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."