Chapter 5

"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.

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.

"Only nine more days before I get that candy from Bartlett's," Jerry thought. "And when I do, Andy not only gets the first piece; I don't care if he takes a whole handful."

Jerry noticed that Andy almost had to run to keep up with him. He slowed down. Jerry felt like being very nice to Andy even if it meant that they would be late for school.

8

The Auction

"School going all right, Jerry?" asked his father.

Jerry was at the dining room table after dinner doing homework. He had a list of geography questions and was supposed to write down the answers. That meant either looking them up in the book or asking his father. Jerry's dad knew a good deal about geography, yet after answering a few questions he was likely to say, "How can you expect to learn if you don't find out for yourself?" He seemed to be in a good humor tonight. Jerry thought he might be good for answers to at least three questions of the ten.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not failing anything at school," said Jerry.

"Glad to hear it. I thought you've looked lately as if something were worrying you. If your arithmetic is giving you trouble again, maybe I can give you a little help."

"Arithmetic's not so hard after you get the hang of it. I got a hundred in an arithmetic test day before yesterday."

"Good for you. Keep up the good work. I expect you to be good college material, you know, and that's not too many years ahead."

The words "college material" weighed Jerry's spirits. It seemed such a long stretch of school before he would be ready for college. 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."

"Could be a first time," said Jerry, but he bent over his paper again. "What are the chief products of Central America?" he asked.

"That's rather a large question," said Mr. Martin. "Let's see."

While his father was calling to mind the products of Central America, Jerry was thinking of the pleasant fact that there were only a few more days before he could settle the bill at Bartlett's store. And what a relief it would be to have that charge account off his mind! Jerry thought how surprised his father would be if he knew the cause of his improvement in arithmetic. Jerry had not realized at first that all that adding and subtracting when he made change was helping his arithmetic, but now he could tell that he could add and subtract much faster. After bringing his mother the wrong change just once and having to pretend to go back to the store when he went only as far as Mr. 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. "You didn't get much out of Daddy this time, did you?"

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.

"Boys aren't supposed to be so rude to girls. You're the limit. The utter, utter limit."

"Who says so?"

"I say so."

"You!" Jerry packed so much scorn into the word that Cathy looked at him in surprise.

"What's eating you lately?" she asked.

Jerry gathered his books and papers together. If Cathy began being nice to him for a change he might find himself confiding to her. It had made him uneasy to be alone with her ever since he had started that charge account business. He would be safer now up in his own room.

"I can't study here where you keep jawing at me," he complained.

"Well, I like that. I hardly opened my mouth and now you--"

"Like it or lump it," cried Jerry from the doorway. "Today is Thursday," thought Jerry, as he ran upstairs. "Monday will be the first. That will be the day. All I have to do is hold out till the first of the week."

On Friday, Mrs. Martin for once did not need anything at the store. Of course she had a big order for Saturday morning. So much that she thought of taking the car, with Jerry going along to help with the carrying, but Jerry said he could manage perfectly well with his cart.

"No sense wasting gas when you have me to go to the store for you," he said.

"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" asked his mother. "I can't think what has gotten in to you to be so obliging. But it's nice to have a boy so willing to run errands," she said, giving Jerry the grocery list. "Sure you can manage?"

Jerry was sure.

When he stopped by at the Bullfinches' on his way back from the store--he had to get change from a twenty this time--Mr. Bullfinch was getting ready to go to an auction out in Rockville.

"How'd you like to come with me?" he invited Jerry. Mr. Bullfinch had been especially cordial to him lately as if to make up for having suspected him of housebreaking. "If you've never been to an auction you might find it interesting."

Jerry liked the idea. He said he would be right back as soon as he took the groceries home and asked his mother if he could go.

"Fine. Hope you can go. I'll be glad of your company," said Mr. Bullfinch.

Ten minutes later Jerry and Mr. Bullfinch were on their way to Rockville. Jerry had never ridden in Mr. Bullfinch's car before. It was not the car that was jerky, Jerry discovered, but Mr. Bullfinch. Still, he was a careful driver except when he got to talking. Then he seemed to forget his was not the only car on the road and the other cars honked at him. Yet Mr. Bullfinch was good at missing the other cars. At the very edge of collision he was a marvelous driver. Jerry held on to the door pull most of the time.

It was not a long drive to Rockville. They made it by five after ten, Jerry noticed by a clock over a bank near where Mr. Bullfinch parked the car.

"This is one of the smaller auction houses," explained Mr. Bullfinch, as he led the way into a place that looked to Jerry like a secondhand furniture store. "But sometimes the most interesting items are put up at small auctions."

Jerry jingled the small change in his pocket. His entire wealth at the moment was forty-seven cents, hardly enough to buy either a usual or unusual item. He noticed that Mr. Bullfinch looked less calm and dignified than usual. There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes, an intensity in his voice. Jerry could tell that Mr. Bullfinch felt the same about auctions as Jerry did about going to baseball games out at Griffith Stadium.

