Buch lesen: «Rilla of the Lighthouse», Seite 5
CHAPTER XII.
WEE IRISHY CAKES
Muriel awakened the next morning with a song in her heart that she was soon expressing in clear, sweet notes which told the listener how glad, glad the singer was just to be alive.
Captain Ezra, busying himself near the open kitchen door, sighed softly as he realized that this wordless song was different from the others that Muriel had sung in the mornings that were past as she prepared their simple breakfast.
There had been words to those other songs, sometimes hymns that the lassie had memorized from having often heard them repeated at the meeting-house, whither she had been permitted to go when the summer colony was closed. Then again, there had been times when she had set words of her own to the meeting-house tunes; lilting melodies they were of winging gulls and of the mermaids who lived in the sea. But this morning there was a new and eager joyousness in the girl’s singing. For the first time in her fifteen years, the gates of her prison had been flung wide and she had stepped out into a strange world, timidly, perhaps, but soon forgetting herself in her delight at what she had found, a world of books, of young companionship, of adventure and romance. Muriel, even if she were again imprisoned, would never be quite the same. But the newly awakened love in the heart of Captain Ezra had been the key that had opened the door for his “gal,” and she was now free to come and go as she wished, because he trusted her. She would not leave him without telling him nor would he detain her if she wished to go.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to you, Grand-dad,” she called, when the fish were done to a turn and the potatoes were crispy brown. “I’ve a mind to be bakin’ today,” she continued when he was seated at the table. “Some o’ those wee Irishy cakes that Uncle Barney taught me how to make, just like his ‘auld’ mother did. He’s allays askin’ for ’em when he docks at Windy Island. He’s been laid up so long, I cal’late the taste of ’em might be cheerin’ him, wouldn’t you reckon they might, Grand-dad?”
The young arms were about the old man’s neck and her fresh young cheek rested against the forehead that was leathered by exposure to the sun and wind and beating rain.
There was a twinkle in the grey eye that was nearest her.
“I cal-late as ’twould add to ol’ Cap’n Barney’s cheer if the stewardess herself toted them cookies to his stranded ol’ craft on the dunes. Was that what yo’ was figgerin’ on doin’, fust mate?”
“If yo’d like to take me, Grand-dad.” This very demurely. The old sea captain put down his knife and fork and laughed heartily.
“I reckon a gal who knows how to sail a boat better’n most folks don’ need a boatman to cruise her over to the mainland. Sho now, Rilly! Navigate yer own craft. The embargo’s lifted, as the newspapers put it. Come and go when it’s to yer likin’. Jest be lettin’ me know.” Then he added, as though it were an after-thought: “When yo’ carry yer cargo o’ cakes to town, if I was yo’ I’d leave a few at Miss Brazilla’s cottage. I reckon yer new friend might be likin’ the taste o’ suthin’ differ’nt.”
Muriel’s cheeks were rosy. “Grand-dad,” she protested, “I wa’n’t thinkin’ of Gene Beavers, honest I wa’n’t! I just reckoned ’twasn’t fair for me to be spendin’ a whole arternoon wi’ a new friend when an ol’ one who’s been lovin’ me for years back is laid up in drydock an’ needs me even more.”
The hazel eyes looked across the table so frankly that the teasing twinkle faded in the grey eyes and an expression of infinite tenderness took its place.
“I reckon I understand, fust mate,” the old man said. “Cap’n Barney’s got a heart in him as big as the hold in a freight boat, but thar’s a powerful lot of loneliness in it, for all that he’s allays doin’ neighborly things for the folks on the dunes. Barney’s been hankerin’ for years to be goin’ back to his ol’ mother, but she keeps writin’ him to be stayin’ in America, and that she’ll come to keep his house as soon as her duty’s done, but she don’ come, for it’s this un’ and that un’ over thar that’s in need of her ministrin’. Some day, I reckon, Barney’ll pull up anchor and set sail for his Emerald Isle.”
