"Look at you's jacket," said Bobbie to his brother.
Tom turned the sleeve round, and Elsie looked at it too. "Oh, Tom! It is too bad of you to go and tear your clothes like that," she said.
She felt almost ready to cry; for Tom's jacket would take an hour to mend at least, and she would have no time to read the book a friend had lent her. She only had a little while after the children had gone to bed, for her mother insisted upon going herself in good time, and so the mending of this jacket would occupy all her spare time this evening.
She grumbled a good bit about this, and Tom turned sulky over being grumbled at by a girl, and would not say where he had been, except that he went home with one of the other boys to see his rabbits.
Mrs. Winn was vexed, and Elsie cross; but Tom went off to bed without saying where he had been. And he took care to go to school the next day without any fuss. Elsie had mended his jacket very neatly, and he felt half ashamed this morning that he had given her so much trouble; but all he said to show it, was to tell Bobbie that he would come straight home from school and play with him.
During the last few weeks, Tom had often come home from school very late, and Elsie felt sure he must often have been late for the scholarship class. But her mother had not noticed this, for she was so very busy with her dressmaking at Christmas time, and Elsie had not told her, because she did not wish to add to her worry, and also because she hoped that after Christmas Tom would turn over a new leaf, and come home at meal times more regularly.
And she ventured to say as much to him, now that she had had to mend his jacket, and before he could wear it again.
"Oh, all right," said Tom. "Don't you worry your curly head over me; I can take care of myself," said Tom, carelessly.
"It don't look much like it to see your face," said Elsie. "And I think you ought to consider mother, as well as taking care of yourself; and you seem to forget everything but running the streets with that hateful Jack Bond. Mother was cross last night when she came down, soon after tea, and found you had not come in, for she wanted you to go to the shops for her."
"Oh, well, you went instead, and the run did you good," said Tom, as he went off whistling, yet somehow feeling uncomfortable about what his sister had said as to considering his mother.