"Say!" cried Freddie, so excited that he slipped right off the soda-water counter seat. "Say! Are you—are you Tommy Todd's father?"
"Yes, that's who I am," the man said. "But what do you know of Tommy?"
"Why, we'd been leaving a basket of things at his house—with Tommy's grandmother. Then we went out in the storm and got lost," Freddie cried in much excitement. "Oh, if you are Tommy's father we won't have to buy a ship and go off to the desert island looking for you, like Robinson Crusoe. Oh, how glad he'll be that you have come back!"
"And how glad I'll be when I see him and my mother!" cried Mr. Todd. "But you spoke of taking her some food. Is my mother poor, and in want?" he asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"She is poor, but not exactly in want. My wife and I and some friends have been looking after her. Your boy, Tommy, runs errands for me."
"Well, well! Tommy must be getting to be quite a boy now. And to think it was your children whom I found and who told me where I was, so none of us were lost. It is very strange! And can you tell me where my mother lives?"
"I can, and I'll take you there. It is not a very nice house, but we have a better one for her. Only she did not want to move in this cold weather."
"I can not thank you enough for being kind to my mother and my son," said Mr. Todd. "But now I shall be able to look after them. I have plenty of money and they need want for nothing now."
In the automobile, going back to Lakeport through the storm, Mr. Todd told Mr. Bobbsey and Flossie and Freddie his story.
He had sailed away, just as Tommy Todd had said, some years before. The vessel of which he was captain was wrecked, and he and some other sailors got to an island where the natives were kind to them.