“I wants my mamma, I does! I wants my mamma! I want to go home!”
“We’ll take you home, and to your mamma, as soon as we can,” promised the manager, soothingly. “But don’t you want to sleep in this nice boat, to-night? And see, I’ll make the choo-choo engine go for you. Won’t that be nice?”
“Yes,” answered Charlie, now, smiling through his tears.
The motor was set going, and, as the house drifted on down stream, upright once more, and freed from the sandbar on which it had stranded, the motor boat was steered toward the big oak tree, where she was to be tied for the night.
Charlie House was so interested now, in the working of the machinery, and the various novel sights aboard the motor craft, that he forgot his loneliness. Blake spread him some bread and jam, and this completed the temporary happiness of the poor little waif.
Later he was given more supper, which he ate with a fine appetite, showing that he must have been without food for some time. There was a spare bunk on the Clytie, and Charlie, the traces of his tears washed away, was soon sleeping comfortably in this.
“What are we going to do?” asked Blake, when the others sat in the small cabin that night, talking over the situation.
“Well, we’ve got to try to locate his mother, of course,” said Mr. Ringold. “I’ll have a talk with him in the morning, and see if I can’t find out from what town or city it was his house was carried away. He ought to know where he lived, even if he doesn’t recall his own name. And that may come to him by daylight. We’ll just let him sleep now, and get some ourselves.”
“For we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” commented C. C. Piper.
“Going to stand watch and watch to-night?” asked Blake.