tly.

"I hope you will excuse my leaving you and entering your house so
unceremoniously, Mr. Elmer," said Mr. March, rising and bowing to Mrs.
Elmer; "but when your little girl said a boy named Frank March was in
here I felt sure he was my son. It is he; and now that I have found
him, I don't ever intend to lose him again."

"That's right," said Mr. Elmer, heartily. "In this country boys are too
valuable to be lost, even if they do turn up again like bad pennies.
Master Frank, you must hurry and get well, for in his work here your
father will need just such a valuable assistant as I am sure you will
make."

"Now, wife, how about something to eat? I am almost hungry enough to
eat an alligator, and I expect our friend March would be willing to
help me."

Aunt Chloe had been busy ever since the travellers arrived, and supper
was as ready for them as they were for it. After supper, when they were
once more gathered in the sitting-room, Mr. Elmer said, "I got a
charter granted me while I was in Tallahassee--can any of you guess for
what?"

None of them could guess, unless, as Mark suggested, it was for
incorporating "Go Bang," and making a city of it in opposition to
Wakulla.

"It is to establish and maintain a ferry between those portions of the
town of Wakulla lying on opposite sides of the St. Mark's River," said
Mr. Elmer.

"A FERRY?" said Mrs. Elmer.

"A FERRY?" said Ruth.

"A ferry?" said Mark; "what sort of a ferry steam-power, horse-power,
or boy-power?"

"I expect it will be mostly boy-power," said Mr. Elmer, laughing. "You
see I kept thinking of what Mr. Bevil told us last Sunday, that what
Wakulla needed most was a bridge and a mill. I knew we couldn't build a
bridge, at least not at present; but the idea of a ferry seemed
practicable. We have got enough lumber to build a large flat-boat,
there are enough of us to attend to a ferry, and so I thought I'd get a
charter, anyhow."

Mark could hardly wait for his father to finish before he broke in with,

"Speaking of mills, father, your ferry will be the very thing to bring
people over to our mill."

"Our mill!" repeated his father. "What do you mean?"

"Why, Jan and I discovered an old mill about half a mile up the river,
while we were out looking for cedar. It's out of repair, and the dam is
partly broken away; but the machinery in it seems to be pretty good,
and the wheel's all right. I don't believe it would take very much
money to fix the dam