such an early start on the day."

Jerry groaned. What a dreary word—work! Just hearing it made him feel tired.

"I'll have pancakes ready in fifteen minutes," said his mother brightly. "With real maple syrup," she added.

Jerry could tell that she was tempting his appetite so he would not be tempted to go back to bed again. He did not mind. He was wide awake. It would be a novelty to have breakfast so early on a Saturday. Almost an April Fool joke on his mother.

"And to think that last Saturday I could hardly get you out of bed at ten," said his mother as he left the kitchen.

At a little before nine Jerry had a broom in his hand. His orders were to sweep off the front steps. He went at it in a very leisurely manner. The sooner he finished the sooner his mother might give him some other chore to do. Even though Laura, the pleasant three-times-a-week maid, did most of the cleaning, Mrs. Martin believed her children should have a few household chores. Cathy, Jerry's twin sister, had to do the breakfast dishes on Saturdays, and even five-year-old Andy, the youngest member of the Martin family, was supposed to empty the wastebaskets.

Jerry's lazy broom finished the top step and began on the second. Then it occurred to him that it had been some time since he had investigated what was under the steps. He put down his broom while he knelt and applied one eye to one of the holes bored in the steps. The hole was big enough so if somebody dropped a dime just right it would go through. No dimes down there today.

As Jerry got to his feet he looked with approval at the big white clapboarded house where he lived. The morning sun made the small-paned windows shine. The Martin house was on the very edge of northwest Washington, D. C. It had been one of the original farmhouses when that part of Washington had been country, not city. Now there were houses all around, and it had been remodeled long before the Martins had bought it. Jerry's father and mother were proud of the old floorboards and wide fireplaces. Jerry especially liked the house because it had an attic and a big garage that had been a barn.

As he picked up his broom again, his twin sister came to the door to shake a dustcloth. Also, he was sure, to check up on what he was doing.

"Cathy!" cried Jerry. "There's a great big spider crawling up your left leg."

Cathy did not let a yip out of her. "You can't April-fool me that easy," she said in a superior-sounding way that irritated Jerry.

Lately he and his twin often irritated each other. For one thing Cathy had recently developed an intense interest in how she looked, which seemed silly to Jerry.

"Better wipe that black off your left cheek," he said, and laughed when Cathy raised her hand to her cheek. "April Fool! Got you that time," he exulted.

"Think you're smart, don't you?" grumbled Cathy. "Half the time you don't even notice it when your face is dirty. To say nothing of your ears."

Jerry swushed dirt off a step and changed the subject. "Have you fooled anybody yet this morning?" he asked.

"Just Andy. I asked him if he knew that Bibsy had grown another head during the night, and he almost cried when he found I was April-fooling him. He said he had always wanted a two-headed cat. Then when I asked him if he had seen the alligator under the dining room table, he wouldn't look. He just said, 'What's a nalligator?' I told him it was like Mummy's handbag only much, much bigger, and he wants to see a real one. Mummy says we must take him to the zoo someday soon. But I can't remember seeing an alligator there, can you?"

Cathy tossed her head, giving her pony tail a little exercise.

"Too bad you didn't say seal instead of alligator. There are seals at the zoo. Say, I wouldn't mind going to the zoo this forenoon. Even if we have to take Andy. Want to?"

"Nope. Mummy's taking me to town to buy a new dress for Easter." Cathy's eyes were bright with expectation.

It was beyond Jerry why Cathy should be pleased to waste good playing time in town buying a dress. She didn't used to be that way. She used to complain bitterly about having to change from blue jeans into a dress. She still liked wearing jeans, yet there came a shine in her eyes at even the mention of buying a new dress. Mummy said that eleven-going-on-twelve was getting to be a young lady. "Rats!" thought Jerry. It was silly for Cathy to begin to be young-lady-like when she could throw a baseball just about as well as a boy and sometimes better.

"Jerry!" called his mother from a front window. "I want you to run to the store for me. Right away."

"Can't Cathy go?" Jerry really did not mind running (though he usually walked or rode his bike to the store) but it was a matter of principle with him to make a try at getting out of work.

"I have other things for Cathy to do," said Mrs. Martin and shut the window.

There were two steps still unswept but Jerry left them untouched by his lazy broom. After all, how could he be expected to do two things at once? He wished, not for the first time, that his mother would do her grocery shopping at the supermarket, which was far enough away so she would have to take the car. Instead, she mostly traded at Bartlett's, a small old-fashioned store three blocks from where the Martin family lived.

"There aren't many small grocery stores left and since we have one right in the neighborhood I like to patronize it," Jerry had heard his mother say. She liked stores where the owner came to wait on you. But Jerry suspected that one reason she traded at Bartlett's was because she thought it was good for a boy to run errands.

Going to the store was Jerry's chief chore. "Just because her grandfather had to chop wood and milk cows before breakfast when he was a boy, she thinks she should keep me busy," he grumbled to himself as he went in the house. "Why do I have to go to the store? Bartlett delivers. Why can't she telephone her order and have it delivered?"

He knew that the answer to that was more than his mother's desire to keep him busy. It was partly because she did not like to plan meals ahead. A brisk cold day might make her feel like having pork chops and hot applesauce for dinner. Or for a warm day, a platter of cold cuts and deviled eggs.

"It's just the day for calves' liver and bacon," she might say when Jerry got home from school in the afternoon. And she would send him to the store for a pound and a half of fresh calves' liver cut thin, "the way Mr. Bartlett knows I like it." A meal, his mother thought, should match her mood or the weather. She kept a few frozen vegetables on hand in case of need, but she much preferred fresh vegetables, freshly cut steaks and chops—fresh almost anything which could be bought fresh.

"I know it's a frozen food age but I still prefer my meat and vegetables fresh," Mrs. Martin often said. That meant a lot of trips to the store. Too many, Jerry thought. Especially on Saturdays, when she needed a lot of things.

His mother was in the kitchen 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