will get some friends of mine to give money also. Our own children enjoy it so much in the country that I want to see others have a good time, too."

Then he and Mrs. Bobbsey began to talk about ways of helping poor children, and Flossie and Freddie did not listen any more. Besides, just then the train was passing along a field in which were many horses, some of which raced alongside the cars, and that interested the twins.

"Oh, look at 'em run!" cried the fresh air boy who sat in front of the smaller Bobbsey twins. "Don't they go fast?"

The other fresh air youngsters crowded to their windows to look out, and some tried to push their companions away so they might see better. Then a number all wanted a drink of water at the same time, and the two ladies who were in charge of the children were kept busy making them settle down.

The quiet, neat boy about whom Flossie had whispered to her brother, turned around in his seat and, looking at Freddie, asked:

"Were you ever on a farm?"

"Yes," answered Freddie, "we just came from our uncle Dan's farm, at Meadow Brook. We were there 'most all Summer. Now we're going back home."

"Where do you live, and what's your name?" asked the strange boy.

"My name's Freddie Bobbsey, and this is my sister Flossie," was the answer. "We're twins. Up there, in that other seat, are my brother and sister, Bert and Nan. They're twins too, but they're older'n we are. We live in Lakeport."

"You do?" cried the boy in surprise. "Why, that's where I live! My name is Tommy Todd."

"That's a nice name," put in Flossie politely. "I don't know any one of that name in Lakeport though. Where does your father live?"

Tommy Todd did not answer at once, and Freddie was surprised to see tears in the eyes of the strange boy.

"I—I guess you folks don't ever come down to our part of Lakeport," he said. "We live down near the dumps. It isn't very nice there."

Freddie had heard of the "dumps." It was on the farther side of the city, a long distance from his nice home. Once, when he was very little, he had wandered away and been lost. A policeman who found him had said Freddie was near the "dumps."

Freddie remembered that very well. Afterward, he heard that the "dumps" was a place where the ashes, tin cans, and other things that people threw away were dumped by the scavengers. So Freddie was sure it could not be a very nice place.

"I live out near the dumps, with my grandmother," went on Tommy Todd.

"We've a grandmother too," said Flossie. "We go to see her at Christmas. We've two grandmas. One is my mother's mother, and the other is my father's mother. That's my papa and my mother back there," and Flossie pointed to where Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were talking to the fresh air lady.

"Doesn't your father live with you and your grandmother?" asked Freddie.

"I—I haven't any father," said Tommy, and once more the tears came into his eyes. "He was lost at sea. He was a captain on a ship, and it was wrecked."

"Oh, please tell us about it!" begged Freddie. "I just love stories about the ocean; don't you, Flossie?"

"Yes, I do."

"I'm going to be a sea captain when I grow up," said Freddie. "Tell us about your father, Tommy."

So while the train rushed on Tommy Todd told his sad little story.

CHAPTER II

A SUDDEN STOP

"I don't remember my father very well," said Tommy Todd. "I was real little when he went away. That was just after my mother died. My grandmother took care of me. I just remember a big man with black hair and whiskers, taking me up in his arms, and kissing me good-bye. That was my father, my grandmother told me afterward."

"What made him go away from you?" asked Flossie. "Didn't he like to stay at home?"

"I guess maybe he did," said Tommy. "But he couldn't stay. He was a sea 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."

"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.

"A little. She sews and I run errands for the groceryman after school, and earn a little. But it isn't much. I was glad when the fresh air folks took me to the farm. I had lots to eat, and my grandmother had more too, for she didn't have to feed me. She is going to the fresh air farm some day, maybe."

"That will be nice," said Flossie. "We're going to Uncle Dan's farm again next year, maybe, and perhaps your grandma can come there."

"I don't believe so," returned Tommie. "But anyhow I had fun, and I weigh two pounds more than 'fore I went away, and I can run errands faster now for Mr. Fitch."

"Why, he's our grocery man!" cried Freddie. "Do you work for him, Tommy?"

"Sometimes, and