The Bobbsey Twins at Home | Page 4

rushed on Tommy Todd told his sad little story.

CHAPTER II
A SUDDEN STOP
"I don't remember my father very well," said Tommy Todd. "I was real
little when he went away. That was just after my mother died. My
grandmother took care of me. I just remember a big man with black
hair and whiskers, taking me up in his arms, and kissing me good-bye.
That was my father, my grandmother told me afterward."
"What made him go away from you?" asked Flossie. "Didn't he like to
stay at home?"
"I guess maybe he did," said Tommy. "But he couldn't stay. He was a
sea captain on a ship, you know."
"Of course!" cried Freddie. "Don't you know, Flossie? A sea captain
never stays at home, only a little while. He has to go off to steer the
ship across the ocean. That's what I'm going to do."
"I don't want you to," returned Flossie, as she nestled up closer to her
brother. "I want you to stay with me. If you have to go so far off to be a
sea captain couldn't you be something else and stay at home? Couldn't
you be a trolley-car conductor?"
"Well, maybe I could," said Freddie slowly. "But I'd rather be a sea
captain. Go on, Tommy. Tell us about your father."

"Well, I don't know much," went on Tommy Todd. "I don't remember
him so very well, you know. Then my grandmother and I lived alone. It
was in a better house than we have now, and we had more things to eat.
I never get enough now when I'm home, though when I was on the
fresh air farm I had lots," and, sighing, Tommy seemed sad.
"My father used to write letters to my grandmother--she is his mother,"
he explained. "When I got so I could understand, my grandmother read
them to me. My father wrote about his ship, and how he sailed away up
where the whales are. Sometimes he would send us money in the letters,
and then grandma would make a little party for me.
"But after a while no more letters came. My grandmother used to ask
the postman every day if he didn't have a letter for her from my father,
but there wasn't any. Then there was a piece in the paper about a ship
that was wrecked. It was my father's ship."
"What's wrecked?" asked Flossie.
"It means the ship is all smashed to pieces; doesn't it?" asked Freddie of
Tommy.
"That's it; yes. My father's ship was in a storm and was smashed on the
rocks. Everybody on it, and my father too, was drowned in the ocean,
the paper said. That's why I like the country better than the ocean."
"I used to like the ocean," said Flossie slowly. "We go down to Ocean
Cliff sometimes, where Uncle William and Aunt Emily and Cousin
Dorothy live. But I don't like the ocean so much now, if it made your
father drown."
"Oh, well, there have to be shipwrecks I s'pose," remarked Tommy.
"But, of course, it was awful hard to lose my father." He turned his
head away and seemed to be looking out of the window. Then he went
on:
"After grandmother read that in the paper about my father's ship
sinking she cried, and I cried too. Then she wrote some letters to the

company that owned the ship. She thought maybe the papers were
wrong, about the ship sinking, but when the answers came back they
said the same thing. The men who owned the ship which my father was
captain of, said the vessel was lost and no one was saved. No more
letters came from my father, and no more money. Then grandmother
and I had to move away from the house where we were living, and had
to go to a little house down by the dumps. It isn't nice there."
"Does your grandma have any money now?" asked Flossie.
"A little. She sews and I run errands for the groceryman after school,
and earn a little. But it isn't much. I was glad when the fresh air folks
took me to the farm. I had lots to eat, and my grandmother had more
too, for she didn't have to feed me. She is going to the fresh air farm
some day, maybe."
"That will be nice," said Flossie. "We're going to Uncle Dan's farm
again next year, maybe, and perhaps your grandma can come there."
"I don't believe so," returned Tommie. "But anyhow I had fun, and I
weigh two pounds more than 'fore I went away, and I can run errands
faster now for Mr. Fitch."
"Why, he's our grocery man!" cried Freddie. "Do you work for him,
Tommy?"
"Sometimes, and sometimes