“It’s not so pleasant as my Aunt Martha’s,” declared Anne loyally.
It seemed to Rose that it would be a very fortunate thing for her little friend to live with Aunt Anne Rose, and she could not understand Anne’s eagerness to return to Province Town.
“May we not walk down to the wharf, Rose?” Anne asked eagerly. “Your father may have news of the ship.”
But Mr. Freeman only shook his head, a little soberly, Anne thought, and the day passed without any sight or news of the “Yankee Hero.”
Anne was not very happy that day. She wondered what would happen to her father if the English had captured his ship, and wished with all her heart that she was with Aunt Martha Stoddard. That night she dreamed of a fairy hid beneath her pillow, and that it whispered to her, “There is your father! Right beside the bed,” and when she awoke the next morning Anne said to herself, “I feel happy, but I don’t know why,” and then decided that a good fairy had visited her. But when she went down-stairs, there in the front hall stood a dark man smiling as Anne exclaimed, “My father!”
For the “Yankee Hero” had arrived in the early evening of the previous night, and John Nelson had lost no time in making his way to Mr. Freeman’s house, hoping for news of Anne. And he had tiptoed into her room for a look at his little daughter, just as the fairy whispered.
There was so much for Anne to tell him! John Nelson looked very grave when he heard of Anne’s running away in the night.
“But Uncle Enos and Aunt Martha know that I believed they no longer wanted me,” pleaded Anne. “And, oh, father, Aunt Martha said I was not to go to Brewster and journey to Boston with the Freemans to see you.”
Anne had not known that her father could be so stern.
“You might never have been heard from, Anne, starting off like that. I do not know if Mistress Stoddard will be willing to again take charge of you,” he said.