"No, sir. We broke adrift from Captain Littlefield's ship yesterday when she blowed up, an' the baby's awful hungry."
"Ship blowed up, eh? Whereabouts was she?"
"Out there"; and the boy pointed eastward in an undecided manner, as if not exactly certain where he had come from.
"What made her blow up?" Tom asked curiously.
"I don't know. There was an awful splosion like more'n a hundred bunches of firecrackers, an' the captain put Louis an' me in the lifeboat to wait till his wife got some things from the cabin. While all the sailors was runnin' 'round wild like, we got adrift. I hollered an' hollered, but nobody saw us." Then he added in a lower tone, "Louis cried last night for somethin' to eat, an' he must be pretty hungry now."
"Well, well, well!" and as the thought of whether he would be paid for the trouble of pulling the boat ashore came into the farmer's mind, he said quickly, "'Cordin' to that you don't own this boat?"
"She belongs to the ship."
"An' seein's how the vessel ain't anywhere near, I reckon I've as much right to this craft as anybody else. Where do you count on goin'?"
"If we could only get back to New York I'm sure I would be able to find the captain's house."
"It's a powerful long ways from here, sonny; but I'll see that you are put in a comfortable place till somethin' can be done. What's your name?"