Folding chairs had been set up in the middle of the big room where the auction was being held. Furniture and stuff was jammed all around, even at the back of the platform where the auctioneer stood. He was a thick-set, big-mouthed man wearing a blue and red plaid sport shirt.

"That's Jim Bean. He always puts on a good show," said Mr. Bullfinch.

As Mr. Bullfinch and Jerry took seats in the back row, the auctioneer was holding up a table lamp.

"Now here is something really beautiful," he was saying in a slightly hoarse yet persuasive voice. "This lamp has a base of real Chinese porcelain. Old Chinese porcelain and that's the most valuable, as all of you here know. Probably should be in a museum. Shade's a bit worn but it's easy enough to get one of those. Now I hope I'm going to hear a starting bid of ten for this exquisite piece of antique Chinese porcelain. Worth every cent of fifty or more but I'm willing to start it at ten."

"One dollar," said Mr. Bullfinch.

"That bid," said the auctioneer, "was too low for me to hear."

"Two," snapped a lady in the front row.

A man two seats to the left of Jerry held up a finger.

"Three I'm bid. Who will make it five?" said Mr. Bean.

"Three-fifty," said Mr. Bullfinch.

"Come, come," said Mr. Bean, "I can't accept bids of peanuts. Three-fifty I'm offered. We're just starting, folks. Do I hear five?"

Jerry could not tell for sure but somebody in the front row must have indicated a bid of five, for now Mr. Bean was droning, "Five I have. Who will make it ten? Worth many times more. Five I have for this museum piece. Five I have."

The lamp was going to be sold for five, Jerry thought, when Mr. Bullfinch sat up straight and snapped, "Six!" His eyes shone. He was really enjoying himself.

It was like a game, Jerry thought, and wished he dared risk a bid. Better not, he decided, for there was always the chance that nobody would bid higher and he would be stuck with something he did not want and could not pay for. Better be on the safe side and let Mr. Bullfinch do the bidding. That was almost as much fun as doing it himself.

The lamp was finally sold to the lady in the front row who had first bid against Mr. Bullfinch. Sold to her for nine dollars, which Mr. Bean said was giving it away.

"Glad I didn't get it. We already have too many lamps," Mr. Bullfinch said in a low voice to Jerry, which proved that he had been bidding for the sport of it.

Mr. Bullfinch did not open his mouth when the next few items were sold. After starting the ball rolling he was content to let others keep it rolling for a while. Besides, a bed, two French chairs, and a worn oriental rug were not unusual enough to interest him. Such items came up, he explained to Jerry, at nearly every auction held in Washington or its suburbs. But when Mr. Bean was handed a large cage with a large bird in it by one of his helpers, Mr. Bullfinch sat up straight on the edge of his chair again.

"Never knew a parrot to be auctioned off before," he told Jerry.

"Diplomat leaving the country says, 'Sell everything,' and that included this handsome bird. Speaks Spanish, they tell me. Wish Polly would oblige us by saying something in Spanish, but he--I understand it's a male--is too shy to speak before strangers. He's been well taken care of. Wonderful gloss to his feathers," praised Mr. Bean. "Beautiful color. Give an accent to any decor, modern or traditional, besides being a wonderful pet. Now who is going to be the lucky owner of this gorgeous bird?"

Jerry was surprised that Mr. Bullfinch did not begin the bidding, which started at a disgusting low of fifty cents. Mr. Bullfinch did not speak until the bidding rose to three dollars. Then, "Five dollars," he said in a firm voice that dared anybody to bid higher. Since nobody did, the parrot was Mr. Bullfinch's for five dollars.

"Guess I could have had it for four," Mr. Bullfinch said to Jerry. "Thought it would go to seven."

Jerry was very glad that Mr. Bullfinch's had been the winning bid. It would be interesting to have a Spanish-speaking parrot next door, though Jerry would have bid for the parrot himself if he had had the money. The only pet the Martin family had was Bibsy. "Wish we had a parrot," thought Jerry.

Jerry rather lost interest in the auction after the high spot of selling the parrot. Mr. Bullfinch put in a bid once in a while but let his bid be topped.

Since Mr. Bullfinch already had a parrot cage, he could keep one cage in the house and the other out in the yard, Jerry was thinking, as a mahogany sewing table was lifted to the auctioneer's platform. Neither Jerry nor Mr. Bullfinch was interested in mahogany sewing tables. Jerry's eyes wandered. He hardly heard Mr. Bean praise the sewing table and accept the first bid. Jerry turned his head and looked around and there was Bill Ellis, a classmate of Jerry's in the sixth. The man beside him was his father. Jerry had seen him enough times to recognize him.

Bill saw Jerry and grinned and Jerry put up a hand in greeting.

"Sold for three dollars to the young man in the red jacket in the back row," said the auctioneer.

