Wakulla: a story of adventure in Florida

s paragraph, which appeared among the "Norton Items"

Having disposed of his property in this place, Mr. Elmer has purchased a plantation in Florida, upon which he will settle immediately. As his family

en times or more, "we are somebodies after all, and don't you forget it. We

its glorious trees, which, with its tiny grass-plot in front, was all the property Mr. Elmer had ever owned, he flung up

"is the part about us being interesting children, and

lligators, and the orange groves, and palm-trees, and bread-fruit, and monk

ates, and Indians in Florida! what

in Florida, and it's tropical, and pirates

per which they had been reading to their father, and to eat their l

orted his family comfortably until this time, and laid by a sum of money for a rainy day. And now the "rainy day" had come. For two years past the steady confinement to his desk

lmer; you can't stand i

y to come from? and how were they to live if they did? Long and anxious had been the consultations aft

"Uncle Christmas," heard of their trouble, and left his saw-mills and lumber camps to come and see "where the jam was," as he expressed it. When it was all explai

after the war. I hain't never seen it, and might have forgot it long ago but for the tax bills coming in reg'lar every year. It's down on the St. Mark's River, pretty nigh

, uncle?" asked Mrs. Elmer, whose face had l

n that port this blessed minit. She's bound to Pensacola in ballast, or with just a few notions of hardware sent out as a venture, for a load of pine lumber to fill out a contract I've taken in New York. She can

ne of tremendous excitement to the children, who had never been fro

e leader of the Norton boys in all their games, and the originator of most of their schemes for mischief. But Mark's mischief was ne

she looked up to him in everything, and regarded him with the greatest admiration. Although quiet and studious, she h

ng the paper, for which they had gone every Monday evening since they could remem

house which had been a home to him and his wife ever since they were married, and in whic

iday, and had been made young lions of all the week by the other children. To all of her girl friends Ruth had promised to write every single thing that happened, and Mark had pro

they would not take tea with her; but both Mr. and Mrs. Elmer wanted to take this last meal in their own home, and persuaded her to let them have their way. The good woman must have sent over most of t

s began to drop in to say good-bye, until the lower rooms of the little house were filled. A

heir parents to say good-bye, and many of them had brought little gifts that they urged the young Elmers to take with them as keepsake

woman, with this child in her arms, had fallen from a pier into the river. Springing into the water after them, Captain May had succeeded in saving the child, but the mother was drowned. As nothing could be learned of its history, and as nobody claimed it, Captain May brought the baby home, and

Mark and Ruth, and told them to hurry, for the stage would be along directly. They were soon dressed and down-stairs, where they found breakfast smoking on the table. A moment later they were joined by their parents, neither of whom co

ent over to their own house to pack a few remaining th

he baggage. A few minutes later, with full hearts and tearful eyes, the Elmers had bidden farewell to the little old house