en mixing dough for doughnuts. Jerry was
glad she made doughnuts instead of buying bakery ones. How good
doughnuts tasted hot out of the fat! He wished a few of them were done
so he could have two or three to eat on his way to the store.

"Want me to fry 'em for you and then go to the store?" he offered.

"No. I need a carton of sour cream right away for my chocolate cake.
And, let me see--five pounds of Idaho potatoes, two pounds of ground
round steak--I feel like having meat loaf tonight--and two acorn
squash, an avocado, a dozen oranges, and one loaf of white bread and
one of whole wheat. Oh, and I've already telephoned and told Mr.
Bartlett that you would be in to pick up a leg of lamb. He has spring
lamb just in. You'll have to take your cart. There'll be too much for
you to carry in your bicycle basket."

Jerry had felt lately that he was too old to be dragging home a cart
filled with groceries. "How long will it be before Andy can take that
old cart to the store? He can have it to keep any old time he'll take
it to the store after groceries."

"You've only had it a year. Said you would be sure to use it for
years. And you know Andy isn't nearly old enough to take a big cart
out of the yard. Now run along. And don't stop to play on the way
home."

Jerry got his cart out of the garage. The wheels squeaked but that
didn't bother him. He met a couple of boys in his grade at school on
his way to the store and arranged for baseball later.

Bartlett's store was on a street zoned only for houses, yet because
the store had been there before the zoning law was passed it had been
allowed to remain. The present proprietor was the third generation of
Bartletts who had sold groceries there. He was a stout, pink-faced
man, quite bald in front. Jerry said that Mr. Bartlett's forehead
went way to the back of his head. When Jerry went in the store, Mr.
Bartlett was waiting on a tall woman with a blue scarf over her head,
and Bill, the clerk who put up orders, was tossing groceries into
cartons, each carton for a customer.

Jerry had to wait while the woman with the blue scarf decided what she
would have for Sunday dinner. It seemed to take her a long time to
make up her mind. After trying without much success to engage Bill in
conversation, Jerry stood in front of the candy showcase next to the
cash register and wished he had money with him besides the ten-dollar
bill his mother had given him to pay for the groceries.

M