One day the old man came. Soon after there happened a great event in the family. It was a windy night. The ocean was dashing and foaming along the sea wall on the beach where Long Wharf, Lewis Wharf, and Rowe's Wharf now are. The stars shone brightly, and clouds flew scudding over the moon. Abiah Franklin opened the weather door and looked out. She returned to her great chair slowly with a cloud in her face. "It is a bad night for those on the sea," she said. "It is now nine years since Josiah went away. Where he found an ocean grave we shall never know. It is hard," she added, "to have hope leave you in this way. It is one long torture to live in suspense. There hasn't been a day since the first year after Josiah left us that my ear has not waited to hear a knock on the door on a night like this. "Josiah, you may say that I have faith in the impossible, but I sometimes believe that I shall hear that knock yet. There is one Scripture that comforts me when I think that; it is, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.'" Josiah Franklin sat silent. It was now indeed nine years since his son Josiah had left home against his will and gone to sea--"run away to sea," as his departure was called. It was a kind of mental distemper in old New England times for a boy "to run away and go to sea." There had been fearful storms on the coast. Abiah Franklin was a silent woman when the winds bended the trees and the waves broke loudly on the shore. She thought then; she inwardly prayed, but she said little of the storm that was in her heart. "I shall never see Josiah again," at last said Josiah Franklin. "It is a pity; it is hard on me that the son who bears my name should leave me, to become a wanderer. Boys will do such things. I may have made his home too strict for him; if so, may the Lord forgive me. I have meant to do my best for all my children.--Ben, let Josiah be a warning to you; you have been having the boy fever to go to sea. Hear the winds blow and the sea dash! Josiah must have longed to be back by the fire on nights like these." Josiah went to the window and tapped upon the pane. He did that often when his mind was troubled. To tap upon the pane eased his heartache. It was an old New England way. Josiah took his violin, tuned it, and began to play while the family listened by the fading coals. "I thought I heard something," said Abiah between one of the tunes. "What was it, Abiah?" asked her husband. "It sounded like a step." "That's nothing strange." "It sounded familiar," she said. "Steps are peculiar." "Oh, I know of whom you are thinking," said Josiah. "May the Lord comfort you, for the winds and waves do not to-night." He played again. His wife grew restless. "Josiah," said she when he ceased playing, "you may say that I have fancies, but I thought I saw a face pass the window." "That is likely, Abiah." "But this one had a short chin and a long nose."