Horrified, Jerry realized that his raised arm had been interpreted as a bid and that he had just bought a mahogany sewing table. "I don't want it. It was a mistake," he wanted to say, but before he could get the words out, Mr. Bean was extolling the beauties of a large oil painting. Jerry had missed his chance to speak up.

"Be a nice present for your mother," said Mr. Bullfinch.

Jerry was sunk in despair. He thought that if you bought something at an auction you had to keep it. What was he going to do when he and Mr. Bullfinch went up to the desk near the door where you paid and what you had bought was brought out to you?

"Forty-seven cents isn't any three dollars," thought Jerry dismally. Nor did he have any more at home.

Suddenly Jerry thought of a place where there was plenty of ready money. In Mr. Bullfinch's grandfather clock. Suppose he told the man at the desk that he did not have enough money on him but would be right back with some. Then he could borrow enough to pay for the sewing table--minus forty-seven cents. Of course it was Mr. Bartlett's money, not his, but as soon as he got back from paying for the sewing table Jerry could go around the neighborhood and get a lawn or two to mow and get money to pay back to Mr. Bartlett. But suppose nobody wanted a lawn mowed? And how would he get back and forth between Rockville and Washington? On a bus, maybe.

"I believe I've had about enough of this," said Mr. Bullfinch, and he led the way to the desk where the paying for and delivery of goods took place.

Jerry did a lot of thinking as he followed Mr. Bullfinch. He remembered reading a story about a man who worked in a bank and took money, expecting to pay it back, only he couldn't. If Jerry borrowed some of Mr. Bartlett's money, that wouldn't be much different from what the man in the bank did. And he had gone to jail.

"Anyway, it wouldn't be honest," thought Jerry, and knew he couldn't get money to pay for the sewing table that way. What the man at the desk would say to him when he had to confess he couldn't pay, Jerry dreaded to find out.

Mr. Bullfinch paid for his parrot. Jerry moved up toward the desk. He was pale behind his freckles. He could see a man bringing over the mahogany sewing table. Just then, somebody touched Jerry's arm.

"I'll give you a dollar more than you paid for that sewing table," said a woman in a red hat.

Color rushed back into Jerry's face. He beamed at the woman. "Pay the man three dollars and you can have it," he said.

On their way out to the car--and Mr. Bullfinch very kindly let Jerry carry the cage with the parrot in it--Mr. Bullfinch explained that it would have been quite all right for Jerry to have made a dollar on the sewing table. "If somebody offers you more than you have paid it's all right to take it. But what made you decide you didn't want the little sewing table?"

"My mother has a sewing table," said Jerry.

"Good thing then you got rid of it," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Sometimes I'm not so lucky at getting rid of something I've bought and don't need. I get a bit carried away when I get to bidding."

Mr. Bullfinch looked calm and dignified again, but Jerry remembered how thrilled he had looked at the auction.

"Did you enjoy going to an auction?" asked Mr. Bullfinch.

"I enjoyed most of it," said Jerry. But nobody would ever know, he thought, slightly swinging the heavy cage, how relieved he had been to get rid of that mahogany sewing table. He rather wished now, though, that he had accepted that extra dollar.

9

As Good as a Watchdog

It was time for lunch when Jerry got back from the auction. He was eating his second big waffle and his fourth sausage--the Martins always had an especially good lunch on Saturdays since it was the one weekday they were all home to lunch--when there was a knock at the back door.

Mr. Martin went to the door, and the family heard him say cordially, "Come right in."

Into the dining room came Mr. Bullfinch, parrot cage in hand. The parrot was head-down, holding onto the perch with his feet.

"He speaks Spanish," Jerry said, although he had already informed his family of that fact. "Make him say something in Spanish, Mr. Bullfinch."

Mr. Bullfinch refused to sit down but he did put the parrot cage on a chair. "Say '_Buenos dias_,'" he urged the parrot. "That is 'Good day' or 'How do you do' in Spanish," he explained. But the parrot said nothing in any language.

By this time Jerry and Andy were kneeling on the floor 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.

"Look out," cried Mrs. Martin.

"I've come to ask a big favor," said Mr. Bullfinch in his polite voice. "I didn't realize until I got home that my wife is violently allergic to parrots. She had a severe sneezing fit when it had not been in the house more than five minutes. So, I'll have to dispose of the bird. Fine specimen it is, too. Well, it's too late now to get a 'for sale' notice in the paper before Monday, and if I keep the bird in the house until then my wife might have an asthma attack. Would it be too much of an imposition for me to ask you to keep the parrot over here until Monday?" he asked.

"Not at all," said Mr. Martin heartily.

"I'm not sure we could trust Bibsy to let the parrot 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. Here's our chance."

"The amount of Spanish you'd learn from a parrot over a week end won't be likely to make you very proficient in the language," said Mrs. Martin. Then she turned to Mr. Bullfinch and told him she would be glad to keep the parrot until Monday. "But only till Monday," she said, looking at Jerry.