"Charge it, please," he said huskily.
"You folks opening a charge account?" asked Mr. Bartlett.
"Isn't that all right with you?"
"Sure. Sure. You've been trading with me for years. And your father's credit is good as gold, which is more than I can say for some." Mr. Bartlett made out a slip, which he put in the bag of groceries.
"He knows me and can tell I'm honest," thought Jerry happily, as he put the heavy bag of groceries in his cart. The grocery slip he took out of the bag and put in his pocket. "I must remember to save all the slips," he thought.
Jerry was almost home when he remembered that his ten-dollar bill was still unbroken. And that he had to have change to give his mother before he could put the eight dollars and twenty-one cents the groceries cost in a safe hiding place. It was Mr. Bartlett's money, Jerry thought. Jerry would just be keeping the money for him until a month was up.
Jerry was reluctant to go back to Bartlett's store and ask to have his bill changed. He was sure Mr. Bartlett would think it odd, after he had charged the groceries.
"I'll have to walk way down to the shopping center," thought Jerry. Thinking about all the streets he would have to cross, with the trouble of getting the heavy cart up and down the curbs, Jerry was not so sure that starting a charge account had been such a good idea after all. He had a feeling that in a way he might have played sort of an April Fool joke on himself. But it was too late now to undo what he had done. He would feel like a ninny going back and telling Mr. Bartlett that he had decided to pay cash, that he had changed his mind about opening a charge account for the Martin family.