unt 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.

[Illustration]

"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