Tommy seemed to hang back.

“Could I have this one ten cent piece all for myself?” he asked.

“Why, of course you may.  There is a dime for each of you.  Don’t you like ice cream?”

“Oh, yes indeed.  But I’d rather save this for my grandmother.  I’m not very warm.”

“Now look here!” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh.  “You spend that money for yourself and for Freddie and Johnnie.  I’ll see that your grandmother is taken care of.  I’m going to telephone to my wife, now, to go down to see her.”

“Oh, all right, thank you!” cried Tommy.  And then, when he had hurried off down to the ice cream store with Freddie and Johnnie, Mr. Bobbsey called up his wife at home and asked her to see Mrs. Todd.

Mrs. Bobbsey went to the little house on Lombard Street at once.  She found Tommy’s grandmother to be a nice woman, but quite ill from having worked too hard during the hot weather.  She was very feeble.

“But I must keep a home for Tommy,” she said to Mrs. Bobbsey.  “His father, my son, was lost at sea, and Tommy is all I have now.  I don’t mind the hard work when I’m well, but I don’t feel good now.”

“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.  “We’ll get you well and strong again, and then you can keep a home for Tommy.”

Mrs. Todd told very much the same story Tommy had told—­that her son, Tommy’s father, had sailed away to sea, and after many days a passing vessel had sighted the wreck of his.  Broken lifeboats were floating about the surface of the ocean, but no one alive was found in them.  As there was no trace of Captain Todd or any of the sailors, every one believed they had all been drowned.

“Tommy seems to think his father may be alive,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

Mrs. Todd sighed.

“I sometimes used to think that myself,” she said.  “But now I have given up hope.  It is over five years, and if my son were alive he would have sent me some word before now.  I wish he would come back, for then he would look after Tommy and me.”

It was not a nice place where Tommy lived with his grandmother, but Mrs. Todd did her best to keep the house neat and clean.  Mrs. Bobbsey called in a doctor, and also sent a woman to nurse Mrs. Todd until she grew better, which she did in a few days.

Then she could keep on with her sewing, by which she earned enough for her and Tommy to live on.  But it was not a very good living they made, and they often did not have enough to eat.

“I’ll give you some of my sewing to do,” promised Mrs. Bobbsey, “and so will some ladies I know.”

So, for a time at least, Mrs. Todd was to be taken care of.  When she grew better she had as much work as she could do.

But this was some time after the day when Tommy called at Mr. Bobbsey’s office.  That day, after the three boys had eaten their ice cream, Tommy went back to the lumber yard, and Mr. Bobbsey told him that Mrs. Bobbsey had gone to see Mrs. Todd.