"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.