stomach while the whole contraption jerked up and down.

"Takes plenty of power to do that," said Mr. Bullfinch from his reclining position. "I shudder to think of what my electric bill will be if I use it often." He laughed heartily. "It tickles." Then he pushed the button that stopped the jerking and massaging and the one that made the chair regain its chair-like appearance. And there was Mr. Bullfinch sitting up again, looking just the same except that his hair was a little rumpled.

"It's supposed to reduce you if you're too fat and build you up if you're too thin. It's an exerciser and health builder. Trade name for it is the Excello. Believe I'll call it the Bumper. It does thump and bump a bit, you know. Now do you want to try it?"

It was nice of Mr. Bullfinch to forget that Jerry had just said he didn't have time to try it out. Jerry warmed to his new neighbor. 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. He did not ask why Jerry happened to be carrying so much money in his pocket.

"Ever go to auctions?" asked Mr. Bullfinch, as Jerry crammed the tobacco pouch in his pants pocket. The pocket tore slightly. His mother would be after him for that, Jerry thought worriedly.

"Double darn!" said Jerry. "I'm not talking to you--I'm just sorry I tore my pocket," Jerry said to Mr. Bullfinch.

"Well, 'double darn' seems an appropriate remark for a torn pocket," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Did you say you'd ever been to an auction?"

Jerry hadn't and said so.

"Auctions are my hobby," said Mr. Bullfinch. "People need to have a hobby when they retire and mine is auctions. Greatest sport I know of. Course you're likely to pick up a few things you haven't any immediate need for but at least you get something for your money. Mrs. Bullfinch scolds me sometimes for what I buy but I can't resist the fun of bidding. Up to a point, that is. I set myself a limit on what I'll spend at an auction. Guess I do get stuck with some strange objects once in a while. You should have seen Mrs. Bullfinch's face when I brought home a job lot of empty cages."

"Don't you have pets to put in any of them?" Jerry's face showed his disappointment. If not a chimp he had hoped for a parrot or at least a canary.

"Not a one," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Guess I'll have to wait till they auction off some of the animals in the Washington zoo."

"They'll never do that."

"I was only joking. Do you have any pets?"

"Just a cat named Bibsy because she has a white front. Like a bib, you know."

"Well, if I see a mouse around here I hope you'll lend me Bibsy."

"I will." Jerry sensed that Mr. Bullfinch thought it was time for him to be leaving. And Jerry was about to when a woman screamed loud as a fire siren.

"My wife!" cried Mr. Bullfinch and rushed toward the back of the house, Jerry following him.

Out in the kitchen, standing on a high stool, was Mrs. Bullfinch. She was a small plump woman wearing a pink apron. She looked terrified.

"A spider!" she gasped. "I had a broom and was making sure there were no spiders around the ceiling when the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life ran down the broom handle. It ran right across my arm." She shuddered till the stool she was standing on shook. "I brushed it off. It was horrible. I didn't see where it went but it's in this room somewhere. And I won't get off this stool until it's found and killed."

"Better get down, dear," said her husband. "There are two of us here to protect you." He looked around the room for the spider, opening cupboard doors to see if it had run in a cupboard. "It's taken off for parts unknown by this time," he said soothingly. "Come on, get down. 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 did not enjoy killing even a spider but this time it seemed necessary, though he carefully refrained from looking at the dead insect.

"Good boy!" said Mr. Bullfinch.

Mrs. Bullfinch, with a little help from her husband, got down from the stool. She thanked Jerry earnestly and effusively.

"I'll not forget this. Someday I hope to do something for you. You don't know how obliged to you I am. That spider might have killed me."

Jerry did not think that the spider had been the kind that would have a bite that killed. Being thought a hero was pleasant, however. "Think nothing of it," he said, looking more cocky than modest in spite of his words.

"Where you want the pianer?" shouted one of the movers, and Mrs. Bullfinch bustled off to the living room.

There did not seem to be any reason for Jerry to stay any longer. He had a feeling that Mr. Bullfinch, though still very polite, had things he wanted to see to. So Jerry murmured something about having to get home and Mr. Bullfinch told him again that he was indebted to him for killing the spider.

"I never knew anybody as afraid of spiders as Mrs. Bullfinch," he said. "Everybody has something he's afraid of, I guess. With Mrs. Bullfinch it's spiders."

Jerry didn't know if he should leave by the back or the front door but Mr. Bullfinch led the way to the front. Jerry admired the grandfather clock in the front hall. On the glass above its face there was a painted globe in pale green and yellow. Jerry had almost reached the front door when the clock struck five--long, solemn sounds of great dignity.

"That sure is a big clock," said Jerry.

"I didn't buy that at an auction, it was in the family," said Mr. Bullfinch. "When I was a little boy I once hid inside when we were playing hide and seek. That was the time I stopped the clock," he chuckled.

Suddenly Jerry thought of a safe hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's money. What Mr. Bullfinch had said about hiding in the clock had given him the idea.

"Say," he said with barely controlled excitement, "would you mind if I kept the money I have on me in your clock?"

Mr. Bartlett gave Jerry a long appraising look. Then his eyes lit up in one of his nice smiles. "Not at all. Not at all," he said cordially.

"I may need to come and get some out or put some in now and then. If that would not be making too much trouble."

"Not at all. Not at all. Come any time you like. I've never run a bank before. New experience for me."

Jerry could tell that Mr. Bullfinch was almost making fun of him. Never mind, he was letting him keep Mr. Bartlett's money in the bottom of the clock. And how grateful Jerry was to Mr. Bullfinch for not asking any embarrassing questions about the money! Even before he had shut the clock door on Mr. Bartlett's money and had started for home, Jerry had decided that he liked his new neighbor, Mr. Bullfinch. He liked him a lot.

6

"The Stars and Stripes Forever"