“Oh, Grand-dad,” Rilla said, with sudden tears in her eyes, “you’n me’ll be that lonely if he goes.”
During the morning, while Muriel busied herself with making the little “Irishy” cakes, she did not sing, nor was she thinking of Gene Beavers, for all of her thoughts were of her dear friend, old Captain Barney. Somehow she hadn’t realized before how lonesome he must be so far away from kith and kin. The fisherfolk living about him on the dunes were not from his country, nor were their interests his interests. They loved him, but could not understand him, for, as Mrs. Sam Peters had said one day to a group of the wives: “How can a body understand a man with grey hair on the top o’ his head who believes in the fairies?”
Muriel understood him, and so no wonder was it that they two were the closest of friends.
Long rows of pert looking little cakes with spiral peaks were on the white pine shelf when Cap’n Ezra heard the welcome call for mess.
“Yo, Rilly gal,” he exclaimed, “looks like a baker shop for sure sartin. How much a dozen are yo’ askin’ for yer wares?”
“Yo’re to have a dozen for the takin’, Grand-dad,” the girl, flushed from the heat of the stove, told him beamingly. “Yo’re share o’ ’em is on the table waitin’ yer comin’.”
“So they be,” the old man declared as he caught sight of the plate heaped with little cakes near his place. “Yo’ wouldn’t be leavin’ yer ol’ Grand-dad out, would yo’, fust mate?”
“Leave yo’ out, Grand-dad?” The questioner seemed amazed that such a suggestion could be made. “Why, if all the folks in all the world were to go somewhar’s else an’ I still had you, I’d be that happy an’ content.”
The girl said this nestled close in the old man’s arms, and over her head he wiped away a tear.
“Thunderation fish-hooks!” he exclaimed gruffly. “What a tarnal lot o’ sentiment, sort of, we two folks do think lately. I reckon your grand-dad’s cruisin’ into his second childhood faster’n a full rigged schooner can sail ahead of a gale.”
Laughingly Muriel skipped to the stove and carried the black iron spider to the table to serve Captain Ezra.
“I reckon it’s better off we are when we are childlike, Grand-dad,” she said. Then with sweet seriousness she added: “You know the Good Book tells that it’s only them that becomes like a child again that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Taking her place opposite the old man, the girl sat for a moment looking out of the open window at the shining waters of the bay.
“I reckon it means that we must be trustin’ like a little child is, knowin’ our Father in Heaven wants to take care of us. I reckon we’d ought to be like little Zoeth was the day that Mr. Wixon got mad an’ was goin’ to cruise off and leave his fam’ly forever. He was packin’ up his kit, sayin’ hard words all the time, when little cripple Zoeth clumped over to him, and slippin’ that frail hand o’ his into the big one, he said, trustin’ like: ‘Ma says yer goin’ away forever, but I know ’tain’t so. Yo’re my dad and yer wantin’ to take care o’ me, aren’t yo’, Dad?’
“Yo’ recollect that Mr. Wixon stayed, and, what’s more, Mis’ Wixon, she changed, too. She stopped peckin’ about suthin’ all the time an’ tried to figure out what she could do to make her home happy, an’ she did it, Grand-dad. I reckon that little ol’ shack o’ the Wixons is the happiest home on the dunes.” Then, taking up her knife and fork, she added: “I cal’late that’s what the Good Book means, just trustin’ an’ bein’ happy-hearted like a child.”
An hour later Captain Ezra stood at the top of the steep steps leading down the cliff and watched while his “gal” rowed the dory over toward the mainland.
The girl looked up at the first buoy and waved to the one she loved most in all the world.
Little Sol was down on the wharf, and with him were several small boys and girls, rather unkempt, rough mannered little creatures, for the wives of the fishermen hadn’t much money to spend and the children were permitted to grow up as untutored as water rats. When Rilla landed they ran to her with arms outstretched. “Rilly, Rilly,” they clamored, “be tellin’ us a story ’bout the mermaid that lived in a cave an – ”
“An’ how the tail on her changed to two legs an’ she was married to a prince,” the oldest among them concluded. Many a time Muriel had told them this story.
