to the cash register and
counted out the change Jerry needed.

"Thank _you_," said Jerry with great heartiness.

Now to get home in a hurry. He went out to get his cart, which he had
left outside the barbershop. A big red setter dog was pawing the bag
of groceries. "Red! Get away from there!" Jerry yelled. With horror he
saw that the dog had the leg of lamb in his strong jaws.

"Drop that, Red!" shouted Jerry. He ran and grabbed the other end of
the leg of lamb and tried to get it away from the dog.

Red was a good-natured animal who often seemed to forget he was a dog,
he so much wanted to be one of the boys. He especially enjoyed taking
part in baseball games. He ran bases and barked as loud as any of the
players could shout. Last Saturday Jerry might have made a home run if
Red had not dashed in front of him so Jerry fell over him. Now Red
thought a tug of war with a leg of lamb was a fine game.

Jerry pulled. The red setter braced his legs and pulled.

"You mean dog! Leggo! Leggo!" screamed Jerry.

The desperation in his voice finally had an effect on Red's tender
heart. He let go of his end of the leg of lamb so suddenly that Jerry
sat down hard. The leg of lamb fell in the dirt.

[Illustration]

Jerry brushed off bits of gravel from his Sunday dinner. Red's teeth
marks didn't show unless you looked very closely. Jerry wrapped the
leg of lamb in the torn paper bag. It was a lucky thing he had come
out of the barbershop before Red had run off with it. "That dog is
getting to be a nuisance," he thought. But he really liked Red and had
often wished he were one of the Martin family instead of belonging to
a neighbor.

It was uphill most of the way home. Jerry got pretty tired of pulling
his heavy cart. He wished he could think up a way of motorizing it,
fix it up like sort of a four-wheeled motor scooter. Maybe put an
engine on the back like an outboard motor. Such speculations helped
pass the time, but he was tired before he got home.

It was disappointing to find that the doughnuts had been fried and put
away. And Mrs. Martin, dressed for town, scolded Jerry soundly for
being over an hour going to the store.

"I had to postpone making my cake," she said sharply, "for if Cathy
and I are to get any shopping done and get back in time for lunch, we
have to start. You'll have to look after Andy. Take him with you but
keep an eye on him if you go out with the boys."

"Other boys don't have to have their li