Jack turned to look at the cart and the road, and Elsie murmured, "Oh, that dreadful noise! I wish they hadn't put those stones down."
"Wait a bit, Miss Elsie; I know what I'll do," he said, as he thrust his hand into his pocket, and brought out two or three pence.
He darted off down the street, and Elsie returned to the parlour window, and presently she saw him returning with a huge bundle of straw on his back. The straw was not clean, but there was a good heap when he untied it, and he scattered this over the loose stones.
By great good fortune, a mud cart came past just as he had finished, and he persuaded the man to put a little of the half-liquid slush on the straw, so as to keep it from blowing away.
Elsie, watching from the window, thought he was very clever to think of such a device, and actually went to put baby's coat and hat on, that he might go out in charge of the boy she had almost hated during the last few weeks. If any one had told her a few days ago that she would have trusted their darling to that wicked boy Jack Bond, she would have said it was impossible. But now she wheeled him out at the side gate, with her own hat on, for baby was fractious this morning, and must go out, if the house was to be kept quiet, though she was not quite sure that she ought to let him go with this stranger.
"Won't you let me wheel him up and down, Miss Elsie? I will be very careful," said Jack, pleadingly, when he saw her come out.
Elsie hesitated for a moment, but the big overgrown schoolboy looked very good-natured and very unhappy. "You see, I've waited about here before, for a chance to do something for poor Tom—just to let you know I was sorry for making him ill."
"Well, if baby will let you wheel him, and you can keep any of the organ men away, I shall be glad," said Elsie; but she was careful not to resign the handle of the perambulator until they were a little way from the house, for fear baby should scream out his displeasure at the change of nurses.
But he graciously smiled at Jack, when he replaced Elsie, and did not seem to mind being left in his care, so that she was able to run home to look after Bobbie and the house-work with a light heart.
She went about her work of washing-up, sweeping, and dusting, almost without a sound, and noticed with satisfaction how quiet the street was that morning. Every hawker's cry was hushed before the house was reached, and the carts going over the padding of straw and mud made no grating noise now to disturb Tom.