"At your service, ma'am."
"Ain't you my tramp?"
"Yes."
"Then you are just fooling about our going to live with, you."
"Not at all. I mean every word of it. Ask Grandma, ask Brother Strong, ask Gail, any of them."
"But what about the tramp?" she half whispered, still too dazed to understand.
"That is rather a long story," he smiled, stroking the tight ringlets of brown on one side of him, and the bright, golden curls on the other. "A year ago last spring I tried to be ill—play sick, you know; and the doctor told me a vacation of tramping was what I needed to put me in tune again. Having some pet theories in regard to the tramp problem of this country, I decided to take his words literally, so I turned tramp myself—just for a little time, you see. That is how you saw me first. I told my wife it was a case of love at first sight, and I became so much interested in this brave little family that I have kept watch ever since.
"Here was a family without any father and mother, and there were a father and mother without any family. You needed the one and we needed the other. But at first the way didn't seem clear. I was given to understand that you didn't want to be adopted, and as I found that Gail was legally old enough to take care of the family, I was just on the point of preparing to play guardian angel instead of grandfather, when I chanced upon some old church records telling about your own grandfather's death. It gave a brief account of his life, and I was astonished to find that I knew him well,—in fact, as my big brother."
"Tell us about it," pleaded Hope, as he paused reminiscently.
"When I was a little shaver my father was a seaman, captain of a ship; but his whole fortune consisted of his vessel, his wife and son. Mother and I often used to go with him on his trips, but for some reason he left me at home the last time he set sail, and he never came back. New Orleans was his port. Yellow fever broke out while he was there, and so far as I have been able to find out, every soul of his crew died of it. I had been left with a neighbor who had her hands full looking after her own children; so, when word came that my parents were both dead, she sent for the town officers, and told them I must go to the poor-farm. I was only about the size of Allee, here, but I knew that the poor-farm was a place much dreaded, and rather than be taken there, I tried to run away. Your grandfather found me. He was one of our nearest neighbors and knew me well, so when I sobbed out the whole terrible story into his sympathetic ears, he adopted me on the spot. He wasn't more than a dozen years old himself, but he had a heart big enough to take in the whole world, and when he had coaxed me home with him and told his mother about my misfortune, I knew I was safe. They would never send me away again. So Hiram Allen became my big brother, and the Allen home was mine for ten long years. Then an uncle of mine whom everyone had thought was dead put in appearance and took me to sea on a long voyage which covered the greater part of four years. When I returned, Mother and Father Allen were dead and the younger fry had gone West,—no one seemed to know where. Then and there I completely lost sight of them, and it was only by chance that I—"