“I reckon I haven’t time today,” Rilla said with a quick glance at the sun. Then suddenly she thought of something. In her basket there were two packages. In the larger one there were cakes for Uncle Barney. That could not be touched. But in the smaller one there were cakes which she had planned leaving at the Mullet cottage for Gene. After all, it was hardly fair when he had all the goodies he wished and these raggedy children almost never had anything but fish and potatoes. “I cal’late I have time to be givin’ yo’ each a little cake,” Muriel announced.
Placing her basket on a roll of tarred rope, she opened the smaller package and passed around the crispy little cakes and when she saw the glow in the eyes that looked up at her she was glad of her decision. “Now we’ll be learnin’ the manners,” she laughingly told the children, who gazed at her with wide-eyed wonder. “Each of yo’ be makin’ a bow and say, ‘Thank you, Rilly.’”
A fine lady had come to Windy Island the summer before to visit the light and with her had been a fairy-like girl of seven. Muriel had been baking cakes that day and had given her one. To her surprise, the child had made the prettiest curtsy and had said, “Thank you, Miss Muriel.”
Whatever strange thing Rilla might ask the children to do they would at least attempt it, and so, holding fast with grimy fingers to the precious cakes, they watched the older girl as she showed them how to curtsy. Then they tried to do likewise, the while they piped out, “Thank yo’, Rilly!”
“Now, dearies, allays do that arter yo’ve been given anythin’ nice,” she bade them. “Ye-ah, Rilly, we-uns will,” was the reply that followed her. But it was rather muffled, for the cakes were being hungrily devoured.
Muriel wished that she could give each child another, but she could not open Uncle Barney’s package, and so, turning to wave goodbye, she left the wharf and set out across the dunes in the direction of the Irishman’s cabin.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEIGHBORLINESS
As Muriel neared the shanty on the sand dunes in which lived her dearly beloved friend, Captain Barney, she was conscious of unusual noises issuing therefrom. Surely there was some kind of a commotion going on within the humble dwelling. Separating the sounds as she approached, she recognized one as laughter (none but Linda Wixon laughed like that), then there was the clumping of little Zoeth’s crutches, and his shrill, excited chatter. This was followed by a hammering and a chorus of approving feminine voices.
Muriel hastened her steps. It was impossible to run in the soft sand. “What can be goin’ on in Uncle Barney’s shack?” she wondered. “I reckon he’s givin’ a party, though I cal’late that isn’t likely, he bein’ laid up – ” Her thoughts were interrupted by the genial Irishman himself, who appeared around the corner of the shanty carrying an old rusty stovepipe which he had replaced with a new one. Rilla noticed that he was stepping as spryly as ever he had.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to you, mavourneen,” he called. “It’s great news I’m after havin’. Me ol’ mither as I’ve been hungerin’ for a sight of these tin year past is comin’ at last to live here on the dunes, and the heart o’ me is singin’ a melody like ‘The harp that once through Tara’s halls the soul of music shed’; but ’twas Tommy Moore said it that way, not your ol’ Uncle Barney. That’s what poets are for, I reckon, to be puttin’ into words for us the joy we can only be feelin’.” Then, as they reached the open front door of the shack, Captain Barney called: “Belay there, folks, and be makin’ yer best bows to our neighbor from across the water.”
“Yo-o, Rilly! It’s yo’ that’s come just in time to be tellin’ what yo’ reckon’s the best place to be hangin’ the pictures.” It was fifteen-year-old Lindy Wixon who skipped forward and caught her friend by the hand as she went on to explain: “I got ’em wi’ soap wrappers. I went all over Tunkett collectin’. Every-un was glad, an’ more, to give ’em when they heard as Cap’n Barney’s ol’ mither is comin’ at last. We want to purty up the shack so ’twill look homey an’ smilin’ a welcome to her the minute she steps into the door.”
