“You’d better call him your Uncle Tom,” said Connie, with a laugh, “because he’s already adopted you.”
“All right,” agreed Billie. “I wonder what made Uncle Tom speak the way he did about storms and wrecks and—and—things——”
“Why, since he’s a sailor,” said Laura, “I suppose he’s been in all sorts of wrecks, and of course he thinks about them most in a storm.”
“No,” said Connie gravely. “No, that isn’t it. You see,” she lowered her voice a little and spoke slowly, “Uncle Tom lost somebody in a wreck once. She was a very lovely girl, it is said, and Uncle Tom was engaged to marry her.”
The girls’ young faces were very sober as they gazed at Connie.
“Oh,” said Billie softly. “Now I see. Poor, poor Uncle Tom!”