"Yes, it's me just about drowned. They let me come alone. The others were not quite ready."

"Haven't you been through a lot?" asked Tony.

"More than I want to see again."

"How many are on board the 'White Shield?'"

"I feared it was she when I laid my eyes on her," said Captain Peters.

"Five in the crew, my father, and one pa.s.senger."

"Dis a s'prise," said a new-comer, looking at Wort. It was Juggie.

"It _is_ a surprise," was Wort's reply. "Catch me going again."

"You'd rather be de keeper ob de great seal."

"Yes, indeed!"

Among the arrivals by the life-car was the skipper of the "White Shield,"

and there was also a man wrapped in a cloak.

"He aint a sailor," said one of the station-hands, criticising the dress of the man in the cloak.

"It is the pa.s.senger," said Wort.

He was a man still young, and his clothes had an outlandish cut. He walked up the beach, the four young knights having preceded him. Then he halted, and gave a look at the boys. The boys halted, and gave a look at him.

Suddenly Tony bounded away, and bounded into the man's arms.

What happened afterward, Charlie told Aunt Stanshy at the breakfast-table.

"Aunt Stanshy, guess what happened at the beach to Tony."

"I don't know, I am sure. I give it up."

"Well, the 'White Shield' had a pa.s.senger, and when he got on the beach, the first thing we knew, Tony Blanco went rushing at him, and the man put his arms round Tony, and then Tony came pulling him along to us, and said, 'It's my father, boys!' And he was real pleasant, and said he'd send as some oranges."

"Tony's father? How did he turn up? I thought he was in Italy."

"Well, you see, aunty, he was in a ship coming from Italy, and the ship, I b'lieve, had a storm and was sinking when the 'White Shield' and another vessel came along, and they two took the people from Tony's father's ship.

But that other vessel, you know, was going right to Italy, and so all but Tony's father went back in her, because you know they were Italian sailors. Tony's father, though, was a pa.s.senger, and he wanted to come to America, and so he got aboard the 'White Shield' and came here, right where Tony was; and, wasn't that funny?"

"I should think it was."

"He and Tony were real glad to see one another. Juggie called it, aunty, 'a second s'prise.'"

The "s'prises," though, were not all over. Charlie had a nap after breakfast, and finishing it, went to a window to see how the outside world looked. He stayed there only a minute, and then rushed to the head of the stairs leading down cellar, calling:

"Aunt Stanshy! Aunt Stanshy, come quick, do! There goes Tony's father!"

Aunt Stanshy was down cellar fishing for pork in a capacious barrel. She dropped the piece for which she had successfully angled, and rushed to the stairs as if a whirlwind was after her. Breathless, she arrived at Charlie's window.

"There, aunty, that is he!"

"What, Mr. Walton?"

"No, Mr. Walton is coming down the lane; but don't you see that other man going up the lane?"

"O, yes, I see now."

"Well, that is him."

"But what are those two men doing? If they aint shaking hands! and now they've got their arms round one another, and there they go walking off together! It is the queerest proceeding! Why, they act as if they had known one another a long time!"

Aunt Stanshy had too much of the woman in her to let the matter drop there.

She said to herself, "If any one knows about this thing, it is Miss Persnips. I'll clap on my bonnet and go up there."

Miss Persnips generally had a bag full of news, and it was the only thing in the store for which she did not make a charge. Its mouth was hospitably open to all comers, and the distribution of its contents had an effect on her custom like the giving out of a chromo as a present. This morning, though, while the a.s.sortment in the bag was quite full and varied, it had nothing on the above subject. Aunt Stanshy went home disappointed. If she could have gone to Mr. Walton's she would have witnessed something of interest.

Mr. Walton was leading the stranger into his house, when he said, "Stop a moment in the parlor and I will go into the sitting-room and prepare her."

"All right."

"Mother," said Mr. Walton, stepping into the sitting-room, "would you like to see an old friend this morning? You feel comfortable?"

"O yes; bring him in."

"Shall I tell you who it is?"

"No, let me have the surprise."

Her son led the stranger in.

"Why, Fred!" exclaimed Mrs. Walton.

The man dropped on his knees, and put his head in her lap. And this was all that the mother did--she stroked his head with her hands, saying: "Why, Fred! Fred! my poor boy!"

That was the way the long-absent son came home.

Fred Walton had been a wayward young man, finally going to Italy in a sailing-vessel, engaging to do any work for the sake of his pa.s.sage.

In Italy, he took the name of Blanco, purposing to build up a new character on the basis of a new name. The new character he needed, but his old name would have served him. He there married a young Italian lady who had met his older brother in his travels and was an object of deep interest to him, but he had relinquished her to the younger brother. Their married home was a pretty one, and a view of it Fred sent to his family in America. It was a picture of this home, taken at another season of the year, and from a different point of view, that his mother and brother had noticed, and yet failed to identify, when Tony's pictures were inspected.

Fred's wife dying, leaving a little boy, Antonio, four years old, Fred wished to return to America, but concluded to remain in Italy, educating his boy in English as well as Italian. A year before this story opens, he wrote his mother that he was about to sail for a port in Algeria. It was a wild business enterprise, and he sent his little boy, Antonio, with friends--also named Blanco--to New York, expecting soon to follow them, and desiring in the meantime to make sure of a good home for Antonio.

During his absence in Africa he wrote home, but his letters miscarried.

Nothing had been heard since the day he sailed from Italy, and his old mother anxiously thought of him on stormy nights, fearing lest he had gone down into the wide grave of the sea. The Blanco family that cared for Tony in New York, obliged to leave the city by the failure of their work, came to Seamont to find it there awhile. When they returned to New York, as Tony was attached to Seamont, they left him with the Badger family for awhile. They were waiting to hear from Tony's father about his plans for the boy, when he appeared in an unexpected fashion to look directly after Tony, and visit also his relatives; but they and the club were sorry to know that, contrary to his wishes, he must go back to Italy, and take Tony with him.

"Ah, now I understand about that boy," said Mr. Walton, to his mother; "why he looked familiar, and if the people who brought him had had a different name, I might have looked into it, but I thought they must be relatives. Of course, not hearing from Fred, we had no thought that his child was here."