tlett'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 acco