A closely shaven crown appeared above the stem as if its owner had but just awakened, and was peering out to see where his voyage was about to end.
Nearer and nearer the little craft drifted until she was dancing on the shore line of the surf, and the figure in the bow gazed as intently landward as the farmer and his son did seaward.
"It's a boy, father, an' he ain't as big as me!" Tom cried. "Well, that beats anything I ever saw!"
This last remark probably referred to the general appearance of the young voyager.
He was an odd-looking little fellow, with a head which seemed unusually small because the hair was closely cropped, and a bent, misshapen body several sizes too large for the thin legs which barely raised it above the gunwales. The face was by no means beautiful, but the expression of anxiety and fear caused it to appeal directly to Tom's heart, if not to his father's.
Farmer Pratt was not pleased at thus learning that the boat had an occupant.
Empty, she would have been a source of profit; but although there was apparently no one save the deformed lad aboard, he could make no legal claim upon her.
The craft was there, however, and would speedily be overturned unless he waded out into the surf at the risk of a rheumatic attack, to pull her inshore.
Although decidedly averse to performing any charitable deed, he did this without very much grumbling, and Tom was a most willing assistant.
That which had come out of the east on this bright June morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long, and with the name "Atlanta" painted on the gunwales.