head he supposed she would have named him
"Spotless."

CHAPTER XIV.

HOW THE BOYS CAUGHT AN ALLIGATOR

"Hi! Mark," shouted Frank from his ferry-boat one warm morning in
March, "come here a minute. I've got something to tell you. Great
scheme."

"Can't," called Mark--"got to go to mill."

"Well, come when you get back."

"All right."

Mark and Frank had by this time become the best of friends, for each
had learned to appreciate the good points of the other, and to value
his opinions. Their general information was as different as possible,
and each thought that the other knew just the very things a boy ought
to know. While Mark's knowledge was of books, games, people, and places
that seemed to Frank almost like foreign countries, he knew the names
of every wild animal, bird, fish, tree, and flower to be found in the
surrounding country, and was skilled in all tricks of woodcraft.

Since this boy had first entered the Elmer household, wounded, dirty,
and unkempt as a young savage, he had changed so wonderfully for the
better that his best friends of a few months back would not have
recognized him. He was now clean, and neatly dressed in an old suit of
Mark's which just fitted him, and his hair, which had been long and
tangled, was cut short and neatly brushed. Being naturally of a sunny
and affectionate disposition, the cheerful home influences, the
motherly care of Mrs. Elmer, whose heart was very tender towards the
motherless boy, and, above all, the great alteration in his father's
manner, had changed the shy, sullen lad, such as he had been, into an
honest, happy fellow, anxious to do right, and in every way to please
the kind friends to whom his debt of gratitude was so great. His
regular employment at the ferry, the feeling that he was useful, and,
more than anything else, the knowledge that he was one of the
proprietors of the Elmer Mill, gave him a sense of dignity and
importance that went far towards making him contented with his new mode
of life. Mark, Ruth, and he studied for two hours together every
evening under Mrs. Elmer's direction, and though Frank was far behind
the others, he bade fair to become a first-class scholar.

Mr. Elmer was not a man who thought boys were only made to get as much
work out of as possible. He believed in a liberal allowance to play,
and said that when the work came it would be done all the better for
it. So, every other day, Mark and Frank were sent down to St.