“Oh-h, but they’re handsome!” Muriel said, clasping her hands. Zoeth was standing near looking eagerly up into the face of his beloved friend. “Which of ’em do you reckon is purtiest?” he queried; then waited her reply as though it were a matter of great importance.
Muriel gazed long at the three brightly colored prints which had been hung on three sides of the room. “I dunno, honest,” she said, “they’re all that beautiful, but I sort o’ like the one wi’ the lighthouse in it best. The surf crashes over those rocks real natural, now don’t it?”
Zoeth clapped his thin little hands. “That thar’s the one I chose, too, Rilly. I knew yo’d choose it.”
Sam Peters, who had at one time been a ship carpenter, was busily hammering at one side of the room where a long low window looked out toward the sea. “That thar’s a windy-seat my Sam is makin’,” his wife explained to Muriel. “They’ve one up to Judge Lander’s where I go Mondays to wash, and when I was tellin’ Mis’ Lander how we was plannin’ to purty up Cap’n Barney’s shack, bein’ as his ol’ mither’s comin’, she said if we had a couch or a windy-seat she’d be glad to donate some pillas as she had in the attic, an’ when she fetched ’em down, if thar wa’n’t a beautiful turkey-red couch cover amongst ’em.”
The window-seat was fast nearing completion and so the group turned admiring eyes from the pictures to the handiwork of Sam Peters.
“Make way, thar!” his wife was heard to exclaim a moment later from the rear. Everyone turned to see that portly woman approaching, a somewhat faded turkey-red lounge cover dragging one fringed corner, while four pillows of as many different colors were in her arms.
Lindy and Muriel sprang forward to assist her, but Mrs. Sam would permit them to do nothing but hold the pillows, while she herself placed them at what she believed to be fashionable angles.
Then with arms akimbo, she stood back and admired the result.
She was sure that Mrs. Judge Lander herself could not have arranged the pillows with more artistic effect. “We’d ought to all of us fix our cabins up that fine,” she announced, “an’ I’m a-goin’ to.”
“That red’s powerful han’some,” Mrs. Jubal Smalley remarked. “Thar’d ought to be a plant settin’ on the window sill, just atop o’ it.”
No one noticed when little Zoeth slipped away, but they all saw him return triumphantly bearing his greatest treasure, a potted geranium which had three scarlet blossoms. With cheeks burning and eyes glowing, the little fellow placed it upon the window sill. “It’s for yer mither to keep,” he said, looking up at the Irishman, who was deeply touched, for well he knew how the little fellow had nursed the plant, which the year before Lindy had rescued from a rubbish heap in the summer colony.
Out of his savings Captain Barney had purchased from Mrs. Sol a table and four straight chairs.
When everything was shipshape and Sam Peters was packing away his tools, Captain Barney spoke. “Neighbors,” he began, “in the name of me ol’ mither I want to be thankin’ yo’. It’s a hard life she’s been havin’ in the ol’ country, what wi’ raisin’ tin of her own an’ two that she tuk as were left orphants. Says she, when no one else wanted ’em, ‘I’ll take ’em, the poor darlints. If thar’s allays room for one more, the saints helpin’, we’ll stretch that room so ’twill hold the two of ’em.’ An’ now that the last of ’em is growd, it’s aisy I want her to be takin’ it. She can be drawin’ the rocker as yo’ all gave me up to the open door an’ she kin jest be settin’ an’ rockin’ an’ restin’ an’ lookin’ out at the sea. ’Twill be nigh like Heaven for me ol’ mither, an’ it’s thankin’ ye again I am for all ye’ve been doin’.”
Somebody tried to say something, but it ended in a sincere handshaking, and many eyes were moist. Then Muriel and her dear friend were left alone. With an arm about the girl he loved, the old man stood looking out at sea.
“Rilly gal,” he said at last, “how kind folks are in this world. It’s a pleasant place to be livin’.”
