"Give me a nickel's worth of cough drops--the kind with honey in 'em,"
said Jerry.

"You don't want cough drops, Jerry. Here's some good candy. It's got
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