“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.  “I wonder if I should be as glad to see my father if he was as good to me as theirs is to them?”

While Frank’s mind was full of such thoughts, he heard a quick step at the door, and looking up, saw the very person he had been thinking of—­his own father!

“Frank, my boy!” exclaimed Mr. March, “can it be you?  Oh, Frank, I didn’t know how much I loved you until I lost you, and I have tried in every way to find you and beg you to come home again.”  With these words Mr. March stooped down and kissed his son’s forehead, saying, “I haven’t kissed you since you were a baby, Frank, and I do it now as a sign that from this time forward I will try to be a good and loving father to you.”

“Oh, father,” cried the happy boy, “do you really love me?  Then if you will forgive me for running away and being such a wicked boy, I will never, never do so again.”

“Indeed I will,” answered his father.  “But what is the matter, Frank?  Have you been ill?  How came you here?”

While Frank was giving his father a brief account of what had happened to him since he ran away from home, the Elmers were exchanging the most important bits of news outside the front gate.  They waited there while Mr. Elmer and Jan unhitched from a new farm-wagon a pair of fine mules that the former had bought and driven down from Tallahassee that day.

When the children ran out to greet their father, one of the first things Ruth said was, “Oh, we’ve got a new boy, father, and he’s in the sitting-room, and his name’s Frank March, and an alligator almost dragged him into the river, and Mark shot it.”

Almost without waiting to hear the end of this long sentence, a stranger who had come with Mr. Elmer opened the front gate, and quickly walking to the house, disappeared within it.

“Who is that, husband, and what has he gone into the house for?” asked Mrs. Elmer, in surprise.

“I don’t know much about him,” answered Mr. Elmer, “except that his name is March; and as he was recommended to me as being a good carpenter, I engaged him to come and do what work was necessary to repair this house.”

“I wonder if he is Frank’s wicked father?” said Ruth; and then the whole story had to be told to Mr. Elmer before they went into the house.