Captain Barney did not realize that the fisher folk about him were but returning a bit of the loving kindness which he had shown to them in their many hours of need.
Glancing at the clock, he said briskly: “Nigh two, Rilly gal. Yer Uncle Barney must be gettin’ ready for the three-forty train up to Boston.”
* * * * * * * *
That evening, when Muriel was telling her grandfather all that had happened, she said: “Grand-dad, I dunno why ’tis, but I feel sorto’ as though things are comin’ out different from the way Uncle Barney’s plannin’.”
“I reckon that’s along of the fact that he’s had his heart sot so many times on his old mither’s cruisin’ over the big pond, but suthin’ allays kept her anchored, seemed like, on ’tother side.”
Then, as the old man rose, he looked out toward the darkening east. “Storm’s a-breedin’ at last, Rilly gal. I swan I never knew an equinoxial to hold off so long. I reckon ’twa’n’t git here till ’round about mornin’.” Then he added: “I dunno why ’tis, Rilly gal, but I’m sort o’ dreadin’ the big storm this year.”
The girl shuddered. A cold night wind was rising. “Grand-dad,” she pleaded, “let’s go in an’ be readin’ in the Good Book.”
Every night since the one on which he had cast hate out of his heart the old man had tried to read from the New Testament to Muriel, and though he stumbled over many of the longer words, the girl caught the spirit of it and retold it with her own interpretation.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE STORM
The expected storm arrived the next day, although not in its usual fury. However, as there was no real need for Muriel or her grandfather to cross the bay, which was wind-lashed into white-capped, choppy waves, they remained in the house.
“Queer the way our reg’lar crasher of a storm is delayin’ this year,” Captain Ezra said on the third night after the rains began. Muriel, who was washing cups at the time, suddenly whirled, and throwing her arms about the old man, regardless of her soapy hands, she cried passionately:
“I’d be glad if they never came, Grand-dad. I don’t know why ’tis, but when the lightning zigzags all aroun’ like a sword of fire, the thunder seems to roar, ‘Some day I’ll crash yer light that’s tryin’ to defy me.’”
The old captain looked truly distressed. “Rilly gal,” he said, “I wish yo’ didn’t take such queer notions. You’re jest like yer mother was before yo’. She used to come singing down from the top o’ the cliff and tell me yarns ’bout what the wind and the waves had been tellin’ her. Lem used to say she’d ought to be sent somewhar’s an’ taught to write stories. That’d be a good channel, he opinioned, to let out the notions that was cooped up in her head, an’ here yo’ are jest like her.”
The old man looked so truly distressed that the girl exclaimed contritely: “Yo’ dear ol’ Grand-dad, if it’s worryin’ yo’, I’ll try to be diff’rent. I might be like Lindy Wixon now. She don’t have any queer notions.
“I asked her once if she wouldn’t like to visit the star that’s so bright in the evenin’, an’ she stared like she thought I was loony, honest she did.” Then, stooping, the girl laughingly peered into the troubled eyes beneath the shaggy grey brows. “How would yo’ like to change gals, Grand-dad? I kin – ”
“Belay there, fust mate. That tack’s crazier than the fust.” Then lifting a listening ear, he added: “The wind’s rising. I reckon the big storm is crusin’ this way arter all.” But Captain Ezra was wrong, for, although the wind blew a gale and the leaden clouds were hurled low above the light and the rain now and then fell in wind-driven sheets, changing at times to hail that rattled against the windows, still the tempest that often came in the fall was delayed. Perhaps, indeed, as the captain began to hope, it was not coming at all that year, for, whenever it had passed, it had taken its toll of lives and boats, however faithfully the warning light flashed its beacon rays out through the storm.
There was a week of inclement weather, and Muriel often stood in the warm kitchen looking out across the waters of the bay that were sometimes black under the sudden squalls and sometimes livid green when the sun and rain were struggling together for mastery, but the girl’s thoughts were not of the weather but of what might be happening in Tunkett.
