lots of lemon in it."

"Kathleen likes the cough drops with honey in 'em," explained Jerry.
"She doesn't cough so bad after eating one of them."

"Well, you beat my time, Jerry! You must like Kathleen an awful lot."

"I do," admitted Jerry in a low voice, as a customer entered the store.
He took the bag of cough drops and darted out through the door, but not
too quickly to overhear Mr. Barton saying to the man who had entered:

"That boy's got enough sand to supply all the contractors in town.
Plucky as they make 'em."

Jerry was not quite sure that he understood what Mr. Barton meant about
the sand, but his saying that he was plucky made him feel glad and
uncomfortable at the same time. Somehow it didn't seem quite so hard to
have given up seeing the circus. He wouldn't mind not seeing the
elephant jump the fence--well, not so very much. He could look at the
billboard poster all he wanted to and that would be almost as good.

He started home on a run but soon slackened his speed, and the nearer he
got the slower became his pace. He didn't want Danny to know that he had
bought something for Kathleen, for Danny called him "Kathleen's pet" as
it was and he didn't like to be laughed at. Perhaps he could sneak in
without any of them seeing him and put the bottle back on the shelf and
no one would know how it got full.

The Mullarkey children were still picking gooseberries and Mother
'Larkey was still in the living room sewing on Mrs. Green's dress. Jerry
tiptoed carefully into the kitchen, replaced the bottle, stuffed the
cough drops into his blouse pocket and went into the living room, where
he squatted down by Kathleen.

Hardly had he done so when the voices of the other children coming back
to the house were heard.

"Gooseberries all picked?" sighed Mrs. Mullarkey. "Then I must be
getting supper."

When she left the room, Jerry fished a cough drop out of his pocket and
gave it to Kathleen. She smiled in delight at sight of it and at once
popped it into her mouth, cooing at Jerry.

"Mother, why didn't you make Jerry help pick gooseberries?" asked Danny,
as soon as he entered and caught sight of Jerry.

"He can't have any pie, can he, Mother?" said Celia Jane.

"Why, he was out with you," replied Mrs. Mullarkey. "He just this minute
came in."

"He wasn't near the gooseberry patch," Danny informed her.

"He didn't pick a single gooseberry," Celia Jane interpolated.

"Nora," appealed their mother, "you a