“I tell you what it is, fellows,” he said, in reply to their questions. “I’m not as big a fool as I was before I ran away. I thought I was having a mighty hard time of it here, but I soon found out my mistake. All I can say is that I pity fellows that haven’t got any homes to go to when they get as homesick as I was.”
“Then you don’t think of running away again very soon?” suggested Dwight Holden, laughingly.
“Boys,”—and Tom spoke very solemnly now—“when I was on the Swiftsure I found out how lonesome a boy can be without his mother; I never knew before. Just as long as I can I shall stay where I can see my mother and speak to her; and if at any time any one of you thinks that his mother isn’t the best and dearest friend a boy can have, just do as I did and it won’t take you very long to find out that you are mistaken.”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.