"Can't I do something for the little fellow?" she asked gently, and being used to children (she was a school teacher), she saw in a minute what the matter was, and taking from her purse a piece of court-plaster, she made Albert set him down while she applied it to the cut. If her fingers shrank from the dirty little foot neither of her watchers saw it.
"There, little man, does that feel better?"
"I wants ter b' toted," said the urchin, irrelevantly.
"Of course," said Albert, shouldering him again. "Didn't I promise to carry you clear home? But if the lady had done something for me, I'd have thanked her, heh?"
But the child's face expressed only a vacant sort of contentment.
And they all went on together until they reached a poor house where a woman stood at the door, looking anxiously up and down the road. As her boy was brought to her, she caught him up, with a shake and a kiss delivered simultaneously.
"That's jus' like ye, Albert," she said gruffly. "I've been ter'ble worried fur th' past hour—feared he'd got runned over. Yer ma well?"
"Middling, thank you, Mrs. Smithers."
Then he rubbed his handkerchief over his forehead and asked Miss Stretton if she was going "to town" this hot day.
"Yes, I'm trying to walk off a restless fit, and I have a letter to mail."