In fancy she looked into the newly adorned cabin where Captain Barney had lived alone for so many years, but, try as she might, she could not picture there the old “mither” he had so yearned to see.
Then in imagination she visited the glassed-in veranda of Doctor Winslow’s home, but it was empty and the windows of the house were covered with heavy wooden blinds.
Shuddering, she turned back into the room to find that the fire in the stove was dying down. It was cold; that was why she was shivering, she decided. Maybe her grand-dad was right. She was becoming too fanciful.
Putting on an armful of dry driftwood, she began to sing as she prepared the evening meal, and her old grandfather, who came down the spiral stairs, having set the light to whirling, felt cheered when he heard the musical voice of his “gal.”
The next morning, to the joy of Muriel, there were only a few vagrant clouds in the sky and the stars were shining when she arose.
It seemed as though never before had there been such a glory in the east as there was when Apollo drove his flaming chariot, the sun, high above the horizon, once more triumphing over Jupiter Pluvius, the God of Rain, but of mythology Muriel, as yet, knew nothing.
What she did know, and it set her heart and voice to singing an anthem of gladness, was that the storm was over and that she might sail to Tunkett and inquire after her dear friends, the old and the new.
Her grandfather, too, wished to visit the store of Mrs. Sol, for the supply of oil must be replenished. It would never do to let it get below a certain depth in the great tank which contained it, for there might come a storm of unusual length and fury and the light must be kept burning.
Muriel felt more optimistic, for we are all somewhat mercurial for temperament, and it is much easier to believe that all is well when the sun is shining, and yet, is not the sun always shining just behind the clouds that never last?
At the wharf they parted, the old sea captain going at once to the store, while Muriel hastened up the main road toward the home of Dr. Winslow. As she neared it she suddenly stood still and gazed her dismay, hardly able to believe what she saw. “Arter all, ’twa’n’t queer notions,” she said in a low voice. “’Twas true!” And indeed it was. The physician’s blinds were barred over the windows. Doctor Winslow had received word from the hospital in New York over which he presided that if he would shorten his vacation this year it would be greatly appreciated, and as Gene Beavers had gained strength enough to travel, he had accompanied the physician.
Miss Brazilla Mullet, from a window of her cottage on the other side of the low evergreen hedge, saw Muriel standing as though stunned and she hurried out with a letter. “Gene Beavers left it for you, Rilly,” she said, “an’ he wanted me to tell you that he’s gettin’ stronger, an’ as soon’s he’s able to travel alone he’s comin’ back, if only for a day, to be tellin’ you goodbye; but like’s not he’s told you all that in the letter.” Then, as the air was nippy with frost, Miss Brazilla hurried indoors again. Rilla placed the letter in the pocket of her coat and walked back to meet her grandfather.
Together they had planned to visit the cabin on the dunes and see Captain Barney, but they did not go, for, when Muriel beheld her grand-dad emerging from the store, she knew by his expression that he, too, had sad news to tell her.
“No need to go to Barney’s, fust mate,” he said. “He’s not there an’ the cabin’s shut up tight’s a clam. ’Pears that when he got to Boston and met the incomin’ steamer the young priest that was comin’ over with his ol’ mither tol’ him as how she’d been all ready to start, an’ then wa’n’t strong enough to make the v’yage. ’Twas best, the priest said, it bein’ stormy all the way, but she’d sent word that she’d come in the spring.”
“That’s how it’s been for years,” the girl declared. “But where is Uncle Barney? What did he do?” Rilla’s voice was tremulous and eager.
“He signed articles to sail back on the same boat as steward, an’ he had the young priest write to Mrs. Sol to shut up his cabin but to leave things shipshape as he’d cruise back in the spring and bring his ol’ mither.”
There were tears in the eyes of the girl, and, as she held close to his arm, Captain Ezra felt her tremble. “Grand-dad, we’d better be hurryin’ home,” she said. “The sky’s cloudin’ fast an’ it’s gettin’ colder.”
