My poor boy," said Mrs. Elmer, "you have certainly done very wrong;
but you have been severely punished for it, and if you are truly sorry
and mean to try and do right in the future, you will as certainly be
forgiven." So saying, the kind-hearted woman went over and sat down
beside the boy, and took his hand in hers.

At this caress, the first he could ever remember to have received, the
boy burst into tears, and sobbed out,

"I would have been good if I had a mother like you and a pleasant home
like this."

Mrs. Elmer soothed and quieted him, and gradually drew from him the
rest of his story. His father had once been comfortably well off, and
had owned a large mill in Savannah; but during the war the mill had
been burned, and he had lost everything. For some years after that he
was very poor, and when Frank was quite a small boy, and his sister a
baby, his father used to drink, and when he came home drunk would beat
him and his mother. One night, after a terrible scene of this kind,
which Frank could just remember, his mother had snatched up the baby
and run from the house. Afterwards he was told that they were dead; at
any rate he never saw them again. Then his father left Savannah and
came to Florida to live. He never drank any more, but was very cross,
and hardly ever spoke to his son. He made a living by doing jobs of
carpentering; and, ever since he had been old enough, Frank had worked
on their little farm, about twenty miles from Wakulla. At last he
became so tired of this sort of life, and his father's harshness, that
he determined to run away and try to find a happier one.

Mark and Ruth listened in silence to this story of an unhappy
childhood, and when it was ended, Ruth went over to the sofa where her
mother still sat, and taking Frank's other hand in hers, said,

"I guess I would have run away too, if I'd had such an unpleasant home;
but you'll stay with us now, and let mother teach you to be good, won't
you?"

For answer the boy looked up shyly into Mrs. Elmer's face, and she
said, "We'll see when father comes home."

At this moment Bruce began to bark loudly, and directly a sound of
wheels was heard. Then a voice called out,

"Halloo! Go Bang, ahoy! Bring out a lantern, somebody."

"It's father! it's father!" exclaimed Mark and Ruth, rushing to the
door with shouts of welcome. Mrs. Elmer followed them, leaving Frank
alone in the sitting-room.

"How glad they are to see him," thought the boy.