“Yes, she is a friend. She—I guess she ran away to sail a short distance with us. We shan’t see each other again this summer. She forgot her money. I mean she didn’t have any to forget; and—Sir? What did you ask me to find?”
“To buy a morning paper for me, my dear. You see, being lame—Did you ever know anybody who was lame?” asked the old man, with a smile.
“Ah! yes. The dearest man in all the world; my father.”
Thereupon Dorothy huddled down beside the stranger and gave a history of her father’s illness, his wonderful patience, and the last effort he was making to regain his health.
She did not know that it is often unsafe to talk with unknown people upon a journey; and in any case she would not have feared such a benignant old gentleman as this. She ended her talk with the inquiry:
“Where will I find the paper, Mr.—Mr.—I mean, sir?”
“Smith my name is. John Smith of Smithville. You’ll find all the papers and books at a news-stand on the lower deck. There’s a candy-stand there, too, such as will interest you two more than the papers, likely;” he answered with another smile.
They started down the stairs leading from the main saloon to the lower part of the boat, and not until they had reached the news-stand did either of them remember that she hadn’t brought her purse nor asked which paper their new acquaintance desired.
“Oh! dear! Wasn’t that silly of us! And we’re almost to West Point, where my cousin Tom’s a cadet! He promised to be on the lookout for us, if he could get leave to go to the steamboat landing. I wrote and told him about our trip and he answered right away. He’s Aunt Lucretia’s only child and she adores him. Hasn’t spoiled him though. Papa took care about that! If I go back after our pocket-books I may lose the chance to see him! So provoking! I wish now we hadn’t bothered ourselves about that old man. If he was able to come aboard the boat and go up those stairs to the deck he was able to buy his own old papers. So there!” cried Molly, stamping her little foot in her vexation.
West Point cadets are given few permissions to leave their Academy for social visits, so that Tom had never been to the Rhinelander school where rules were also so strict that Molly had been but once to see her cousin in his own quarters. Until he went to the Point and she to school in the hill-city a few miles further up the river, they had lived together in her father’s house and were like brother and sister. The disappointment now was great to the loving girl and Dorothy hastened to comfort, by saying: